Grace Notes

Monday morning and only a day into Pauline's visit and we asked her to do a little job. Just dive down under the boat and unwrap more plastic from our prop. She is a qualified swimming instructor and competition swimmer..... That, however was over 30 years ago and these days you're more likely to find me embroidering, wearing a head torch and talking to my cat Hardy. It's important you know that so I'm now taking over to tell you what it's really like under Grace. First of all were they serious? They had mentioned it the night before but that was after several beers. But no, ten o' clock the next morning there they were standing waiting for me in the cockpit, offering me goggles and snorkel. Phil had constructed a spear made of a pole with a lethal looking knife on the end. Looked like I was expected to kill lunch while I was down there too! What was a girl to do? Sara went in first. Cold! But she is actually Lara Croft in disguise. I followed (disguised a...

Crazy season is approaching, and we're close to Athens, which means money circulating in little ships. This joy... ...kept us awake with its main generator. They turned turn the thing off when the Sun came up, so I guess it was only needed for the ridiculous quantity of deck lighting. There was one consolation. She made the neighbouring stinkies look small, which must have annoyed them.

Having spent a fortune in Hydra, and more on a beautiful chocolate soufflé and cocktail back in Porta Kheli, we have spent the last 5 nights eating on board. These have really helped with the diet and the bank balance. The highlight was Phil's made from scratch pizza night. Phil rolled the thin crust bases out using a can of Fanta Lemon, the rolling pin of choice for the fashionable yachtie, and my special tomato sauce with anchovy and capers was the wining topping.

As the weather is warming up the insect life is also springing into action. One bite each was enough to motivate me into starting the mosquito nets. The design is essentially using the outside rim of the hatches to hook elastic all the way around. So a simple job of cutting to size, hemming all the edges and inserting elastic. The first one took 3 1/2 hours of hand stitching with the lowest quality, most tangle prone cotton in the world. Since then I have got quicker and the size of hatches have got smaller. I am trying to ensure that I complete one everyday. Currently I have the two hatches for the stern cabins yet to do. Then I need to decide on a design for the side hatches, which have no outer rim. I need to decide between the design I thought of and the idea Phil suggested. The jury is still out. I am particularly proud of the design for the companion way, which works as a curtain as well as a mosquito net. A triumph for GCSE textiles!

We have been to Hydra and were lucky enough to get a spot on the quay. We had re-prepped to do a bows-to piggy off two yachts on the North side, just as two Nelson yachts left the quay on the South side. We quickly about turned and pinched a lovely spot. The harbour was particularly full as there was a flotilla of 40 foot catamarans blocking the view along the length of the North quay. The place is very pretty and rightly deserves the tourists it brings in. The lack of motorised transport was great and the donkeys and horses do work hard on everyday stuff as well as rides for the masses. We spent a great evening with a couple from Guernsey, who were just finishing a three week holiday. Lovely meal, great company, but the most expensive meal of the trip so far. Three of us had kalamari, which was nicely done, one whole fresh squid each. But it was 18 euros each! Compared to the 5 euros for a bowl full from the fisherman. We will be anchoring off and cooking on board for the...

We went all around the island on the coast road. The total journey was about 25km. There huge amounts of zig zaging, up then down, then up again. It was worth it for the views and to see into the beautiful little bays. Spetsai is written about as an island without cars. This is mostly true, as there were no cars, but there were hundreds of mopeds and some trucks. It was nice therefore to get out of the town with its constant moped drone. We discovered that the rest of the island is very quiet with virtually no motorised transport.

We moored up next to a small fishing boat in Spetsai. They were very friendly and asked if we wanted to buy some fish. So to continue our fishetarian adventure we said yes. We went across and I suggested the squid. We tried to help ourselves to 4 animals but they were insistent that we had more. In the end we had given an entire bowl full of fresh squids for 5 euros. Having watched many cookery programmes over the years I had seen how to gut squid and it looked very straightforward. What I quickly discovered, having thrust my fingers into my first squid, is that when you pull firmly the insides will not all come away in one piece, as it does every time for the professionals, but will break and then you will just have to do your best to pull out the bits. On about squid number 12 one finally came away as it should. We then marinaded the prepared pieces in oil, lemon and dill. The other key thing I learnt was how easy it is to over cook. I new it did not need long but it real...

We loved our time in Navplion. Beautiful place and as Phil said "Very classy!" I especially liked it as I go to wear heals and a posh frock on the two nights we were there. Phil tried to suggest that we ate on board the second night but this was totally vetoed. We found the recommended arty bar that had plastic tat, random moving things and played jazz. I am sure some would describe it as eclectic. We liked it but it was the most expensive gin I have had so far, at 8 euros each, and the bar man was a miserable git. Despite the expense we managed to get quite drunk both nights. We also made use of the shopping opportunity of being in a big place. Shoe shopping was necessary as I needed new pumps. The lack of my size in the ones I really wanted saved us 45 euros. The place has a long and famous history having been the capital of Greece for a short period in the 19th century. It has more castles than you can shake a stick at. We did the walk up to the very top, up...

After a few days of strong Northerlies, things calmed down a bit allowing us to continue our journey up to Navplion in comfort. We set off from Koiladia towards Astrous. We motor sailed for a while, since the batteries needed topping up and we wanted hot water for showers, but in doing so missed the best of the wind. With the dying wind, and an uninviting rain cloud over Astrous, we diverted North to Tolo. Then the engine skipped a beat. Bugger. We looked at each other - does it sound the same? Are we being paranoid? No .... there's a definite low throbbing. We figured we had probably picked something up on the propeller. We chugged the last hour into Tolo with our fingers crossed, knowing that if we had barely enough wind to sail if we needed to. This morning we got up and went swimming. All of you reading this in colder climes might think we're doing this every day before breakfast. We're not, its freeezzzing. (We're running 5K every day instead). Before today, th...

A pair of dolphins briefly swam off our bow today.

Grace is sitting pretty in Porto Kheli for a couple of days, enjoying sunshine (1.5-2A, measured by the solar panel), and restful nights thanks to the lack of swell. Finally, a real chandlers! We've upgraded our mooring warps, added re-enforced eye splices, and a couple of rubber surge protectors. (I'll not publish the colloquial name for the surge protector, you'll have to visit us if you want to know). We've also cured the "final" leaking hatch, fixed the seal around the galley sink, and Mrs Goo has been hard at work fixing our sugar scoop following the Ieraka misadventure.

A rainy day in Skala Leonidhion. Nice place, but the weather wasn't great and the constant swell ground us down a little. On Friday, we cycled into the town of Leonidhion.

One can put too much faith in Rod Heikell. Yesterday, we did a short hop from Monemvasia up to the secluded looking bay at Ieraka. View Larger Map Rod rates the bay an 'A' for shelter, which means "Excellent", the wind was from the west, and the weather was sunny, so we were looking forward to a lazy afternoon. When we arrived there was a fresh wind funnelling up the valley, but not enough to put us off a stern-to the quay. It built up over the next hour or so, and although we appeared to be holding, we put out a second anchor. Unfortunately, I was a bit slapdash in laying this one - a little too close to the primary anchor. We think we tripped the primary hauling it in, and we had to do a sharp exit and anchor off. Sara used her super-human strength to pull up and untangle the anchors. The wind kept on building. The dinghy hid from the wind, upside down. The rainbow is from the spray kicked up by the wind. Although there was only a Force 5 outside t...

While Sara did the washing, I produced eight splices: a new bridle for the tender, and a rope for the new fender.

Just a quick note about the 2 days and 3 nights we spent in Plitra. First of all the place is a tiny holiday resort, which was virtually closed for the off session. Beginning built in a grid formation with wide deserted roads and a stop signs on every corner gave it a strangely American feel. The one mini market was shut and so we had to cycle the 4 km into the next village to get supplies. Unfortunately we were out of the heavy stuff, all kinds of liquid, and so two trips were necessary. Lucky for us it was basically flat to get there and the wind was with us on the way home. There was very little bandwidth in Plitra. Phil tried his best to gain internet access by pegging the dongle in front of a metal sieve and holding up in different directions. He claimed that this improved things enough for us to get the weather but not much else. We ate in the nearest taverna of the two, which was directly at the end of the key. It was a nice place. No menu as it was out of session b...