A goat, a boat and afloat again

(Oh crap! this isn't the farmyard ladies, it's the boatyard!)

This will be my 3rd season as single handed sailor aboard my boat Aquarella in Greece.

As before, my late husband's brother Uffe has been helping me for the first week, getting the boat shipshape and ready to launch from Basimakopulou shipyard in the small fishing village of Kilada, Peloponnesos. The yard's nearest neighbour is a goat farm.

Aquarella at Basimakopulou Shipyard waiting to be gently lowered into the water.
After launching, the first visitors on board were the norwegian journalist Karin Mogård and her husband Olle who happened to be in the area.  Karin has written two articles about my life as a single-handed sailing widow. These are published in the norwegian magazines "Seilas" and "Vi over 60". We had never met before in real life, only over Skype so It was so nice to meet up over lunch on board Aquarella.

Ollle and Uffe, Karin and I at anchor in the bay of Kilada.

Before flying home, Uffe accompanied me on the summers first voyage to check all was OK. 

It wasn't.

I am very dependant on the autopilot (called George) when sailing alone, so I can leave the wheel if needed. On this trip George was stubbornly insisting on steering 20 degrees off course. I thought I would probably have to embark on the tedious chore of calibrating it and started looking for the instruction book which hadn't been used for years.The autopilot has it's own designated fluxgate compass mounted under a seat in the saloon. I have always been careful not to stow anything of metal in that locker so there would be no danger of magnetic interference.

It suddenly dawned on me that my bag with my computer, camera and hard disk etc. was standing under the table right next to that seat!

I moved it.

With a screech, whine and a bang George gleefully wrenched the boat back on course. So now the GPS, compass and autopilot are agreeing with each other and combining forces to fulfil my every command.

Problem solved. 

Photos by Uffe