Greece – Back to Plan A
Just when you think you are an experienced traveller, small things catch you out – who knew that you needed an eTA to transit Canada, I didn’t! Luckily, we got to Tauranga airport early and the Canadians were quick to respond, phew crisis averted.
Auckland International was vastly different this year - there were queues, shops were open, departure was open several hours before departure and, most importantly, so was Koru, giving us an opportunity to have a last cuddle with new granddaughter Goldie before she headed back stateside with Emily and Jordan.
Next challenge, our five bags didn’t appear in Frankfurt, so with minutes to go before our next flight, we put our trust in Lufthansa and flew to Athens, overnighted at the Sofitel, and picked them up at 0500 the next morning in time for our last leg to Leros, phew, another crisis averted.
It was hard not travelling COVID luxury economy class, we had become accustomed to, and loved, having three seats each in the last two years; needless to say the airline crew were more excited than us about flying.
53 hours from leaving home at Lake Rotoiti and arriving at Artemis Boatyard, we were exhausted. But we pushed through the day in an attempt to force our body clocks to reset. It seems to take about a week to get over jetlag, travelling eastwards harder as it shortens the days which means your circadian rhythm needs to do more catchup, apparently.
It was the earliest we had been in Greece and it was quite chilly, a northerly wind blowing through the boatyard, swirling Sahara dust from a previous rainstorm - we were glad we had brought our Gill jackets! But, as always, the welcome was warm, it was lovely reuniting with our Greek friends and NOETA, and there were spring surprises awaiting – fields of wild poppies and a brand new baby donkey, Selene, born to Poppi’s new donkey, named, of course, Artemis.
As before, we treated ourselves to nights at Kalliopi’s Aegean Blue before we decamped to NOETA in the yard, providing us with an opportunity to catch up on sleep and meet her month old baby boy Yiannis.
Is the opposite of winterisation summerisation? Well that’s what we did for the next two weeks - unpacking, cleaning, polishing, provisioning, installing new kit, repairing old kit, until finally launching with our brand new shiny chain (100m of 10 mm galvanised grade 70 complete with carefully placed colour markers) and new Rainman watermaker. We had tried to make contact with the Rainman Greek distributor whilst still in New Zealand, but after many unanswered emails and with time running out, drove to Auckland, purchased a system and packed it into three of our five bags. Intended as backup to our Aquabase system, it is a Skip-work-of-art installation and we now make 300 litres of water an hour, doing our bit to conserve diesel.
We had never seen the boatyard so busy – not only has the boatyard grown but the Aussies were back! And two years on the hard makes for much repair work. After not being allowed out of their country for two years, there were many lively discussions over a glass or two as to who had the worst government.
Highlights
· Dinner at Mylos watching the moon rise above the castle whilst sharing a five course fish taste sensation - we chose the red snapper (dentex) and the chef proceeded to delight us with sashimi, tartare, marinated neck, head on a bed of onions, peppers and tomatoes, and lastly tender grilled skewered fillets with a mussel hollandaise – all from the same fish, no waste.
· Drinks at Baker St in the hills above Órmos Goúrnes…stories and laughter under a starry sky.
· Running into Demeter and Kostas on one of our many provisioning trips to Lakki – beaming parents to be in July! – what is in the Leros water?
It’s taken us two weeks to commission NOETA, working and playing hard - catching up with old mates Tigger, Mon Desir, Sundowner II, George and Poppi and new mates Blonde Moment II, Nomadic and Intention. We had hoped to set sail for Turkey on Tuesday but Skip’s morning shower wasn’t going well, and the genset kept tripping out, so back around to the boatyard we went, an hour by boat, Shervin and Kostas to the rescue. We needed a new thermostat and element - it appeared that the element the French had installed a couple of years ago (when they were correcting a previous installation mistake), was of inferior quality, sigh.
So Wednesday it was, and a simple three stage checkout process - passport control in Agia Marina, Port Police and Customs in Lakki, followed by a quick last minute provision before setting off eastwards over a mirror glass sea to Turkey.
And here we are, arrived yesterday, engaged the services of a highly recommended agent Atilla to help us navigate Turkish entry requirements, taxied into Didim to get our Turkcell comms up and running and made contact with Mr Ibrahim, Royal Marine Upholstery to get a quote on getting our cushions redone. It’s blowing quite hard out in the Aegean, but we are at anchor just outside Didim Marina with gusts of 25 knots so pretty sheltered comparatively…
And tomorrow, the wind will drop, the sun will come out and we will head south for Turkish adventures, as yet, unknown…