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
No comments:
Post a Comment