Grace Notes

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...