From anodes to coastguard custody-unlikely chain of events

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Fri 14 Jul 2023 22:13
Beautifully anchored in one of the bays in the island Archangelos just north of Leros,while snorkeling we just happened to see that the anodes of the bowthruster was completely consumed (they were new in March !)
I was convinced there were spares onboard but afters hours of searching we had to give up.
Subsequently the decision was to go back to Lakki port for new ones supplied by the shipyard. We dropped anchor in the bay of Lakki port and allthough a bit close to an American catamaran we took the dinghy to purchase spare anodes.
At sunset (as usual) the Meltemi picked up and we decided to drop anchor further into the bay not to be close to the catamaran.
To get a hold was tricky and space limited so after 3 attempts we headed to another bay just a bit west. Also here we dragged time after time and in the middle of all we heard a strange sound from the propellershaft/gearbox.
Sounding just like fishinggear in the propeller I went into the water to check without any findings allthough darkness.
Heading back again to the bay of Lakki Port we finally got a hold but with limited space we only let 3 times the depth of chain out to minimize swinging.
With a good hold though on reverse 1200rpm we went to bed with no worries.



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