29^th April, 2019.

We flew to Athens on an early flight with not a lot of people on board and were met at the airport by Pop’s hire car company personnel. We were driven back to their office to pick up our car for the next 24 hours.  We now always pay the extra 10 euros for a slightly better car as the hour and half on the mountainous roads is not fun in a small underpowered car.

It was delightful to see the beautiful bays in the sunshine.  The spring flowers were all along the road side something we had not seen in such numbers before as we usually come later. We could see they had had a wetter winter than usual as everywhere is very green.  It is strange to see the goats in the fields with lots of green grass to chew on as they are usually without much to eat and we feel sorry for them.

It was good to see Ariel where we had left her under the cover we had made two years ago.  The new electronics were all fitted and finished and the boat yard had taken care of the topside painting we requested together with fitting the new sea cock we had and sanding the copper coat for us.  The next day the new genoa was delivered. 

Lots of jobs for us to do but we do some everyday and although we would have liked to have been launched on the Friday 3^rd we settled for Monday 6^th as it helped take pressure off rushing the jobs to get in the water.