The Cruising Season starts Here!
Very early on the morning of Sunday 12th April 2026, Vik dropped us at Stansted Airport for our flight to Athens. Not driving this time, everything we needed fitted in a big suitcase. 22kg was just enough.
The plan was to launch at the end of April. We'd spend a couple of weeks finishing all the winter maintenance, including a lot of cleaning which was neglected due to the state of the water supply, and then we'd be off.
Val and Tim very kindly let us stay in their house and use their car.
As we were primarily here for the boat most of our time was spent at the boatyard, about 7 or 8 miles from the house.
Since we were last here in February the cost of fuel has gone crazy due to world events. Prices on the island are always more than the mainland and petrol increased from 1.77 to around 2.12 euros per litre. Ouch. It made sense to stop doing two round trips to the yard daily. I took my work with me and set up my office in the main saloon (ie tidied away everything that needn't be there and put my laptop on the table).
To give you an idea of what Greece is like in April, the number one thing is that the sea water hasn't warmed up yet. It's probably the same as England in June, you can swim but whether you'd want to is another question.
The weather was very pleasant, in the low 20s C during the day, getting chilly when the sun set. Oh, and there was rain, not often but torrential when it happened. All in all great for walking, especially somewhere as lovely as Perdika. We walked the same route as back in February. An abandoned kayak had been languishing underwater. Now it was on land.
A number of the wooden panels on the Panoptikon had fallen off and been scatterered around by the winds. A concrete construction, left over from the WW2 occupation of the island, had a new decoration
and inside (you can just about make this out in the photo above)
One of the last things we did before coming back to England was to order a new spray hood. The guy doing it knew when we planned to launch, and when we asked Spiros in the boatyard office he told us it would be fitted on Wednesday 22nd April. Exciting. The upholsterer and his colleague came along on 22nd...but it was just to measure up. He said he’d be back next week to fit it. Right, he’s only had the order for 2 months.
Very frustrating. I was due to go to England on Sunday 26th for my big brothers’ 80th birthday. Igor would have liked to come along too but had to be in Greece when the sprayhood was fitted. We had anticipated that we would launch before I left to go to England as Igor quite likes solo sailing. Instead he and Libra remained in the boatyard.
On the morning of Sunday 26th I set off to catch the ferry from Aegina to Piraeus, the first leg of my journey. Igor came with me. We got some breakfast on the quay and I caught the fast crossing.
He did the long walk back to the boat.
I really enjoyed the trip to England, lots of precious family time. I was only there for a couple of days so didn’t want to adjust my body clock for such a short period. There’s a 2 hour time difference between the UK and Greece, so if it’s 10.00 in London its 12.00 in Athens. This means that you get up 2 hours earlier in Greece. While I was away I made a point of being up before 6am every day. Not as hard as it sounds, it felt like 8.00 am to me.
It worked surprisingly well. Max took me to the airport on the morning of 30th April at 4am. To my immense surprise I felt like a human being instead of the usual sleep deprived zombie I normally am when I fly at that time.
Igor meanwhile worked on the boat. Some of the silicone antifouling needed replacing so he set to work.
The sprayhood wasn’t fitted. Panayiotis, the boatyard owner, was livid. He had a carefully planned schedule for launching boats and this delay was messing it up. He wasn’t cross with us, he was cross with the sprayhood guy. He reckoned that if he’d been speaking to him (instead of Spiros) it would have been ready a week ago.
I arrived back on 30th April. The ferries were madly busy and boarding was a scrum. Despite this it was good to be back.
1st May was a public holiday so nobody was working. It was the coldest May Day for 20 years. Meanwhile southern England sweltered at 24C. I wondered if I should have stayed.
Over the weekend we carried on with the cleaning and maintenance of the boat and the house. There had been a huge deposit of Saharan red sand on the island in March. I'd cleaned it from Val's patio but her next door neighbour had been away. When I went round there he was finally sorting it out. He'd had a lot get into his house and the torrent of red mud flooded down the shared steps. I came out an hour or so later to find he hadn't cleaned it off and you couldn't see the stones that the steps are made from. Guess who got the job of cleaning that?
On balance I'd rather be cleaning the boat.
Monday 4th May 2026: Today things were back to normal and people were back to work. In the morning, as I was cleaning the stainless steel stanchions, Panayotis came by to say that today was launch day. We still had no sprayhood. He assured me it would be done, and asked me to go to the office and pay for the boat’s winter storage. Off I went.
While I was paying, Spiros said that the guy would be with us in 15 minutes to fit the sprayhood. I drove to Souvala to get cash for the work, taking the opportunity to buy some decent bread from the bakery next to the cashpoint.
On returning I looked at our boat as I parked the car. No sign of a sprayhood. Went to the office and asked Spiros when the guy would be here. ‘He’s already been.’ Hmm.
Walked to the boat. Definitely no sprayhood. Igor said the guy had arrived but when he fitted the hood it was obvious that he hadn’t made cutouts for handholds as we’d requested. He had to go back to his workshop for an hour or so to put it right.
We needed some more cleaning supplies, so that meant another drive to Souvala. Got a couple of pies for lunch while I was there (the bakery is really good). Drove back to the boat. Sprayhood guy was walking to his car. Went up the ladder to the cockpit – surprise, the new sprayhood was in place and looked fantastic.
He had done a brilliant job, a much cleaner, simpler design than the old one and fantastic workmanship. Now we could launch…except it was lunchtime so nothing would happen until after everyone had eaten. We ate our pies on deck and waited.
Around 3.30pm we were ready to launch.
I sat on the boat and Igor followed on foot.
Finally we reached the boatyard. Libra was lifted via thick blue nylon slings into the crane and carefully and expertly launched. There wasn't even a splash.
Everything went very smoothly.
Once in the water we motored to Aeginitissa Bay, occasionally rolling out the jib but there wasn’t enough wind for sailing. This was so much better than being in the boatyard.
Tuesday 5th to Friday 8th May 2026: It seemed to take a few days to transition from life on land to life on Libra. There were loose ends to tie up – the car was parked by the boatyard so I had to get a taxi there and drive it back. Turned out that the battery had died overnight, fortunately the boatyard had one of those zappers for starting dead batteries or I’d have been stuck.
There were jobs to do on the boat, like installing the bimini (sunshade). This year Igor had the genius idea to use solar panels instead of a canvas shade, absolutely brilliant. No need for an ugly solar array hanging off the back. The panels absorb the sun's energy and keep us cool. Multi tasking.
The house needed some last bits of cleaning. The washing needed doing. Then of course we had to do our victualling, stocking up with food, water and fuel. Finally back to the boat for a late dinner in the most picturesque setting.
By Friday 8th we were ready for an adventure. It was a beautiful morning so Igor suggested that this afternoon we sail to Vathi, a tiny and picturesque port on the opposite side of the almost-island of Methana.
We set off just after 2pm. By now it was dull and overcast. There was a stiff breeze, 17 knots, and as usual it was ‘on the nose’. In a sailboat you can make progress under sail if the wind hits from most angles, but if it is blowing directly onto the front of the boat the sails can’t work.
We headed away from the bay, turning to port towards the gap between Perdika and Moni island. As we were now headed in a different direction, therefore presenting a different angle to the wind, we could sail. We opened the genoa a little. Our speed increased from 5 kts to 6 kts. Within 15 minutes we were under the wind shadow of Moni on our starboard side, the wind dropping to almost nothing. Back to the engine. After another 15 minutes the wind picked up again, so off with the engine and out with the jib. Two dolphins passed by in the blue water. This was more like it.
Five minutes later we were in the shadow of Methana and the wind dropped again so engine on. It was getting choppy, but having done most of our sailing in the North Sea this wasn’t an issue. Half an hour later the wind returned. We raised the main with 2 reefs. The wind dropped then within a few minutes increased dramatically, to 26-30 kts. The boat heeled right over, the wind howled. I was trying to speak to my brother Laurie on the phone but neither of us could hear the other over the racket. I said I'd call back.
We decided we’d had enough so tacked (turned the boat through 90 degrees) and headed back to Aeginitissa. Good move. We could sail at last, our boat speed was 6-8 kts, the boat was happy and it was really good fun, streaking through the water leaving a wake of bubbles. It took about half an hour to get back to the anchorage.
When you sail in choppy waters there is a noticeable difference in your comfort depending on the direction you go. Returning to the bay the waves were with us so we almost surfed along the tops and it made such a difference. The angle you hit the waves is the line between misery and fun, the effect is quite dramatic.
We anchored around 7.30 pm, our first sail of the season completed. OK, we didn't get to where we originally intended but that's not the point. We didn't have any pressing need to continue in such challenging conditions and by turning around the sailing was actually enjoyable, rather than an ordeal. Better to wait for conditions to improve than to steam on regardless. You don't get extra Brownie points for suffering as you sail.
It was a really important little expedition, a literal shake down sail. The challenging conditions pushed us slightly out of our comfort zone and would have highlighted any additional work we needed to do. As it was, it looks like everything is in order but you always have to be vigilant on the water.
Tomorrow is another day.
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