Nidri

After a good nights sleep, we start on some maintenance.

Greg finishes sanding the plank and oils it; it's looking 100% better than it was.  Next he spends three hours in the anchor well trying to remove the anchor engine but it's corroded and after a lot of hammering he gives up.

Spiros the mechanic finally arrives and fixes our relay on th battery charger so that's a good thing fixed.  I head into town for provisioning and purchase that repair kit for the leaking toilet, Greg is able to fix it himself so that's another good job done.  I'm also able to buy a charger for the IPad, as we can't seem to find the one on the yacht.  Now we can play music on my old IPod as well.

We say our farewells to G & T and J &. T as they are heading to different locations today and maybe we will bump into them again before we leave.

It's been a really hot morning and after some lunch we head to the beach for an ice cold beer and watch the world go by.  Just as we return to the yacht the heavens open up, it pours with rain for a few hours and the lightening show is spectacular.

We decide to leave the yacht and watch the rain from the near by Tarverna, Mamma Mia's and enjoy a meal of grilled octopus and sagonaki scrimp.

Big Vathi

Life doesn't get any better than this.  We are on our yacht at about 10pm at Big Vathi and directly across from us is a large group of locals singing and playing musical instruments.  We sip our Ouzo and enjoy the evening singalong.  Day one has been perfect!

After a good nights sleep we head into the town for coffees and pastries. They are delicious and we try the local Ithaca cake of honey and rice. I have a naughty spinach and cheese pastry.  We do a little more provisioning, purchase a prepaid data card instead of a phone card as we can use Skype for phone calls.

We depart Big Vathi around 10.30am.  We immediately have a problem raising the anchor as the charge to the battery is not working.  We can only raise the anchor two metres at a time to ensure the charge does not over heat and catch fire as it's red hot.  We quickly realise we still have a problem with the battery charge and diode and maybe the anchor engine as well.

For safety purposes we turn off all our house batteries to ensure there is no fire and motor to Nidri on the engine battery where we hope to find a mechanic who can fix our problem.  Unfortunately we won't be able to see our friends.  We SMS them of our plans and they are all happy to meet us at Nidri so that's great.

It's another beautiful day, sunny at 28 degrees and little wind.  We make the most of the conditions for improving our tans.  Greg has down loaded a European dance album so we listen to a few of the tracks, some great others not so good.

We head for the Scorpios pontoon at Nidir and get a spot for two nights.  Richard from Scorpios Charters will arrange a mechanic to drop by this afternoon.  Jo and Trevor are already in Nidir and Jo calls by to say hi.  Gill and Tony will be arriving a little later on. 

Greg and I take a stroll around the town and refamiliarise ourselves.  We are disappointed to find our favouite bar is no longer.  

The mechanic is supposed to come around 7pm.  In the mean time we invite the gang over for some bubbles before we are head out for dinner.

We are going to a quirky restaurant with has no menu, so basically you get whatever they are cooking up fresh.  Tonight's its mussels and chicken, followed by a salad and roast pork and finally the steamed bream, absolutely yummy.  And I almost forgot, we had a chocolate fondant as well.

We have loads of laughs as we catch up as it's been two years since we've seen Gill, Tony, Jo and Trevor.  Last year we couldn't quite get our diaries to match up.

Super Moon

We finish the last of the chores on Monday including inflating the dingy, repairing the sail bag zip, sanding the plank, shopping, laundry and wait for the marina mechanics to attend to our leaking head and throttle cable which was supposed to be already repaired.  They can't fix the toilet at this stage which is a pain.  We also grab a taxi into town for our last shop and stock up on what we can.

During the afternoon the local turtles pay Greg a visit.  

We have our final Ouza at the Marina Cafe and say goodbye to Spiros.  He and one other barman warn us about  drinking Ouzo especially without taking food.  Yeah we know and love it!

We head into to town and have a final pizza at Spiros Pizzeria, it's pretty low key but great food.  We  home and hit the zzzzz pretty early.

The alarm goes off at the crack of seven and we arise to a perfect day.  We depart Messalonghi without any problems and head west; our first destination is Artikos.

The sail is up with a light breeze from the north, the auto pilot is on, the music is blearing and we start our journey in the sunshine.  The water temp is still  30 degrees which we are pretty happy with.

About three hours in we change our mind about our destination and we are now heading for Ouzo Bay in Big Vathi on Ithaca.  We also notice that our house batteries are not charging, which is very strange.  Maybe it's the fan belt or worse case it's the alternator.  We try to drop the anchor at big Vathi but the anchor winch needs some wd40 to get working.  Pulling up the anchor sucks up all the charge in the battery and we head straight to town so seek out a mechanic.  Hopefully it's an easy fix.

Once tied up Greg easily finds Spiros at one of our favouite cafes Carmelo's, and he can organise a mechanic for us pretty quickly.  I go shopping and by the time I get back Yannos is already on board sorting out our problem.  He bashes something with the hammer and presto the batteries are all charged up, apparently  we blew a fuse and that caused our problems.  Fan belt and alternator are fine thank god.  He has organised for us to get a new part in Gouvia Marina at Corfu in a few days as we are heading up north to pick up Belinda.  Can't wait!

I have a need for some grilled octopus so we head around to the restaurants and find Tony's and fill up on grilled octopus, fried white bait and salad it's delicious.  It's then back to the yacht for our afternoon siesta.

We are in contact with our friends from the UK Gill and Tony and Jo and Trevor and arrange to meet them tomorrow night in Meganissi somewhere, so looking forward to catching up with them.

After our little nana nap we head into town for some more shopping and try to purchase a 

Greek SIM card but the computers are not working so hopefully tomorrow we can get one.  We are sitting on the boardwalk watching the super moon rise over the mountains.  We've been watching it for three nights now.

Kerching!

Greg spends Sunday scrubbing the decks while I'm below unpacking and cleaning.  Greg is already in his budgies (photo coming soon Kym) as it's pretty hot and the forecast is looking good for the week ahead.  You can't imagine the amount of spider pooh all over the deck.  A few frogs have also set up home in the cockpit.  And the first Nespresso coffee goes down real well just like home.

I eventually get international roaming set up on my phone as I forget to activate it before I left as we have really good WiFi at the cafe at the marina.

We finish our work by 1pm in readiness to watch the F1 at the Sunset Cafe.  Greg's back is red hot so a good start to his suntan.

We have a four hour siesta after the race and head into town around 8.30pm.  We start with a few laid back Ouzos and yummy snacks for feta, olives, cold meats and cheese. It's then off to one of our favouite grill houses for some salad and chicken souvlaki, it's delicious.  We stagger home around midnight.

We sleep well to about 5am, guess the jet lag is playing tricks on us.  After a few coffees we are  back to scrubbing the decks; we have nearly finished.  Next on the to do list is to move Moet22 into a pen and get out of the way of the crane guys who are hauling the yachts in and out of the water.  We are beside one of our friends we meet a few times last year, Willy and his wife from Belgium.

Around 9 we visit the marina office to hand over the rest of the money for the work they have supposedly done while we were away.  We are not really happy as one of the toilettes still leaks and the throttle cable is still loose.  Anyway they send the mechanic around to sort it out for us.

We need a repair done to our sail bag and Willy offers to take us to a good upholstery shop in town so that's  a great help, it costs 20Euro for the repair which is cheap and will be finished by 3pm today.  

Our last major chore is to visit Customs and the Post Police and pick up our transit log.  We are a bit nervous as we are hoping to escape the tax of 1,000 Euros we might have to pay.  Thank god for the Greek Govt as they are still undecided about the changes to the taxes for non EU registered yachts.  All we have to pay is 15 Euros for the new transit log, we are sooo excited as now I can spent the extra cash on Moet! Well some of it at least.

Back at the marina we have a delicious lunch and we celebrate our win with a bottle of Moet of course.  We visit the chandler and purchase some fender covers and other bits and pieces.  We still have a few things to do to the yacht before we ahead out tomorrow morning but we are on track.

After 36 hours

We have finally arrived in Messalonghi Yeah!!...  After a very long taxi ride that was very squezzy with two other passengers in our Merc.

The yacht has been on a hard stand in the weather for 13 months and considering the time she is in great condition.  Lots of spider webs and dust but no mould and no leaks.  Lots of cleaning to do once we get the water tanks filled and electricity connected.

The Marina office is closed until Monday so will take care of all the paperwork on Monday including a visit to the Port Police and tax office.  We will have plenty to do until then plus make time to watch the F1 at Monza.  Let's hope Daniel has a great race.

Right now it's time for an ice cold beer at the Sunset Lounge before the work begins.

Let's get this party started!

Well Greg has already left the building and I'm on my second glass of bubbles as I wait to board my plane. Not long to go now! 

Last night we met up with our travelling buddies and we had our farewell drinks and dinner with friends. 

The weather forecast is looking great. Water temp is 26 degrees and we expect temperatures between 26 to 28 for most of our trip around the Ionians.

Moet22 is now officially on the market so we hope to find her a new family to look after her. It will be sad to say goodbye. 

Well my yummy sushi has just arrived so time for dinner. 

The countdown begins!

In four weeks time Greg and I will be arriving in Greece and boarding Moet22 for what could be our very last  time.

We are only taking a four week holiday this time due to time restrictions with work.  However, it will be four weeks of cruising, relaxing and partying yeah!  Better still this time we get to share the experience with Barp Barp Belinda Craig and Shagin Sharon.  We will be picking Belinda up in Corfu on the 14th September as she is flying to the UK to visit her brother and family first.  Shags flies to Athens on the 16th and she will bus it to Patras then get on a fast ferry to either Ithaca or Fiscardo anyway we will work that one out closer to the date.

We will be spending our time in the Ionians and hopefully make it back down to Zacinthos to Smuggers Cove where the water is an amazing shade of blue.