Back to the sailing life
Hello everyone, back in Greece, the boat is launched and we’re off again!
We left Greece rather hurriedly at the end of May as, thanks to Brexit our permitted days were rapidly running out. This is all behind us now. So here is the latest…..
Thursday 10th July 2025
We were up at 4.30 am to catch an 8.00 flight from Stansted. Our son Vik very kindly drove us. It was a beautiful morning, sunlight over the ripening crops, England in all her rural glory. How lovely first light can be (if only you didn’t need to get up so flipping early to see it).
About 20 minutes into the drive I realised that I’d left the keys to Val and Tim’s Greek house and car at home. Turning back would make us late to the airport. After a quick consideration of the options I decided not to worry as there are spares. We arrived at Stansted on time and everything went pretty smoothly. The only hold up was that the shuttle train to the gate wasn’t in service so we had to join an interminable queue to the bowels of the airport to get onto a coach to the plane. Lots of people worrying they would miss their flights, trying to jump the queue but subtly. I did my best to reassure the woman behind me, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that she'd catch her plane. I'm sure she did (fingers crossed).
Then the flight was delayed 45 minutes. Oh well, what’s the hurry?
Our airline was Jet2. Have to say, compared to the other budget airlines it was a very good experience. No scrum to board and the seats are slightly bigger. Not as many hidden extras to pay for either, you get a second carry on bag for free. Definite recommend. Wonder if they’ll read this and pay me for a good review ha ha ha?
When we arrived in Athens we could take the shortest queue and within five minutes passport control was done…leaving only the wait for our suitcase from the plane. I reckon it was the last one to be unloaded. Then it was onto the X96 bus to Piraeus to catch the ferry to Aegina.
It was nearly 5pm locally (3pm in England) and we hadn’t eaten since our early breakfast. Igor bought a spinach pie and Cokes to snack on while waiting to board, lifesaver.
When the ferry arrived in Aegina we were among the last to disembark. Only people with disabilities were allowed to use the escalator from the lounge to the exit so Igor had to lug our suitcase down the stairs. It was 21.7kg according to the scales at check in. What amazing packing skills given that 22kg was the airline's limit, an unexpected surprise!
There is a taxi rank outside the port but by the time we reached it all the taxis had been taken. It took about 10 minutes for a cab that was willing to take us to arrive. When we got to the house we looked for the keys – none. A few phone calls later the handyman who had been working on the house arrived with a set which he kindly let us borrow.
It was getting late and we were tired. The original plan was to go to a restaurant but by now all I wanted was a simple meal and an early night. We drove to the nearby village of Perdika and bought the makings of a Greek salad. Eating it on the terrace as the sun set, joined by three of the cats we made friends with on our last visit was sheer perfection.
So good to be back.
Friday 11thJuly 2025
Our first full day here should have been an early start but the pleasure of being in Aeginitissa, the views, the cats, the sheer Greekness of everything meant we took our time. We ate breakfast on the terrace. It was splendid. After this we set off to the boat.
The boatyard was scorching hot, no relief from the sun. Hard, white concrete surfaces and not many boats at this time of year to give shade meant the temperature felt even higher. Libra, as expected, was mucky but not too bad. She’s only been in the yard for around 7 weeks.
The yard in Sardinia worked on a lot of old iron fishing boats and I’m still cleaning off the occasional rust particle from there (pretty sure I’ve got all the little blighters now!). This was just dust and sand.
As we inspected Notis, the boatyard’s owner, walked past. He asked if we wanted to launch this afternoon. Tempting, but there was work to be done so we suggested Monday would be better. Having a date to launch the boat gave a time pressure to do everything that needed doing to get Libra seaworthy.
We realised we would be better off staying on the boat. That way we could make an early start, rest during the hottest part of the day then carry on working in the evening once it cooled down again. After lunch I went back to the house to collect our belongings and the rest of the food we'd bought but not eaten.
One of our first jobs in the afternoon was to remove the cover that protects the boat in storage. It keeps the worst of the dust and dirt from the deck and protects it from the relentless UV.
As you can see in the picture above, the cover is made from canvas. It's in two halves with velcro fastenings around the mast area. It’s as long as the boat (10.5 metres) and as it forms a tent over the cockpit it’s quite wide too. There’s a tendency for it to trap hot air, making the cabin even warmer so taking it off made our lives a bit more comfortable.
It has to be folded a certain way to fit neatly into a case. Hot work, and once it was done we went for a swim on the beach next to the boatyard. Nobody else seems to swim there, was there a reason? The only downside seemed to be that there are large pebbles by the shoreline, not as comfortable underfoot as the sand on a lot of the other beaches here.
Once past the stones it was blissful, the cold water reviving us. The water wasn’t actually cold at all but the temperature was far lower than the air.
A celebration was in order so we set off to town in the car. A few moments later came an ominous sound. We had a flat tyre.
Igor changed it and we were off again within 20 minutes. Dinner was fried crispy small fish, grilled sardines and fried aubergines with a lovely garlic dip. This is the life.
Saturday 12th July 2025
We got up around 8.00am to the gentlest of breezes and took the opportunity to raise the foresail or jib, a task that is easiest when there is little to no wind.
Igor laid the sail out on deck by the forestay (the flexible metal pole at the front of the boat that holds this sail in place).
I was by the winch in the cockpit. Igor fixed the sail to the part that lifts it up, which was connected to the rope (the jib halyard) that I’d be working on with the winch. He fed the sail into a groove in the forestay and I winched. If I was a big, hefty bloke, or even a not particularly hench one, I’d be able to lift about half the sail just by pulling on the halyard but I am a delicate princess so need the winch. Instead of heaving you just turn a handle. This is strenuous enough when the temperature is near 30C.
Everything went smoothly until Igor furled the sail. He noticed that the sacrificial strip was on the inside of the bundle.
The sacrificial strip is a narrow piece of canvas stitched to one side of the free edges of your foresail. When the sail is furled the technical fabric used for the sail is completely hidden by the canvas. This means that your very complex sail is protected from UV damage. Over time the strip may degrade and need replacement but it’s a fairly minor and inexpensive job, unlike replacing a sail.
Anyway, back to present matters, the furling mechanism had decided to roll the sail up the wrong way because something at the top of the mast had a twist in it. Igor manually unrolled the sail and then had to turn it on the stay a few times which sorted out the issue. Now it’s working properly and the sacrificial strip is on show, as it should be.
Next job was to clean the boat. I’m sure I spend more time cleaning Libra than sailing her. Despite the cover she had a significant coating of fine grey dust. I hosed her down, then had to do it again. Every time I thought I was done more of this sandy dust appeared. Black footprints appeared too, reminding me that my bare feet were dirty. I put our doormat near the ladder and gave instructions that feet must be wiped and shoes removed when boarding (then had to keep reminding myself that the rule applies to me too).
Once the deck was clean it was time to rinse the topsides, the part of the boat above the water. The upper half has a silver coloured vinyl wrap that doesn’t need much maintenance. Below is the gelcoat, which always gets two good coats of protective wax at the start of the season. It was still fairly clean, a few grey streaks in places where maybe it’s rained and the water (with dirt) has dripped down the sides of the boat. Lots of gentle rubbing made a bit of a difference but it really needed another coat of wax to cut back the dirt and reveal the hull. No time for that, and washing with detergent would strip the protective wax coat so I just left it. It’s not noticeable from a distance.
It was very hot by now. Igor had been working on techie stuff inside the boat but came outside to remind me that it was past midday and we hadn’t had breakfast yet, so why not go to the next town, Souvala, for brunch? He didn’t have to ask twice.
We went for a swim to cool off then took the short drive there. It’s about 3km, I know because we walked it last time we were here.
I parked the car. When we’ve been here before in the off season the carpark was always pretty much empty. It’s now summer and there were hardly any spaces. We walked towards the restaurants. Igor suggested getting a salad from the supermarket. I threw a hangry hissy fit and demanded a cooked breakfast.
This was a very good move. The restaurant had a shady terrace with a decent coffee, and the lovely waitress presented us with a pile of fluffy pancakes interleaved with bacon and fresh tomatoes, topped with a fried egg. It was so pretty I thought it was a dessert. It tasted even better. I would even go so far as to say it’s better than a bacon McMuffin. Happiness was restored.
When boats sit in water for any length of time things grow on the hull so you need to apply special antifouling paint. Most of these rely on biocides to kill anything that decides to take up residence. The River Crouch where we kept Libra is very nutrient rich so a lot grows if you leave the boat in the water for more than a week or two.
We tried numerous antifouling paints but none of them was brilliant. Lifting the boat at the end of the season revealed an octopus’s garden of barnacles, mussels, weird pink tube worm type creatures, slime, weeds, you name it, all living on the so called lethal paint.
In 2021 we decided to change to a silicone based system. This works differently. Instead of killing things it creates a surface that is too slippery for anything to attach properly. It works really well, especially for a boat like Libra that can sail quite quickly. Conventional antifouls need a high pressure washer to dislodge the marine life but with silicone you can literally wipe it off with a damp cloth.
Even better, the paint lasts for several years whereas you have to renew conventional antifouling paint every single year. It’s a horrible job usually carried out in the chill of springtime. You need pretty much full PPE to protect yourself from the paint and its fumes. Silicone paint is water based so no fumes, environmentally friendly and best of all, as I said, it lasts.
Ours is now in its fifth year with minimal maintenance. We thought we may have to strip it off and repaint this season but last November the UK manufacturer, Hempel, announced that they had a new product that revives old silicone coatings. The blurb said it was a doddle to apply so when we were coming here in March we tried to buy some. No chandleries had it.
We called Hempel. They referred us to a chandlery about 50 miles from us. I called them, it wasn’t in stock yet, the manufacturer kept telling them ‘next week’ and it never arrived. Fast forward to June 2025, idly checking I discovered that the chandlery now had two tins in stock. We ordered one of them online and drove to Ipswich to collect it. I wrapped the tin in clingfilm and a binbag in case it opened during our flight and we put it into our suitcase.
The application instructions say you need to pressure wash the boat before application. We didn’t have a pressure washer and there were no boatyard staff around to ask if we could borrow one on a late Saturday afternoon. Instead I rinsed the hull several times with clean water then wiped it with a microfibre cloth. Wiping underneath the boat required a lot of crouching and crawling around and I was hot and tired. I could see the cleaning wasn’t as good as I’d like but frankly, I’d had enough. It’d have to do.
For dinner we decided on giros (kebabs) from Aegina Town. We drove there, not a parking place to be found. It’s very different to the off season.
We drove back to the boatyard, hoping that another place along the way would still be open… and it was! A plus point for the tourist season. We ate our giros under starlight on deck, wafted by gentle sea breezes on the warm night air.
Sunday 13th July 2025
Ideally we would have got up at 7am or earlier to paint the hull but we’re still not acclimatised to Greek time so that was never going to happen.
We started work just after 8.00 am. We’d brought rollers and trays from home. Igor packed two bigger and two smaller rollers so we could work together and get the job done quickly and efficiently.
One of the larger rollers was pretty robust, left over from a job lot we’d bought for the original silicone painting. The others were from paint rolling sets we’d bought for pennies in the local cheap shop (we really only wanted the trays).
The ‘paint’, Hempel Infinity, was odd. The instructions said to give it a really thorough stir. I searched the boatyard and found a suitable stick and Igor set to work. The texture changed from a creamy liquid to a gloopy greyish goo. Think how a sauce looks when you thicken it with too much flour.
Igor poured some into the paint tray and set to work on the sunny side of the boat, giving me the luxury of working in the shade. He was using the proper roller. I was using the cheapie. With my first roll the fibres from the shaggy pile were all over the hull. Unusable. I tried one of the smaller rollers and set to work on a rudder. After about three or four strokes the roller head fell off the handle. Much swearing, thankfully it was a Sunday morning so not many people around to hear it. Unfortunately, as it was a Sunday morning, all the shops which sold rollers were closed so we were stuck.
I know that they say that a bad worker blames their tools but these rollers were so badly made and shoddy that they were completely useless. I took a walk around the boatyard to see if anyone had left an old handle lying around that I could borrow as we had plenty of decent roller heads but no success. In the end gave up and suggested Igor do a different chore while I carried on, using the one functional roller.
I started on the forward part of the hull, then as I moved towards the centre I realised that the old paintwork was still filthy there. Either more dust had settled on it in the night or I simply hadn’t cleaned it properly. I set to again with the microfibre cloth. Igor came down and took over the painting while I checked the rest of the hull. Pretty much all of it needed doing again.
Infinity isn’t so much a paint as a coating, like, say, a face mask for your skin. You apply it, leave it for a set period of time, then rinse it off and reveal the revived and beautiful (silicone) skin beneath.
Unlike paint, when it dries it’s invisible…until you think ‘Aha, there’s a bit that hasn’t been painted’. Then you run the roller over it and the semi dried surface lifts off. More aggravation. Eventually it was all done. For some reason it seems that every chore we do is taking 2-3 times longer than it should. For recoating the hull this was nearly all due to not having the right equipment (doesn’t do much good when it’s all in England).
As we were standing in the boatyard a French lady approached us with a carrier bag. She explained that she and her husband were leaving unexpectedly so would we like their perishable food – butter, red cabbage and sausage. Brilliant! We asked where they were going and heard a cautionary tale of woe.
They were both experienced sailors, having crossed the Atlantic independently in their current boat (which shows they really know their stuff). They were anchored at Ermioni, about a day’s sail from here, when their anchor dragged and the boat hit rocks and hard sand.
As anyone would they called 112 and asked for Coastguard assistance. Within minutes a workboat came and pulled them to safety. Then the fun really began. The Coastguard confiscated their boat papers and insisted that a marine engineer signed off that the boat was seaworthy. From what they said there hadn't been any significant damage. The French Consulate became involved. The boat papers were sent to the office in Aegina and they were given permission to sail to this boatyard only. They now have to wait for the marine engineer who certified they could sail here to come back and give official confirmation that the boat is seaworthy. What a nightmare, luckily they are insured.
Their sailing holiday was cut short so they were heading to the mainland for a road trip around Greece until their flight leaves on 18th. This was a real wakeup call for us, it seems that the Greeks can do oppressive bureaucracy alongside any other nation. We were lucky the captain of the ‘pirate ship’ which hit us was so amenable.
They left to catch their ferry. We finished off the painting. I was filthy from rolling around in the thick dust and debris under the boat. It was really hot. What else to do but go for a swim, then a great breakfast of buttery fried bread, fried egg and slices of the sausage we’d been given.
The afternoon was too hot to think so we turned on the air conditioner in the smallest cabin and hid until it cooled down.
As it was our last night in the boatyard we headed to a waterfront restaurant in Souvala for dinner, eating seafood and salad and watching a beautiful Aegean sunset over the water.
Monday 14th July 2025
Launch day! Lots of last minute chores, getting the interior shipshape. We needed to rinse off the ‘paint’ we applied yesterday using fresh water. There was a minimum 24 hour wait for the chemicals to work and reactivate the silicone coating underneath then rinsing finishes the process. Once the time was up Igor got to work with the hose while I paid the boatyard and booked our winter storage. It’s very popular here so we need to make sure we have a spot.
The last task was to fill the water tank with fresh water. We hadn’t emptied it before we went away and it was smelling decidedly stale so I used it to clean the floors. Once it was refilled and a sterilising tablet put in it was ready for action.
The crane came and picked us up and just before midday we were in the water.
From there it was a gentle sail to our favourite spot, Aeginitissa Bay,
and a swim.
Back to the sailing routine. Feels like it's been a while.
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