Thursday 17^th May

 

We set off from Mandraki for Poros with a brief stop at Hydra on our way and a stop at a little uninhabited bay for some lunch...

 

                                                                                                 Hydra

 

 

Our second problem reared its ugly head.  The bilge pump was pumping some diesel into the sea, so we must have a leak in the engine room somewhere ..  It was soon evident that one of the fuel filters was leaking, and this time we had no spare. 

 

We could buy a replacement when we reached Poros but there was little we could do at this point except switch off the bilge pumps to reduce the amount of oil we were pumping into the sea.

 

We spent some time practising ‘man overboard procedures’ before making use of some wind and putting up the main sail….this was a first for Sue and I and proved to be very hard work!!

 

George is making some adjustments

 

 

 

We then put up the fore sail and again as the sails have not been up for some time they did not run free and were quite stiff to pull….however we eventually had three sails up and were reaching a speed of between 6 and 7 knots….an amazing sight to see Quilombo sailing at last.

 

After about an hour we were in sight of Poros and we had to take down all three sails and motor in to the Harbour to find a berth for the night…we were amazed at how fast the day had gone and it was 19.00hrs when we arrived in Poros.

 

Mike, our skipper for the trip to Majorca, was there waiting for us and we all sat down and had a cold beer and updated Mike on our experiences so far!!

 

 

A trip to see Spiros at the local marine parts shop meant that we had all the parts needed to carry out some repairs in the morning. 

 

A lovely meal at a restaurant owned by a friend of George followed and then feeling very tired we all went to bed...

 

Friday 19^th May

 

An early start to get all the repairs done this morning.

 

Mike changed the oil filter and all is now working well.  George spent this time renewing hooks and ropes and making the gangplank safer to use.

 

Sue went off in search of the local supermarket to replenish our food stocks whilst I tried the new software that Mike had brought with him. No joy with this so far ..  We have to get on back to Aeigina so that we can do some final preparation before we start the big trip back .. Hoping for Monday , but I doubt we shall go if the GPS isn’t working properly..!!

 

 

 

The full team return to Aegina ..   Really good experience, not without its problems ..   I guess that’s sailing ..