Well we finally managed to get away from Missolonghi. About 25 miles up the coast in fact! We had a great two weeks in Messolonghi (alternative spelling - of which there are many - not sure which one is correct) so it was a bit of a hard decision to leave. We have however a good month of nice weather ahead of us and a lot more places to see now the Italians are going back to work (hopefully). We will be back in Messolonghi for the beginning of October to start our winter there.
June and Steve also managed to leave and headed east towards the Corinth canal. We can vouch for that as on Wednesday when they left, we caught a bus to Patras - the third largest city in Greece - and saw Piper as we crossed the new Rio suspension bridge. They were motoring east with just their mizzen out into a force 5 - right on the nose - not good! We had a good day in Patras. Great lunch and Pam found an M&S shop. Not too big but ok if you like that sort of thing which Pam does. Typically all the winter stock was in and here we are just surviving in 32 degress (not dropping below 25 at night). Did I say it was hot?
It was only 7 Euros return for the 90 mins bus ride so not bad value but we did need to get a taxi back from the bus station to the Marina for 5 Euros when we got back to Messolonghi - it was too hot, but I've said that already haven't I?
Thursday we found a great restaurant for lunch. It was the one that Yiannes (the marina manager) had recommended. That will mean nothing to most of the readers (the two of you) but it may mean something to Piper and Arwen if you are reading this. Almost Petisco sized portions at a similar price. All in all we are finding the restaurants very cheap here and the drink even cheaper than Portugal (apart from Lazy Jacks happy hour prices).
So Friday morning early - we actually got up at 7.30am, we put the engine on and motored down the channel and turned right to head back into the Ionian. Five hours later we had rounded the island on the corner and headed north to this anchorage at Petalas. It's a big bay, protected from the prevailing north westerlies and is all around 4 metres deep with good holding. The place itself is not much to write about with a pretty boring coastline (not worth blowing the dinghy up then) and the water about as clear Port Edgar (although it is blue).
We arrived. I set up the anchor to drop and click - whirr whirr whirr but no chain going down. Kicked the windlass a few times but not a lot of improvement in fact I would go as far as saying no improvement. As the wind was blowing a good 3 knots, it wasnt too difficult to drop the anchor by hand and then sit and puzzle what was wrong. Given the heat I decided Saturday would be a good day to fix it as we were going to stop here two nights. By the way, it wasn't all bad news, the windlass did wind up the chain ok and the beer in the fridge was cold.
Saturday I had a good look at the windlass. Now my knowledge of the windlass was pretty low as I had not serviced it for 4 years from new. (You may now be suspecting what the problem was). That isn't as bad as it sounds as for the first 3 years we hardly used the anchor and have used it more in the last month than we did in the first 4 years. It's still pretty bad though. So I started taking it to bits. The main problem was that the gypsy had welded itself to the two cluch cones - which accounts for why I havent been able to drop the chain on the clutch for the last 3 months! After a bit of coaxing with a bottle of water, a large screwdriver and a small hammer, the bits came apart. A good wash out and oil - it's back to working like new - I hope!!! It now goes up and down. The bottle of water??? To wash the salt out of the gypsy/clutch silly!
We also decided to renovate our UK flag which is getting rather ragged and holy.....or is that holey (it doesn't go to church). Pam cut off 6 inches of flag and re-hemmed it so it now looks as good as new apart from being much shorter than it should be and if you ignore the 4 years of fading from the sun. In fact it looks far from new. Nearly time for a new one methinks.
Wasp trap development has come on leaps and bounds with the Mark VII now in use. I will post a pic when we get back into decent wi-fi contact (I can get onto the internet here but only very slow speed using the new dongle - maybe it will better on the next stop). We almost filled up the new trap in an afternoon. Luckily there aren't many in this anchorage. Wasps that is, not traps. Keep up! So tomorrow an early start to get up to Kalamos and try and get into the harbour before the mid day rush. It's almost September so I am hoping the crowds will be reducing. One can hope! We will then be back in tourist land. Oh no!!!
Wasp trap development has come on leaps and bounds with the Mark VII now in use. I will post a pic when we get back into decent wi-fi contact (I can get onto the internet here but only very slow speed using the new dongle - maybe it will better on the next stop). We almost filled up the new trap in an afternoon. Luckily there aren't many in this anchorage. Wasps that is, not traps. Keep up! So tomorrow an early start to get up to Kalamos and try and get into the harbour before the mid day rush. It's almost September so I am hoping the crowds will be reducing. One can hope! We will then be back in tourist land.
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