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!

Samos (part 1)

Stay in the UK in typical October weather or take the chance to explore a new Greek island and stay with Graham and Pat in their rather wonderful house there. Quite a difficult and testing decision really.

We took the sensible approach and opted to go and annoy G and P. Flying to Samos is not simple - only TUI have a direct flight there and they wanted to charge like the light brigade for 2 seats (then probably try to sell us scratch cards, food etc etc en route). So, we used some old Luftwaffe miles and went via Vienna with Austrian airlines and then Eurowings. BA - you can learn a lot about service from Austrian. Mind you the cabin crew leader did seem overly optimistic when landing in Vienna as she told us all to thoroughly enjoy "the lovely weather today" - it was 10 C there.

Samos. Well, Firstly the stunning view from G and P's house:

The roofs all celebrate the ducks that frequent the many bays around the island (although many seem to have vanished or perhaps been consumed when times were tough?)

and they have some other adornments to ward off evil spirits, bad people, tax collectors, the Troika from the EU who decide upon the austerity program for Greece etc:

We had a wonderful week, being shown the best beaches, touristy and non touristy locations and learning about the way the island ticks. It certainly ticks differently to most places we have been to before. The Sunday lunch taverna experience was quite something, seeing the Greek extended families going out together and the local traditional music too.

Samos was / is in the front line for migrants and sure enough, although the numbers have dropped dramatically, there are still around 4,000 in a camp near Samos town being "processed" which takes lots and lots of time. The town has around 4,000 locals in it. Here is the camp pictured from the other side of the valley so not great quality:

Although you see migrants in the town, they are not seen on the rest of the island. In the bay near our friends house, some came in to land. The flimsy dinghies they arrive in (or drown from??) have to be seen to be believed:

40 people crammed into that with ineffective pretend buoyancy jackets. The optimistically labelled 30 HP outboard:

Normally the migrants arrive and cut up the boat so they cannot be sent back. Frankly, that is the best thing to do with them, totally unsafe and lightly built things. The greed and cruelty of the traffickers is beyond description.

Realistically, you can easily visit the island and be totally unaware of the migrant issue. The numbers are way down on the 2015 situation and the few that arrive are well managed now.  It is harder to avoid the local "military" though who have the oldest patrol boat still in service we've ever seen and hate having photographs taken. Looking like a world war 2 motor torpedo boat, with cracking planks and peeling paint the Greek armed forces clearly show the lack of public money available. The best bit was an old tank with no engine or equipment inside it, enclosed in a decomposing tin shed at the top of the road to Graham and Pat's house. It was deployed a while ago to show the Turks that Greece was ready for them!

We were treated to some local history:

Amazing culture and civilisation from  2,700 years ago that was on display in the local museum and visible outside too in the ruins and buildings. Britain was busy building primitive hill forts and deploying iron tools around the same time! Most impressive was the "colossal statue of a Kouros" to use their description:

The ladies were most impressed by his shapely rear end:

Have a read of Heraion information. Amazing place.

It wasn't all history and dry museum stuff - Graham managed to borrow the neighbours kayak for us to use and have some fun:

and there is plenty more fun to follow....

Just checking....

Having left the poor boat high and dry in Guernsey, the captain felt that he ought to return, do a few jobs and make sure that everything was OK. So, another Blue Islands / Flymaybe flight was endured. Once more the lovely eastern European lady was in the cabin crew and made the totally incomprehensible announcements over the PA system whilst a native speaker gazed happily at people's laps, apparently to check on seatbelts.

Warning - the rest of this is going to be terminally boring. So, if you insist on reading it, get a stiff drink now.

The work was well underway, with the prop shaft removed and some of the sanitation hoses replaced. The extra electric pump was in place in the bilge ready to be wired up. The decision was to run a separate fused feed from the batteries as the existing control panel and wiring was not chunky enough to support two pumps running at once. (We are keeping the original pesky Jabsco diaphragm pump in place, the one that eats itself from time to time and putting a huge Rule pump in as well). Pic to follow once complete.

We had a most annoying bow shoe fitted to the boat. She was built for a Danish owner who seemed worried about ice breaking so he had the towing eye / D ring stainless steel extended underwater to protect the bow. Then he put antifoul paint on it. Guess what, denuded of oxygen the stainless corroded. We removed the paint as soon as we got the boat but then had to scrape weed off the bare metal on a very regular basis. This, and the corrosion, were getting tedious. So, the M and G guys cut off the shoe below the waterline:

It had to be cut straight rather than at a matching shape to the top of it in case the cutter "caught" and gouged a big lump out of the gelcoat. Then it was filled, faired and prepared for coating.

 The coppercoat refresh had been completed in the nice weather we have enjoyed:

A really nice job, very fair finish and plenty of copper in it too. Happy with the work done by the two good guys who started out with the horrid sanding fun in a recent post. Talking of sanding, a bacofoil yacht was lifted for blasting to remove all her old antifoul. As you can see, the health and safety folks / the environmental protection folks have a different approach here:

The white stuff on the ground was not snow. It had been on the boat and there was no tenting up carried out.

The boat had been moored on the hardstanding to allow the rest of the hull coppercoating to be completed so we were now cuddled up to the stores building, giving a slightly different view when on board. Not too picturesque an area:

The captain did have one moment of unhappiness though. When he got to the boat, he found that the shorepower cable was disconnected. Brand new domestic batteries this year and despite asking for care on power supplies, this happened. Luckily the batteries had not been murdered by the fridge / freezer or something similar might have been committed on someone from M and G!

Whilst there, the main engine valve clearances were adjusted (one was too tight this time - must be my fault), the same performance was completed for the little wing engine (takes way longer though for many reasons) and some other bits of tinkering was undertaken. Just waiting on the stainless steel (Aquamet 22) stock for the new shaft to arrive.