Sunday, September 26, 2010

Meteora and The Celebration Dinner after the Ionian Rally!




Captain Crash and the Cauldron!

Hi everyone. As usual I have left it far too long to blog and thus have way too much news to impart, therefore rendering me confused as to where to start!
I think I will start with a little 'boat bollocks' which those of the maritime persuasion may find a little amusing (and maybe useful!). This incident in our lives has given Craig ammunition that women should definately not wear bras on boats.
To cut a long story short, we had been searching for our flux gate compass on the boat for 7 months. Our commissioning agent had been unable to find it and subsequent searchings by ourselves had had a similar outcome. A flux gate compass is made up of coils of wire that provides a reading in electronic form which can be digitised and used by the ships autopilot for course correction. We had noticed some wild variations between our flux gate output and our normal compass and were concerned that wherever it was positioned it may have some metal objects nearby causing the discrepancies. If only we could find it!
To be honest, I wasn't really sure what I was looking for so wasn't much help. Our friend Steve (who conveniently comes packaged with oodles of experience and is currently the skipper of Zanetia) got in on the act and we were still scratching our heads. We started to think that the occassional wild swingings of the autopilot were a raymarine fault which we would have to have corrected. Kathleen, however, came to the rescue when she located a small black box in one of the cupboards in the forward cabin! We had found the offending flux gate!
All metal objects in the cupboard were removed and things seem to have improved. When the girls left the boat, I duly returned all my underwear to their home, making sure of course to not place any metal items into the cupboard.
A few days later I was rummaging around in the cupboard trying to find something and the autopilot started to swing wildly again. Craig reported a 60 degree discrepancy between the compasses and starting to adopt that patronising voice. You know the one..... "What have you done now!!!" and words to that effect. It turns out that the wires in my bras had been responsible for the problems all along! Ah well, looks like saggy boobs coming on..... That's a new one for the manuals, isn't it? Along with checking that pots and pans, electronic equipment, cockpit speakers, beer cans etc etc have to be kept away from compasses, Shirley Valentine can now add bras!
Back to our trip. We had an enjoyable but busy time with Kathleen and Helen. The day we picked them up from the airport at Athens we headed to the Acropolis in Athens by bus from our hotel. Although it was very hot and sticky, the girls coped very well as we trecked around the ruins. We returned to Shirley Valentine in Messolonghi that night in our hire car amidst a few raised eyebrows from the girls about the driving in Greece. One memorable character was 'hat man' who was travelling along on his motorcycle at about 130 kms with a straw 'pork pie' style hat on. We could not believe that it would stay on! He did occassionally adjust it but it stayed put. The funniest part was when a policeman on a motor cycle overtook him and took no notice of the lack of helmet! (There is a 400 euro fine for not wearing a motor cycle helmet in Greece but no-one seems to police it! I think that they could solve all their economic problems just by policeing this one small part of humanities failings).
The following day we still had the hire car and decided to head to Delphi to consult the oracle. We had a lovely drive up the mountain and lunched in Delphi town before heading to the archeological site. We wandered around making it right to the stadium at the top and had a gander at the area where the oracle is reported to have been positioned.
After our meanderings we headed for the museum which houses a multitude of ancient relics found at the site. One such item was a massive bronze cauldron on a metal tripod (about 2700 years old!). This was situated on a platform in between two large glass cabinets, also full of ancient bronze relics. Craig was standing between Kathleen and Helen gazing in awe and was so overcome that he stumbled on the platform when he turned and fell, heading straight for the bronze cauldron. Remember that this article has survived for 2700 years! Craig hit the cauldron and it toppled, in turn heading for one of the glass cabinets. I could feel a Mr Bean moment coming on. I am now convinced that Craig has missed his calling as a world cup goal keeper as he somehow managed to catch the cauldron before it hit anything else! He pulled it roughly back into place and stumbled away with a VERY red face. I pretended that I wasn't with him and so did the girls. Poor Craig. Every tourist in the place was staring at him and one guy came over and whispered 'Just keep walking mate!' into his ear. I thought Kathleen was going to have an accident she was laughing so much. I am sure that if you visit Delphi the cauldron will now be safely ensconsed in a glass cabinet! We christened Craig 'Captain Crash' and this title lasted for a good few days.
After returning to Shirley Valentine we recommenced our travels and visited some old favourites and some new ports of call. One place of interest was Sami on Cephalonia which is very close to where parts of Captain Corelli's Mandolin was filmed. We visited some caves (Mellisani and Drogarati) which were very pretty, but not the most impressive caves we have visited with Drogarati in particular having been seriously altered to facilitate tourists. We lunched between Sami and Eufemia in a restaurant where the cast and crew of the movie used to hang out and saw many photos of Penelope Cruze etc looking very normal and relaxed in the beautiful surroundings. Our waiter (George) was incredibly helpful and filled us in on the history of the area. Most of Cephalonia was destroyed by the earthquake in 1953 with only Fiskardo remaining mostly intact, apparently due to the clay / rock bed that it is built on.
Another highlight in Sami was Kathleen and I's water devining skills. We had been told that there was water on the quay which was littered with man hole covers but nothing obvious jumped out to meet us. Craig took off to the port office and Kathleen and I, equipped with any type of implement that we thought might act as a jemmie set off along the quay, prising up cover after cover. After about 5 attempts we struck gold!! We proudly filled the tanks and sat back feeling very proud of ourselves! Craig actually heard the news by despatch at the port office and after we were finished all the boats at our end of the quay took advantage of our find. Just shows that girls can accomplish 'blue jobs' quite effectively.
Kathleen took to the boat like a duck to water and was soon taking the helm and pulling ropes etc etc on cue! Pity she's looking at buying a motor home! She would make a great crew member.
We also had a very memorable road trip to Meteora where there are about 16 monasteries built on the top of limestone pillars, 5 of which are still 'working' monasteries. The only downside for me was how touristy everything was and the monasteries seemed to lack the quietness and solitude that you would imaging finding in these sorts of places. The lodgings that we found were adorable (the Koka Roka owned by Maria and Albert) and were situated right at the base of one of the columns. We met a lovely young lad called James who is an archeology / anthropology student from New Zealand who seemed quite happy to spend time pushing old ladies up the hill. He was great company and full of useful information. We really enjoyed our time with him. The walk up to Agios Stephanos was amazing and we then visited two more monasteries by car. The area is amazing and well worth a visit to anyone who happens to be in this part of the world.
After our return to Shirley Valentine, we had the priveledge of once again spending some time with Keith and Sue from Broke Aweigh. Many hours were spent discussing tactics for the 'big race'. The boys even tried to convince the pink people that maybe we should all sit on one of the boats doing our nails while they put in a 'real' attempt at winning the race, but Kathleen and I would not be put off. Well, we had bought the T shirts, hadn't we!
The day of the race dawned and after the blue people scraped Shirley Valentine's hull (thanks for the help Keith!) at Port Atheni on Meganisi, we headed for the start line. Let's not do a long post mortem of the race, but the short version is that about 35 boats got out of the Meganisi channel before the wind died. The fleet was split in two, with the frustration for us being that we were well up the fleet going over the starting line and were almost at the front of the masses of boats that were becalmed. Poor Kathleen was determined not to retire, but when we had spent over an hour looking at the same rock (and going backwards at one point) we had to call it quits. We didn't think they would keep the line open till midnight! We did have the pride of knowing that we were one of the last boats to retire however (Broke Aweigh and our friends, Chris, Hermione and family had retired hours before us), but this then left us with the problem of where we were going to moor in Sivota post race.
We had had a visit from Steve and Sarah from Zanetia during the race who came to snigger at us in their dinghy. As we pottered into Sivota we were amazed at the amount of boats crammed into the tiny harbour and our hearts sank. We then saw Steve waving at us and were soon snuggly tucked up alongside them on the quay. Isn't it great to have friends in high places. The highlight of the race for everyone was a 10 year boy in a topper dinghy who was one of only 35 boats to finish the race. He was given a standing ovation as he entered the harbour after about 5 hours of sailing. Please note that those who got wind had been out in about 30 knots so this little kid was one brave lad. I think if the committee had closed the line before he crossed they would have been lynched. We had a great party that night and had dinner ashore at our favourite 'No Problem' taverna.
We caught up with Steve and Sarah again in Nidri and spent a very special couple of days getting free tuition on many aspects of boat management and maintenance. Have lots of whipping to do now! Congratulations on your wedding plans guys and thanks for your time and expertise and your company!!!
Anyway, Maggie is now with us and we are winding down again. Our trip to Athens to do our crew change was uneventful this time around and everything went to plan. We stayed in the Holiday Inn near the airport again and managed to gate crash Maggie's room which saved us some dollars.
Are sitting snuggly in Fiskardo at the moment where we have once again had torrential rain and some minor storms. The weather this morning is more settled and we have our usual high class problem of whether to stay another day or move on. Most of our friends are now on their way home. Broke Aweigh is back in Messolonghi preparing for winter and Zanetia is heading back to Croatia. We are planning to head to Messolonghi to prepare for over wintering around the 25th of October. We are pulling Shirley out of the water and have had fun learning how to 'pickle' our water maker etc. If anyone knows where we can buy 'fids' in the Ionian we would be glad of this information. May even be a coldie in for the informant!
Being beckoned ashore for coffee so should probably make a move. So looking forward to catching up with everyone at home in November! Will be in touch soon....

xx
All on Shirley Valentine

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Crew changes and a change of season.




G'day, G'day, and how're you going? For the uninitiated this is the first line of a popular Australian song. I can't remember any more than this and have been driving everybody mad singing it over and over again, so if anyone can inform us of the next few lines we might feel slightly fulfilled! I think it is the presence of so many Australians on board that is doing my head in.


Anyway, down to business. We left you at the end of the last blog with Kim on board and heading to Messolonghi to leave Shirley while we travelled by car to Athens for our crew change. We had a lovely, if somewhat rushed visit with Kim and the poor soul kept begging to stay in her favourite spots for just one more night. In the end, we actually got our days mixed up and arrived in Messolonghi a day early. After lazing around for the day (as we had been told Messolonghi wasn't much chop!) we headed into town to get a meal. We had spent the day watching the bulldozers move earth around in the marina and kicking up dust which was settling very uncomfortably over poor Shirley Valentine. We found, to our delight, a lovely Greek town which is little affected by tourism. We had a lovely meal at the 'Egg of the Rooster' (honest!) restaurant which had been recommended by a few friends. It definitely lived up to expectations.


After dinner we headed off to Labrina's beauty salon where Kim had made an appointment for some waxing to be done and had booked me a manicure and pedicure (quite a treat after so long on board). We arrived to find a very modern well equipped salon and settled in for our treatments. The set up was the usual Greek family affair owned by the mother and run by the daughter and her other employee, Vee Vee. I came out of my manicure and pedicure with extremely bright pink fluro finger and toe nails and my feet had been thoroughly checked out for foot rot etc by the mother who turned out to be a doctor. I felt thoroughly cleansed. Craig turned up to pick us up and joined in the round of baklava and coffee which was going round. When Kim appeared she looked a little bemused. It turned out that she had been having her bikini wax done and whilst lying back eating baklava, her wax was being carried out by Labrina with the mother (who reassued Kim that everything was OK as she was a doctor!) paying very close attention to make sure that Labrina did a good job! Kim reckons it is the most thorough bikini wax that she has ever had and I am sure the memory will stay with her for ever.


The following day we had to leave for Athens, but first we headed round to the nearby mud pools to have a bit of further 'treatment'. You arrive at the area to see mainly elderly Greek locals in swimming costumes covered in black mud and wandering around waiting for it to dry. Basically the mud is sitting is piles on the rocks which you scoop up and plaster all over yourself. After letting it dry, you then float in the warm water to wash it all off. Very sexy! It is obviously supposed to make you feel better, but it just made me feel very smelly really. It took us a good few showers to get rid of the sulphurous smell but was very good fun.


We left for Athens in our hire car around lunch time with our directions from Google maps somewhere in our possession. Craig had booked a hotel from Wotif.com which was apparently 'reasonably priced'. To cut a long story short, we got hopelessly lost. We got so lost that the gentleman that we eventually asked for directions couldn't believe that we had actually managed to get to where we were! We managed to get to the Athens area eventually and then the task of finding the hotel Marina began. We were driving through what looked to be a ghetto area, with pimps, prostitutes, drugged up looking people and police in flak jackets on every second corner and I was starting to feel a little alarmed. Kim was insisting (after Craig's failed navigation attempts) that she was going to make her own way to the airport in the morning and I was really worried about her hopping in a taxi in the wee small hours by herself in this area. The straw that broke the camels back was when we finally found our hotel and noticed the large sign which announced that rooms could be booked by the hour! Call me precious if you like, but I refused there and then, point blank, to stay in the hotel which we had booked and we headed off towards the airport on the other side of town and were soon snuggly tucked up in the holiday inn on Attica Avenue. OK, it was expensive, but was a lovely way to finish off our week with Kim.


The following day we pottered around the coast near Athens in the hire car around Glyfada and up to Cape Sounion where we visited the temple of Poseidon.


We overnighted again in the holiday inn and got up at sparrows fart to pick up Helen and Kathleen. It was lovely to see them come through arrivals and it seemed so surreal to actually have them here. We took them back to our hotel room for a freshen up while Craig and I had our breakfast and then headed back south to our lovely, but sadly extremely dusty and dirty, Shirley Valentine.


Anyway, more about Helen and Kathleen's visit to come in the next episode. I have the usual feeling that I should actually include something about boats and sailing in a blog about sailing around the med. We have a few more lovely phrases in our vocabulary thanks to Mac and Barbara from Meganisi and Keith and Sue from Broke Aweigh. First of all we have 'Boat Bollocks'. This is used when the men are talking ad nauseum about amps, volts, sails, engines, anchors, hulls, keels etc etc etc etc. The women raise their eyes to heaven and loudly declare 'enough boat bollocks'. In retaliation, Craig has his own 'beauty bollocks' reply when we are talking about important things like moisturising etc etc.


We also have the phrase 'high class problems' which describes the stress caused by having to make really important decisions regarding which anchorage we will traipse to the following day, which taverna we will dine in that evening and whether we should have a swim before or after having a nanny nap.


Finally, we have 'blue jobs and pink jobs'. This one is fairly self explanatory and successfully delineates who should handle probems with the head etc without any arguement. The problem comes with shared tasks which we have since christened 'purple jobs'. I tend to confuse things as I quite like to have a hand in some of the 'blue jobs'. Craig is always being told how lucky he is to have a woman who is interested in handling the boat, however he seems to find this difficult to come to grips with!


Any boat bollocks session would obviously have to include the latest with our Shirley. We have a huge problem with her very dirty bottom at the moment, acquired we are fairly sure, due to the amount of time she has sat about in marinas waiting for us this summer. Our speed is very reduced and as we have signed up for the southern leg of the Ionion Rally on the 16th of September Craig is very concerned. Us girls have decided that scraping the hull is definitely a 'blue job' and are psyching Craig up to get the deed done before we race. So far, we have had a few excuses and I think we may be at the back of the fleet.


Apart from our filthy backside, other maintenance issues continue to be minimal. We had to have our outboard repaired as the gear lever had stuck and the stop button was stuffed (we were stopping the motor every time by turning off the fuel about 100m before we arrived at our destination and had got this down to a fine art!). We are coming to grips with food storage and the use of the fridge on board and I have stopped freezing my vegetables as much as I used to. We have also found out (thanks to Keith from Broke Aweigh) how our cockpit shower turns on and off. We continue to be frustrated by the variable winds in the Ionian and spend more time than we would care to under motor. Another 'high class problem' is that the zip on our dodger is broken. We are already thinking about minor adjustments that we want to do to the boat during winter time. Nothing major, but apart from a very thorough scrub down below, we may add some 'D' bolts for tethering to in bad weather and are thinking about purchasing a cruising chute. We are also undecided about a wind generator. All in all though we are still very happy with our decision to purchase our Bavaria 38.


It is pouring with rain tonight and this is the first time that we have seen serious wet stuff coming from above since we have been in Greece. We travelled over from Vliho on Levkas this morning and went through a few storm cells so it looks as if the season is definitely changing. We are sitting on the town quay at Fiskardo on Kephalonia and have found a few 'blue jobs' for Craig to do in the morning due to a few minor leaks discovered during the downpour. Nothing that will sink us but enough to be annoying. Guess the 'pinkies' may have to go shopping whilst the hard work is being done. We had a meal tonight at the restuarant situated about 3 steps off the back of the boat and I had the best Kleftico so far.


Well, enough for now. I still have a few stories to share which should bring a smile to your faces, but that will have to wait.


Talk to you all soon.


xxxx


All on board Shirley Valentine