Lazy Days
May 25, 2023Over the past week there has been more relaxing and reading going on than rampaging, hence the title of this latest post.
I did have my first and only swim to date, while we were still in Mongonisi. As we came in to anchor I was puzzled by a long, sinuous blue object in the water – certainly no sea creature I had ever seen before. And then the penny dropped. It was some of the masking tape I had failed to remove before launch. Once we were settled I donned a swimsuit – somewhat reluctantly it must be said – it wasn’t terribly warm, remember and I’m a very fair-weather swimmer these days.
Anyway in I went and then found that whilst some of the tape had already come off during the sail, much of it was very difficult to get off and left a nasty, sticky residue when it did. I endured about 20 minutes getting the worst of it off and then, feeling quite chilled, got out and had a hot shower. To be be honest you would hardly see there was a problem unless you got very close and I had already decided that all the anti-foul round the boot-top (water line) needs to come off next season and be completely redone anyway.
Incidentally, for those of you who may be wondering why we have anti-foul round the boot-top, it dates from our live-aboard days when Rampage had somuch STUFF on board that she sat very low in the water. Now that we only come out in the summer, I have been gradually taking home things that we no longer need, e.g. winter bedding and clothes*, a pressure cooker, the cockpit tent. We no longer have bicycles either as these eventually died after a dunking in sea water, minimal maintenance and then 3 years of neglect when we didn’t come out because of Covid. When we finally returned last autumn they had effectively died and besides, we never use them in the summer though they were handy when we were in the yard.
Since leaving Mongonisi we have had three nights in Lakka and three in Petriti. Lakka is a bay at the northern end of Paxos – very pretty and much less busy than we have seen it for years. We haven’t been in this part of the Ionian for some years and it’s fun to revisit old haunts. We didn’t manage to sail, either on the trip there or when we went on to Petriti which is on the southern end of Corfu. Indeed as I write we are en route for Corfu town and the sea around us is a gleaming sheet of silk; there’s not a breath of wind.
The weather has finally warmed up now – indeed it caught me slightly unawares a couple of days ago when I was sluicing off the boat with sea water to remove all the red Saharan dust dumped by the rain. My back and legs were distinctly pink that evening. Sadly though, I haven’t managed to swim again as the sea has been full of little jellyfish. I’ve been stung by jellyfish in the past; it’s not fun.
So really we’ve done remarkably little apart from the occasional trip ashore and walk. We plan to anchor under the Corfu citadel tonight which is picturesque and we should be able to buy a decent new dinghy pump in the town. Really what we need is a new dinghy because despite our efforts to repair it while we were in the yard, it still lets air out and water in. Not ideal.
*I was somewhat caught out by the cool weather during the first couple of weeks of this visit, having taken all my warmer clothes back to UK and wound up having to go and buy a pair of jeans. Lesson learned.
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