Another blistering storm

Yet another angry storm blew through from the wee hours of this morning till tea time tonight. Down in the yard you had to shout to make yourself heard for the screaming of the 40+ knot winds through the rigging. The number of calm days we've had in the last two and half months you can count on two hands. The high winds, when they come can blow for days.

Summertime, down in the shed was only protected from damage today because our van was parked between it and the big roller door. If not for the rope now holding the door from continually blowing in, the van would have looked like it had been over a cliff.

Barney has been to stay again while his Mum and Dad went back to London for the boat show. Needless to say he's not too bothered by the weather when onboard.
One day that was calm was Xmas day. We went down to Vliho Yacht Club for Xmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings, xmas pud, wine, wine and a bit more wine then dancing to work it all off. Great day!! New Years Eve was wild and walking to the New Years Eve dinner was a challenge to get there looking half decent, but again a great night was had by all.

The Good, the Bad, the ???????????

THE GOOD - we managed to hand back our feline foster cat Barney to his Mum and Dad in one piece. There were moments during his stay we thought that might not happen. He continued to visit for the next week or so but as no food was forthcoming that has now stopped. Fickle little tyke!!

THE BAD - 'local' has closed down. a moment of silence please. During the winter there's only one bar open in the marina, not now. The affect it has had on the feel of the marina is dismal, it was our morning coffee hangout, our evening drinking hangout and general meeting place for everyone. Mark and a friend were sent out with the crucial mission of finding a new watering hole not too far away. Like all dedicated people they were not found lacking and we have our replacement just a five minute walk away.

THE ??????? - WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!!! - The winter race series has come to an end and we've won a resounding victory. We collected our trophy last Sunday evening with huge smiles all round. The second to last race was filmed for a local TV station here, and we featured quite a lot in that as well. AAAHHHH to be clever and famous - what more can one ask for!! Autographs now available hahaha.



On the work front Summertime has not been rehoused in the huge shed in the yard for it's paintwork. She's looking pretty smart inside now. We're working very hard to get her finished early in the New Year.

After both our birthdays, we now look forward to Xmas. The boat is decorated, cake is made (not very well this year I have to say), Xmas dinner is booked at the Yacht Club and New Year at one of the hotels in Lefkas Town - roll on the celebrations. Next edition of the blog will be when I sober up after New Year.

I don't want to hear that this has happened to any of you this Xmas!!!

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE X X X X

Animals - who'd have them!!

We're cat sitting. His name is Barney. He's 8 months old. He likes to sleep on Marks squishy belly. He's adventurous. He gets into every nook and cranny on the boat and where ever he is. Unfortunately his adventurousness (is that a real word lol) got him into trouble early this morning. While we were still in bed he appeared in the saloon (same as a landlubbers sitting room) soaking wet!! Not just damp, but soaking all the way up to his neck!! No doubt about it he's been in the sea. He leapt about shaking here, shaking there, leaving puddles everywhere before we could get up and slow him down. Mark rinsed him under the tap while his little heart was pumping away madly - poor little thing he was seriously upset with his experience.

Where and how it happened and how he got out, cos it's not easy to get out anywhere in a Marina, we've no idea but you wouldn't believe how much water he managed to bring into the cockpit.

He doesn't seem any worse for wear now, he's had breakfast, been for a wee scamper and is now asleep in the sun. While my morning has been spent washing everything he soaked with sea water!!

What would we have told his mum and dad if he hadn't managed to get himself out - doesn't bear thinking about.

Some fun on Lefkas this weekend

This weekend was the Round Lefkas Island Race, 45 nautical miles. The weather forecast had been changing all week and none of it was particularly good, from too much wind to no wind. Anyway 9 yachts gathered at the north end of the island for a 9.30 start. (the rest being put off by the mixed weather forecast, some would say in hindsight, wisely) Last years race was in our mind taking 15 agonising hours on a J24. Some poor boats and crew timed out after 32hrs of hard racing due to lack of wind. This year we were on a slightly bigger boat (Dehler Optima 101, a 34ft yacht) with more creature comforts, like a toilet! A cooker so we could have hot food and bunks to have a rest on if we wanted.

Well we started with a reasonable wind, and then as the thunderstorms rolled by we had wind from all points of the compass at a variety of strengths. We had the Asymmetric up, Asymmetric down, Genny out, then quickly the Spinnaker up then back to the Genny. This went on for an hour or two till we were dizzy. Then a new weather system bought in 30+ knots of wind for a close reach. We changed to a number three headsail and had 2 reefs in the main, flying down the bottom third of the west coast of Lefkas. That wind stayed with us with occasional bigger gusts in the high 30’s. (max wind strength of 48knts was recorded on another yacht. We had no wind instrument maybe just as well!) Those conditions stayed with us for the next few hours and we were pushing the boat as hard as it would go. Now we thought we had a chance of breaking the record, it stood at 10 hours 6 mins 53 seconds. We rounded the bottom western corner to sail along the south coast of the island at 3pm and hardened onto the wind for another 2 and bit hours. Luckily the sea only got up to a couple of meters or so and gave us a really fast sail for those hours. At the south east corner of the island we bore away, and with the reefs shaken out of the main and the number one head sail we were doing over 7 knots, but the record beckoned so we put the Spinnaker up flew up the channel surfing down the waves at over 9 knots. That ended with a big gust and a near broach when the spinnaker pole jumped off the mast and all hell let loose till we got the kite down, got sorted and got it up again. We’d been racing nearly 8 hours by now, pushing it all the way and we were getting seriously knackered but we still had a chance at the record. Another 15 minutes and the gusts were gaining in strength and the Spinnaker was getting a real handful, particularly as we were shorthanded and it was getting dark. Pull it down, Genny out again, still keeping over 5 knots boat speed. The finish line is now less than an hour away, we’re in with a great chance of the record!! We crossed the line at 18:22 and some seconds giving us a total race time of 9.16:37. We still had to check with the records to see how close we were to it.

Nine boats started, only 2 finished. We’d blown out the Spray Hood, the second reefing point on the boom was torn out (at which point we nearly lost me (Maureen) overboard while lashing it when a gust hit), the Genny reefing block exploded and we were all knackered and battered, but very hopeful. After some hot food and a well deserved beer we got confirmation we had beaten the record by 50 minutes – WOW – fantastic, and it’s a good record, we think it will be some time before it’s broken again!

UK back to Greece via Lake Garda

Our journey back to Greece was a little meandering. We took in the Southampton Boat Show, a night with friends who were staying in the New Forest, horse riding in the New Forest – fantastic, but took me nearly 2 weeks to recover, due to not being on a horse for years and a couple of nights at Lake Garda.

Garda, which is in the north-east of Italy, just below Lake Como, is less touristy than Lake Como and extremely beautiful. It’s the largest of Italy’s fresh water lakes, some 30 miles long, stretching from north to south and from 1 -10 miles across and incredibly deep in parts – 350meters. The southern lakeshore is low, rolling land and fairly built-up. In contrast, the dramatic fjord-like northern end is surrounded by towering mountains and cliffs. Most of the lakeside towns are popular holiday resorts; and differ in character. We stayed at the south east corner in Garda itself. Spring and autumn are the best times to visit as it apparently gets very busy during the high season. We had a very pleasant couple of days there, lovely sunshine during the day, fantastic food in the evenings and were treated to a FREE live Jazz night, unexpected and very good.

Back in Lefkas we got straight back to work on Summertime and have been putting in some very long days, trying to get her finished by the end of the year. We may be over optimistic with that but that’s what we’re aiming for. Her bottom had 7 coats of Epoxy over a period of 4 days a couple of weeks ago, with just 3 of us doing it; it’s a long way round a 47 foot boat with each coat. We were mightily knackered at the end of the week!! But her bottom looks lovely. Right now we’re concentrating on woodwork inside particularly for me varnishing and there’s lots of it!!

We had some sad news a couple of weeks after arriving back in Lefkas, our beautiful dog Lewie sadly had to be put to sleep following a stroke. Lewie had been staying with our brilliant friends John and Janet since we’ve been out here and it was very upsetting for them to have to deal with poor Lewie and heartbreaking for us not being there when it happened. I have the photo shown here of Lewie on my desktop, it’s so realistic that for the last year that it’s been there I mentally tickle him around his ears every time my computer is booting up. Now I do that with a heavy heart. We’d had Lewie from a puppy but unfortunately he hated the boat, if he hadn’t hated it with such a passion he would have been with us. He was a fantastic dog, loving and intelligent and will be sadly sadly missed.

On a more enjoyable note, the Winter Racing series has started again and last Sunday we had perfect sailing conditions for the race north of the Island, sailing up to Prevesa and back for 2 laps. A longer race than normal, with it taking 1 ½ hours per lap, but was brilliant, not least because we were 2nd over the line and won by miles on corrected time. This year we’re sailing on a Dehler Optima 101, a bit bigger than the J24 we were on last year and a very good boat to sail. We’re hopeful we’ll be up there in the prizes at the end of the year.

Next race is Round the Island. Last year it took us 27 agonising hours, this year we’re praying for a bit more wind, not too much though, it can get quite lumpy on the west side of the island being open sea all the way to Italy!!

August in the UK

The day after we arrived in Venice we flew back to the UK and picked up our 'runabout' ...........niiiiice!!!

We were nearly 2 weeks later arriving than we had first arranged. I had organised our girls get together at Hewenden and would only be getting back a few days before they were due. Another great weekend of catching up and lots of laughs. It's hard to believe a year had passed since we were last together.

Michael and Eve came up the next week and stayed a night, the next day was lovely and sunny and we took Lewie for a walk up to the viaduct and got some very different piccies of it this year - have a look here.

Michael Eve and Lewie (swimming)

We had a trip down to Birmingham to the Aston Eye Hospital for me to have a consultation for Laser Eye Treatment, got caught up in V Festival traffic and took 4 1/2 hours to get there from Yorkshire - nightmare.

Then the next weekend was spent in the Lake District with Dave and Carole and Steve and Elise. It rained!! We went down to Bury to stay a night with Dave and Chris and it rained!! We got back to Hewenden and it's raining!! We've both been b****y frozen since we've been back.

So that's where we're up to, we'll be off to Stoke to pick up our car (a friend drove it back from Greece for us) later this week ready to fill it up with 'stuff' to take back, then we've got the Bank Holiday Weekend with friends - it's sure to rain!!

Lefkas to Venice on a Grand Soleil

As I said in my last blog, we altered our journey plans back to the UK to include a delivery trip to Venice on a 46@ Grand Soleil. What I haven't told you is that the boat needed some urgent repairs before it was sailable, just small things like the Autopilot!!! Most of the instruments weren't working so Mark repaired what we considered to be the most necessary - like the Autopilot!!!, GPS, small engine problems (water pump exploded) and on an on. By the time we did set sail we still didn't have any wind info apart from the Windex on the top of the mast which wasn't reflective so can't be seen at night unless a torch is shined up to it, and depth which was only available at the chart table.

Anyway we set sail 4 days later than we were supposed to due to waiting for parts for the engine water pump.

After a short sea trial in Lefkas we thought this boat would be fast and give us an exciting sail. We were looking forward to a quick trip. Oh how wrong we were......

The first leg of the journey was to Gouvia Marina on Corfu - call it a bit of a shake down. We got out of the north end of Lefkas and started to pull out the mast furled mainsail - it was jammed. That took us half an hour to free and get going. The rest of the day went without any problems. Arrived at Gouvia at 9.30ish and got moored up. First part of the journey undertaken - no problems.

Next morning, fuelled up again and off we go. Out of Gouvia, Mainsail up, pull the Genoa out and it tore right across where the UV strip should be (note 'should be' - it didn't have one) at the height of the top spreader. Luckily there was another foresail onboard, so we changed that and got underway. Morning was fine, building wind, lovely sailing, this is what we were looking forward to. By mid afternoon we had well in excess of 30 knots of wind (for the non sailors among you that's a lot!) and confused short seas - basically a less than pleasant sail for lots of hours. It was during this period we realised how many more problems this boat had - we knew it had had a keel repair from an old crunch, the mast had been taken off during the repair and hadn't been put back on properly or tensioned correctly and the rest of the repair hadn't been carried out very well. The result was that every wave we slammed down on shook the rig right down to its boots with an alarming judder and very loud sounds of complaint. Coupled with that, water was pouring in through the deck around the mast and most of the window leaked to some degree. We held our breadth every time it happened. We did a lot of slamming over the next 2 days. There were times I thought the whole rig would come down around our ears. We also had a Genoa sheet explode just as dusk was falling on the 2nd evening, so a small fight in high winds ensued with that to end over end the sheets. We were motor sailing to try and keep any kind of northerly course, even then we were forced more west than we wanted to go. Add to that we were in a busy shipping area and as always there's lots of traffic at night. Our track over the water looked like a snail on LSD. Are we having fun yet?????

Day three, we're beginning to get a little tired when the weather calmed down and we were back on course sailing in the right direction. Now the weather was a little calmer I started cleaning the boat down below, we had considerable amount of salt on the inside due to the leaking mast and windows. Day four, calm and pleasant sailing during the day, real busy traffic during the night, however that old friend 'fear' keeps you awake and alert at night. Those big ferries look 'REAL' big close up at night.

Day five and six, no wind. We had to motor for the last 36 hours of the journey on seas of glass, the forecast was for the wind to go round to the south which would have been brilliant, unfortunately it didn't happen. Luckily we took on extra fuel for just such an event.

Well, we'd had it all on this short journey, we thought it would take us four days from Corfu and it took and extra 24 hours exactly to get into Albarella Marina, just south of Venice. This poor boat needs some serious TLC and ti won't be cheap. But that's not our problem; we sat with a beer giving thanks that this bag of spanners had actually made.

Would we take on another delivery - another boat, another destination - a definite maybe!!