Storm

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the fact that this is really what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be.
At anchor in the comparatively protected bay of Porto Heli I had received a warning of a thunderstorm with strong winds so I prepared for the worst. I took the bimini down and let out more chain to 40 meters. The sky darkened and the wind got up, but not so bad. Suddenly a very strong gust sent the boat flying backwards at an alarming speed. The anchor had apparently lost its grip. I started the engine to try to keep Aquarella in place by driving forwards, increasing the revs to almost full speed to keep in the eye of the wind. Over and over again the boat kept bearing away and I had to turn a full circle. I couldn't leave the helm for a second and therefore had no way of getting the anchor up with it's 40 meters of chain. With clenched teeth and a dry mouth I went  on and on frantically turning the wheel to and fro for three hours. My dinghy with it's engine on flew upside down twice and finally settled with the bottom up and the engine underneath. In the meantime, over the noise of the wind howling in the rigging, I could hear on the VHF radio a panic stricken voice screaming Mayday,mayday,mayday! I never heard what happened, I had my hands full trying to stop Aquarella from colliding with the other boats at the anchorage.
In the end, in the middle of a turn, the steering stopped responding and I realised the anchor had taken hold again. The boat came to a standstill even though the wind was still strong at force 7.
Although this was an experience I'd rather have done without, it was yet another lesson learned of trying to cope alone.
The outboard engine on the dinghy was now flooded with salt water so it couldn't be used without a major service operation. The oars and the seat were gone too so I had no possibility of getting ashore. On top of all that my phone had run out of credits so my only means of communication was by email.
The lessons I learned were obviously to empty the dinghy before the wind gets too hard or to hoist it on deck. Another lesson is the importance of being able to communicate. I couldn't use the VHF radio to ask for help in this case because of the ongoing mayday rescue operation in progress. My greek phone can only be topped up with credits at the nearest seveneleven and not over the internet so I have to remember that in time.
I had always thought I'd be able to get the anchor up and move out of harms way if conditions got rough. I thought by driving the engine slowly forward and keeping on course with the autopilot, I could be able to go on deck and lift the anchor with the electric windlass. But reality is different than theory and the fact was I had to stay at the helm to steer all the time and a slow speed wasn't enough to keep the boat under control. I am now contemplating a different anchor and thicker chain.

On board again

Now I've been back on the boat for a few weeks. She's a second home for me so despite all the work and expense involved in having a boat I'm still glad I kept her. My brother-in-law and his wife were here for the first week and rented a small apartment nearby. Uffe was a great help doing the heavy work with the boat before she was launched. I am so grateful he undertook the worst job of all: renewing the toilet plumbing. He fought with it in the tiny space for hours on end to remove the old pipes and change the ball valves. In the meantime I banged, hacked and scraped the inside of the brass T-junction and pipes to remove years of lime.
On the first leg of the seasons voyage  Uffe accompanied me to make sure everything worked.
The boats built-in GPS was a bit unreliable and the navigation app on my ipad couldn't get a fix either which was worrying. I had to rely on good old fashioned paper charts instead. Otherwise everything worked. On arrival at Porto Heli I sprayed the GPS antenna with electro cleaner and fixed the Ipad by turning off location services, then turning them on again. Wish everything was that simple....
The next job was to try and install the Iwirie wifi booster I had bought. The idea is to pick up wifi signals from land so that I can have internet and my own hotspot on board. I mounted the antenna on to the bimini frame, drilled a hole in the fibreglass cockpit combing and crawled under the deck to put the wiring in place. The software was quite easy to install and after scanning I was thrilled to get a whole list of possible wifi sources. The nearest hotel looked promising and as they had an unsecured connection I chose that. It works! Last year I spent a lot of money and time on establishing and maintaining an internet connection so this is a great improvement.