Another day in paradise

Aquarella at Aliki

My friends Mike and Sam recently introduced me to a beautiful anchorage nearby called Aliki Beach which I thought would be a good destination for a short solo sail. However on a lovely warm day I asked them if they would like to accompany me there for a swim and lunch. The day didn’t start too well though as soon as they let go of my buoy.
It sank.
 The buoy, the rope and chain just disappeared and I feared it would be a divers job to retrieve it. Then I tried using the GPS navigator, not that I needed it for the short distance but just to test the system.
It didn’t work.

My 20 year old GPS

No indication of speed or course. I did have my Ipad though with Navionics app and an external GPS antenna. 

That didn’t work either.
Then while under way I thought I would prepare the anchor windlass and connected the remote control.
It didn’t work.

Testing the remote control for the anchor windlass

I knew there was a mooring buoy in the bay so I hoped it would be vacant. It was, but I misjudged the distance to it which resulted in a “man over board manoeuvre” for the boat hook.

retrieving the boat hook

Then I finally pulled the stop button for the engine
It broke.

my disconnected stop button for Aquarellas diesel engine

I couldn’t stop the engine! It was very fortunate that Mike was with me and he showed me how to stop it by using the winch handle down in the innards of the engine.
But in spite of all this we had a lovely day and I filmed with my Gopro under water and my drone in the air.
There was a new mooring buoy when I got back, the owner of it had fixed it. The GPS problem on my ipad was solved by updating, downloading and restart. The remote control for the anchor windlass was fixed by a good friend David who also reconnected the cable to the engine’s stop button.
Then it was unfortunately time for my next problem.
The 20 year old outboard engine on my dinghy broke down. In terrible weather with strong winds and torrential rain I couldn’t get back to my boat so thankfully spent the night with my friends David and Sarah who have an apartment here.

Me in my heavy weather gear

The next days I rowed backwards and forwards to Poros while David took the engine apart and meticulously cleaned the carburetter and ransacked all the local chandlers and petrol stations looking for parts. He even consulted a marine engineer in England and ordered a special spark plug from there.

David repairing my outboard engine at Cafe Fresko

Then it worked.
Then it didn’t.
Then it worked again.....
So now I’m training for the olympic rowing regatta for 72 year old women in rubber dinghies.  As at the time of writing there are no other contestants I am hoping to win.
In the meantime David has a very serious discussion with my little 2 HP Yamaha.
His favourite expression is “A friend in need is a pain in the ass....”

Me rowing ashore