Sunday 22^nd August – Messolonghi (Μεσολογγι)

38:21.668N 21:25.004E

It was a fairly quiet day at the marina – the wind continued to blow and the sun shone but was a little cooler. 

We had a bit of a blitz down below, clearing the dust of the building works off the surfaces, hoovering and re-stowing the back cabin. 

Richard then decided to get the large coil of rope out from the bottom of the back locker as he wants to make up some new mooring lines.  We got this rope when the chandlery was closing down in Cagliari and have been carrying it ever since, still on its drum.  For some reason this became a reason to unpack all the lockers and do a few other jobs that have needed doing whilst we had everything out… 

So the fuel cans are now drained of the dregs, the BBQ fuel is stowed, the small piece of metal needed to hold the handle on the bucket has even been found, it having fallen irretrievably to the bottom of the large lazarette some weeks back... 

However, returning to the coil of rope, it was apparent that the drum had mushroomed whilst down in the dark.  Although it had gone in through the hatch, it wasn’t going to come out again, despite Richard squeezing into the locker and trying to push the drum from below whilst I tugged from above.  Teaching it some new words didn’t seem to work either.  It was going to have to be uncoiled in situ and fed up through the hatch.  Eventually, having untangled the heap of glistening new rope lying in the bottom of the cockpit, we now have a nice coil of rope ready to be made into mooring lines.

There was just one puncture to fix today, the rear tyre on Richard’s bike, a tiny hole which had been missed just enough to let the tyre down over night. 

This evening was a well attended BBQ.  Due to the strong easterly wind, the BBQ was moved to the corner where Pyxis is berthed, so that the smoke wasn’t drifting over the moored yachts.  Afterwards, Russell brought his guitar out and entertained us all with a few songs.