Konstantinos is awaiting some bits to repair her heat exchanger, so we are having a nice day doing nothing. Fortunately Sivota is a beautiful spot.
We walk a bit, Jen & Fox have a swim – a very relaxing day.
Later we have a bit of fun teaching Andreas at the Yacht bar how to make a proper Black Russian. Great fun.
Jennifer and Fox joined us last night, and today we have a long trip north to Sivota – it’s about 25 miles which is a long way in a yacht.
After about 2/3rds of the journey there’s a big hiss of steam from the engine room and we slow down. We check the bits that often go wrong. Something major is clearly amiss.
Konstantinos is a sailing boat, so losing the engine is no immediate problem. We do need some help to get into the harbour though so we phone for a tow from an engineer who can help us to fix the problem.
Safely tied up.
Beers on the quay.
And cocktails later.
Lovely evening in Vathi last night, super seafood risotto at our favourite taverna. Tavernas vary a lot, you find simple places like this:
Menus on blackboards, no guarantee that they’ll actually have any of the dishes that they’re advertising, but invariably good.
Or this – lovely shady restaurants with proper menus.
Prices vary only a little, and the more down to earth places will serve a better breakfast the next morning.
Vathi is pretty laid back. These guys decided the view of the harbour might be better from the middle of the main street.
Nobody turned a hair.
Here in Sami we’ll put our laundry in and have a few beers while we wait for Jennifer and Fox. Distinguished company in the little harbour tonight.
Living on a boat is the same as living anywhere else in many respects. One inescapable truth is that without care and attention the whole thing will get dirty, smelly and generally unpleasant. We therefore need a ‘day off’ every so often to clean Konstantinos from top to bottom. Today is such a day, and I will spare you the details by not posting any photos of this process, which involves thousands of Tesco antibacterial wipes and an equal quantity of physical effort.
The boat does have some features that differentiate it from your average 3 bed semi however.
Principal amongst these is the fact that we have no connected mains services. I explained about electricity generation in an earlier ramble, but we also need water, and lots of it. Konstantinos has 2 150 litre water tanks. We can make these last a couple of weeks with just the 2 of us on board, but in practice we fill up as often as we can. Some harbours have water points which you can connect a hose to, but there’s none of that here. The enterprising Greeks however understand our needs:
This little tanker patrols the harbour selling thousands of litres of water every afternoon.
Vathi is a nice town. It has elegant buildings and a lovely square.
One of the advantages of being in such a place is that a skipper can obtain such essential services as a barber. I had a very good haircut yesterday evening on the orders of the Admiral.
We have 2 showers on Konstantinos – one inside and one on the transom. Our lack of mains water means that using these is something of a last resort however. Once again the Greeks understand this very well, and naturally they have turned it into a business opportunity.
A yacht crew can buy showers ashore for a few Euros, and very welcome they are too.
Yesterday evening we were visited by a uniformed man from the port police. He presented me with a fearsome looking form and demanded that I return it, duly completed to the Port Authority. We carry all sorts of paperwork with us on the boat – skippers licences, insurance, transit logs etc. We’re in the EU here, and while all this shouldn’t really be necessary I am of the opinion that if a man with a gun asks me for a piece of paper, my life will probably be easier if I can just give it to him.
Off I trot to the Port Police.
All my documents were photocopied and stamped with great ceremony (the Greeks love a rubber stamp). At the end of it all everything was pronounced in order, and I went on my way. They didn’t even charge us any harbour dues – we usually have to pay around 5 Euros a night. A triumph of pointless beaurocracy, but that’s just one of the things we’ve learned to love about life in these islands.
Now if you don’t mind, I have an urgent appointment with a very large glass of beer.
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