That time of the year to get some sun

Yes, creatures of habit indeed. Somehow during a grey and windy and soggy UK winter you feel so much better after getting some sun. Being used to Lanzagrotty, one rather nice hotel and the walks along the promenade from there, we followed the usual routine and enjoyed two weeks of sun and warmth. We also enjoyed two weeks of John and Irene's company and as you can see they had a stressful time:

You will know them better as the owners of Archie the Lakeland terrier, seen here in full bark on the beach back in September:

We've shared plenty of images from the island before so here are a few "alternative" views. Our favourite spot in Marina Rubicon (see John and Irene above) normally involves coffee and a wonderful apple cake. This year it was graced by the restaurant's adopted cat Lily:

who enjoyed sleeping in the sun. So did we to be fair. The locals run a "cat rescue" thing for the wild versions under the name of Freddy's cathouse. They provide shelter and food for the cats. Whilst the cats are away, they also seem to provide food for the braver birds - perhaps the one outside was on lookout duty:

Another visit to Lagomar the place conceptualised by Cesar Manrique and owned by Omar Sharif for one day (apparently he lost it in a game of cards) was needed. Lovely place built into the rock (lava) face with amazing spaces:

Another excuse for John and Irene to chill out there:

In Arrecife, this old wooden ferry has been out of the water for many years - you can see how the boat has hogged - the stern seems to be following gravity downwards a little further each year as it seems very badly propped. Time for a chainsaw burial perhaps:

Talking of boats - some folks have an interesting choice of gelcoat colour:

Actually it looked far too shiny to be the original gelcoat bearing in mind the battering it takes in the sun here. Cannot imagine having a boat sprayed that colour and expecting to sell it afterwards.

One of the strangest things in the entrance of a shop that we've ever seen was this character:

Hardly welcoming and no, it was not a comic book shop - they sold clothes. We resisted.

Although the hire car this time had a better start in life (a VW Polo) than many others, it had been subject to the normal Canary Islands treatment:

Other holidaymakers might have added a few marks whilst it was tightly parked at the hotel. We say might until we get our damage deposit back.  Finally, a trip to El Golfo is always worthwhile, especially on a windier day. The rocks are around 8 metres above the water level to give you an idea of the power of the waves - and the wind was only the top end of a force 4:

Not a place to get caught on a lee-shore. A place to relax in, enjoy the walks and volcanic scenery and excellent hospitality from the hotel staff instead. Why did we return to this?

Not exactly ideal weather to relaunch the boat in.

When will the weather improve? When we have a sauna!

So, the plan looked like relaunch on Monday 12th at early o'clock to catch the high tide. The hoist crew were coming in very early so we could be afloat at around 7:30am. Tiring just thinking about it. On the preceding Friday, late evening, a somewhat annoyed captain received a nice email with invoices for the work done, confirmation that the shaft was fitted and the calorifier plumbing was completed. Unfortunately it also said that the new transducer had not been fitted for various reasons but that it could be done during the March lift out. The captain graciously replied telling them (again!) it was needed ready for an electronics refresh and that it should be done on Monday with launching delayed to Tues / Weds. Patience is always needed in dealing with marine businesses...

In preparation, the captain again braved the Blue Islands ATR service in the (old) colours of Flybe. Discovering that Flybe themselves are now up for sale only adds to the frisson of excitement / terror involved in using them to get anywhere ever.

To cheer up Captain Rae, this time it was a different aircraft, G-ISLK, Dating from 2000, this plane has a slightly less exotic history than the normal one on the Southampton service (see prior post) having been rattled around by Air Dolomiti. To try and prevent comments about ugly aircraft pictures, this time you are only getting the tail and the queue of brave passengers:

As you can see we were sent out to the plane before they were ready for us. So glad it wasn't raining.

Arriving into Guernsey we landed and made our way towards the apron. Then we stopped and waited and waited. A full 5 mins with the little turboprop whirring away and burning fossil fuel in a way that makes our Nordhavn look like a Green Party advert. Why were we waiting? No idea. We landed at 10:13 and here are the departing aircraft movements:

Nothing moving there. How about arrivals?

nope, no big queue in front or astern of us. Happily the delay in reaching our stand meant missing the once every two hours on Sunday direct bus to St Sampson. This trip was starting out well.

On Monday the sounder was duly fitted, replacing an older Furuno fishfinder unit. Good job too as it looks like the original fit was a poor one with a chunk of Sikaflex trying to level up the through hull fitting. The rather better M and G man ground away a little GRP on the inside and got it seated very nicely:

The new high capacity bilge pump to back up the temperamental Jabsco diaphragm unit was in place and very neatly plumbed and wired in:

Hard to spot in the bottom of the deep bilge area. The new calorifier was most neatly installed too:

Leaving a day for the sealant around the transducer to set, a Wednesday launch was booked. A weather window overnight on Thursday would allow time for sea trials, adjusting the stuffing box as the new packing wears itself in and generally checking that all was well before making an overnight crossing back to the Solent area.

Then it all went wrong. Excited to use the huge new calorifier to make some hot water for on-board showers, the immersion heater (also new) was switched on. The thermostat on it must have been faulty as it duly overheated the water in the tank, produced lots of pressure and caused one of the nice new pipes in the picture above which are rated to 100C and 6 bar pressure to split. The noise and resulting Turkish bath in the engine room was wonderful.

Luckily, there are no electrical things in that area to worry about so no other damage was done. Since the calorifier had been subject to pressures way above the design specification it means replacing the attached pipework and putting a new replacement calorifier in. This is not a 5 minute job (2 elapsed days) but the new unit had to arrive first.

Time to fly back rather than live in mid air for a while with an ever diminishing holding tank capacity free.  A most irritating problem, not the yard's fault this time but it just extends the out of water period. Good to let the hull dry out a bit we guess although the epoxy used with the Coppercoat probably stops that! Refits / replacements are such fun.

Back to Guernsey

Since the delivery date for the new shaft went back by one week each time the calendar went forward by one, a decision had to be made. Unamused by the Clements engineering folks' inability to confirm a date and the poor / missing communication from the Guernsey folks, a decision to refit the old shaft and then swap to the new one in March was made. We were planning a lift and scrub job then - it will just be a couple of days longer now. We hope.

The brave captain flew back courtesy of Flymaybe once more, on the same knackered 16 year old Blue Islands turboprop. It started life with Air Tahiti and now the poor thing shuttles to and from Southampton every day. Hardly the same sense of glamour! No picture this time as Captain Rae complained about "having to look at that ugly aircraft" in an earlier post. You can blame him for this big boring chunk of text that isn't broken up by a nice purple plane picture.

On arrival, the captain found that the M and G organisation had obviously "back ended" a lot of the work. So much for dropping the boat over during their quiet period! Still, things that had been done were very well done. The new deflectors / cutters for the stabiliser fins:

that were fabricated to replaced the corroded originals. These have an anode on to help them survive longer. The new calorifier with twin coils was in place. A very snug fit and a huge capacity (75 litres) so there should be no complaints form the fourth person to have a shower in the morning about being chilly:

The huge Vetus calorifier had one obvious drawback - a twin coil unit as requested but some muppet had designed it with the connections to one coil at each end of the device. It will be such fun getting to the inboard connections when they decide to leak a bit as they surely will over time:

As you can see from the first picture, there is some plumbing left to do - another example of leaving tasks right up to the wire and typical of marine industry organisation. That one was particularly frustrating as it meant no hot water on board. The captain was given a key to the workshop toilet and shower area. It was lovely. Or something like lovely. Once upon a time. Perhaps.

The ground plate for the radio was removed and renewed. It had degraded badly (very pink) and the bolts fell apart nicely when they were being removed:

Headless indeed and all ready to cause a little leak.

The poor gearbox looked a bit lonely with no coupling and shaft connected:

but the engineer started the work to refit the original. Even when the work is completed, a relaunch in the forecast weather was not practical:

Swinging a heavy Nordhavn in the hoist with 30 mph winds is not fun. With 60 mph ones is just impossible. Even if we found a lull in the wind that fitted with high tide times, we would then have to ride out the coming strong gales in St Peter Port harbour and that is not especially well sheltered.

So, the boat stayed high and dry and a plan for a relaunch on Monday 12th was hatched, around 7:30 am to fit with the tides. The captain enjoyed a nice flight back on bonfire night, watching the various firework displays from above seated in the same little bored ATR aircraft. Even tiny Alderney had bought a few sparklers.

More pottering around, Spitfires and being social

Hum. The folks at Clements Engineering have annoyed us and the Marine and General guys too.

The promised delivery date for a nice new Aquamet 22 shaft went past as quickly as a Lightning fighter being flown by the good Captain Rae. Only nothing arrived. They didn't even respond to emails for a while. Annoying but sadly typical for the marine industry. We had used them before for prop work on our Broom boats and they had been great. Anyway, that means the planned 6 weeks for the work will be longer as a relaunch without a shaft is tricky. Grrr.

The silver lining to this was more time to catch up with friends, do a few house bits for the toddlers and generally remember what life on dry land is like.

A few days in Stourport allowed some canal and riverside walks:

Arriving in Bewdley we were treated to some decorated "dolls' houses" as part of  a local festival:

Tremendous amounts of effort and attention to detail had been lavished on them. Having seen this, we decided that the locals needed more of a life.

A visit to the NEC with Norman and Julie was equally entertaining. As Bobilers (keep awake, you should have read about a Bobil ages ago on here) they were looking at new motorhomes (or Bobils). We enjoyed sitting in a £250K Niesmann and Bischoff offering. Owning a Nordhavn makes you appreciate quality in such things you know even if the same Nordhavn keeps your bank balance more suited to the other end of the motorhome market.

We had some fun visiting Mary, Ian and their rather gorgeous hound called Paddy:

He has eyelashes of a size that most girls would have to stick on.

Mary had a small challenge with her navigation, planning to take us to Aldeburgh we ended up in Alburgh which is about an hour's drive away. So much for not checking the suggestions on Google maps when typing the address in..... However, it offered a nice diversion to Southwold, the home of Adnams beer and Copper House gin. Such a pity.

Walking around Epping forest we found a pub for lunch that was very canine focused:

Paddy did well.

Martin and Inge (owners of another 47 called Malaspina which is like ours but way way nicer) were in the Hamble river and foolishly said we could pop over. Martin had been given the dream birthday present for blokes. It involved a World War II pilot experience. Briefings, a flight in a Tiger Moth then the same in a Harvard trainer:

and then in a two seat Spitfire:

Any resemblance to Biggles is purely coincidental or a product of you having read too many W E Johns books in your youth. The grin says it all though.

As a commercial pilot and ex RCAF chap, Martin did a fair bit of flying the planes himself. Inge had a consolation prize - a flight in the Harvard too and used this to capture some wonderful images of the Spitfire experience:

Of course Inge is a pilot too (although she seems to like those dangerous things with rotors). Captain Rae - bet your 787 Dreamliner and your old Lightning fighters don't look so impressive now.... Cue jealousy.

Lunch in the New Forest with Anne and Izzy was a story of slow service, good food and an enormous and probably superfluous pudding. A wander in the forest allowed us to bump into some "free range" pigs:

who were totally unconcerned by our presence:

Izzy was much more excited though and her lead was subject to a breaking strain test.

Keeping to the social theme, Andrew and Linda took us for a walk around the Jurassic coast on one of those crisp clear days:

and we were reunited with Dyl the dog. As you can see, he still  likes the odd nap:

Sensible animal.

Finally, we fear that we have created a monster. Sometimes we should know better. When the toddlers needed a new phone, we went and got a "semi-smart" one. They are committed iPad users but introducing them to the Android world was OK. Loading Whatsapp on the phone was, maybe, a mistake. Time will tell. However, a coffee stop now means email and Whatsapp checks, a most serious business:

Samos (part 2)

Did we mention fun in part 1 of this update? Oh yes, there was plenty of that.

The Samos people clearly have a sense of humour or perhaps the Beastie Boys VW badge craze arrived here late:

We doubt this would pass any emissions' tests either.

Have you ever seen a banner adorning a town council building that decries government policy? Well, you have now:

The local street art is good as well, plenty of drawings on the roads and pavements:

including one that made us feel quite at home:

Wildlife? Well, Graham kindly tried to rescue this mantis that was getting a little squashed on the road. It repaid his kindness with a nice bite:

Most of the locals were way friendlier than that. In fact the sense of humour extended to taverna signs near the beach:

Talking of beaches:

There are lots of them, many are very quiet and all are beautiful.  The tourism is not in the style of mainland Spain with its huge high rise ugly hotels and "Brit-bars" serving fry up breakfasts and fish and chips. Thank heavens for that. It retains a very local feel and is all the better for it. Did we mention lovely beaches and views? Just in case you feel that you are missing out:

There are a few drawbacks - like a third world water infrastructure with the pipes running in the open alongside the road after appearing from places like this:

Graham and Pat were without mains water for several days which is nothing unusual so they all have big storage tanks. A while ago, the local official had told people that he didn't have the 12K Euros he needed to replace the pump that feeds water to the village so they were without for many days. I wonder if the Troika realise just how the cuts are impacting the life of the normal hardworking locals, not just the previously overpaid and "over-benefitted" government workers.

The enterprise of the local delivery guys was impressive. Here is fruit:

and G and P told us that there used to be a similar vendor selling plastic chairs from a van. Now that, is specialisation.

A final thought - being buried is a serious business:

an incredibly tidy and well tended graveyard with amazingly detailed monuments in a local village. If you have a little less money, you still are remembered but in a communal building:

The Mediterranean lifestyle and diet clearly works well. The number of graves for people who had lived well into their 90s was amazing:

Perhaps we should move here - actually we are too late, our lifestyle has been too bad for too long.

A Samos summary - great place, amazing culture and thanks to our "local guides" Graham and Pat a most relaxing and enjoyable week. Even the flight back didn't disturb that feeling, neither did the long wait for the bus to the car park at Heathrow. See how chilled we were!