Wednesday 5^th May – Andíkirion

38:22.559N 22:37.984E

Today was a general strike in Greece.  As a result one of the large tugs from the Corinth Canal came in for the day and one of the guys spoke good English and had me practising my Greek.  After catching up on some admin, Richard went in search of internet.

After lunch, enjoying the view from the cockpit, we had a job to do – find diesel.  Yesterday, while walking around town we found a petrol station but it was closed and being rebuilt.  So, we went off on the bikes and, after asking the chap at the patisserie, found a petrol station only about 1km away on the main road out of town, uphill (but on the plus side, downhill on the way back).  We asked about a fuel delivery to the port and he called his son, who acted as interpreter for this fairly complex request.

He said that he could deliver tomorrow evening but his son warned us that tomorrow the fuel price may be going up by around 4 cents per litre.  Given we wanted 120l of diesel plus some petrol, and fuel has already gone up quite a bit, this seemed a reasonable motivation to spend what would otherwise have been a lazy, but unproductive afternoon, cycling up the hill with jerry cans to fill up – it was such fun.

On our first trip, I set off early and arrived before Richard; there was a 4x4 towing a small boat already in the petrol station.  The petrol station manager spoke to the guys in it and asked them to take my filled jerry can back to town for me (all this and I hadn’t even paid as I didn’t have any money).  So I cycled ahead of the car, passing Richard on the way, leaving him to pay for it when he arrived, such a friendly lot.  Sadly the petrol station was empty of volunteers for delivery on our subsequent visits so we had to walk back with our cans!

Wednesday is early closing and so it was quite a challenge finding some fresh salad later.  Much to Richard’s consternation, I managed it, so it was salad for dinner.

Today and this evening we have only had fishermen on the quay; the chap next to us has turned up with some serious tackle and actually caught a few nice fish.  Tonight he is still out there armed with a head torch. 

Pyxis is the only visiting yacht this evening.