Saturday 5 September 2015

Preparation

4 Sep - I will keep updating this page as things happen..  After returning from Marmaris, where I got a datasim, which I was told would work in an hour (and it did, unlike Greece), I contacted Moby Marine - Elvstrom Sailmaker rep and advised them I had arrived and they could pick up the sail.  They arrived roughly an hour later, i told them I would be doing an Atlantic crossing. He took a look at the sail and recommended I service it, as he immediately spotted some perished stitching some patches, similarly the genoa. The tape at foot and the leech of the sail needed reparing, they took both sails off and took them away. I also told him that the boat points really well on a starboard tack, but to port she is a bit of a pig - they would take a look at the sail and modify as needed since they were doing the leech of the sail. I am awaiting a quotation for the servicing and repair of the sails.

I also went to the Raymarine rep and told them what I needed, they immediately came to the boat took a look, I went back to they office and showed me all the bits I needed and provided prices, an hour later I had the quotation, for 1 Radar,  a 9" and 7" chart plotter, new Tridata (my current one is giving up the ghost) an new wind indicator, charts for the Med, Carribean and North America + cables and installation. I checked prices and am impressed. I am just checking a bit more, but will most likely get them to install the gear - I could do it but the installation price is pretty low and they would also take a look at my autohelm software.

I also got someone to take a look at the Davits - my though was to have an arch over the back - that got kyboshed, immediately as they can't weld while the boat was in the water. So we discussed further options, I was supposed to go to the office to work though some more suggestions, but a string of phone calls delayed me.  They are scheduled to come back to day so we can solve this issue..

I will remove the autohelm drive to get a bearing replaced and properly service it to day and do some teak work.

Outstanding items are :
 - Satellite coms for the trip, so I can get weather and in an emergency communicate to the world
 - Eprib for the boat
 - Decent first aid kit
 - purge line for desalinator
 - Wind generator
 - clean + polish boat - WIP.
 - sheet bags for the cockpit
 - clean BBQ


*** Update
On Saturday, I took off Otto Von Helms drive and then headed off to Marmaris to try to watch some rugby... I was partly successful, in that by the time I found the pub, the England game was pretty much over... Then the pub switched over to Galic football - WTF.. So I had to go find another venue to watch the Wales Italy  game... I managed to find a restaurant showing he game almost at the other end of the Marmaris..  Along the way I walked past this,,,
A place for Pilot's to drink - *AWESOME*, I wonder if  you get a discount if you in uniform?
Between the two hills, lies the marina


On Sunday I spent the better part of the day in bed as I didn' get much sleep and I had developed a rather nifty bark...   After some sleep, I got up and started to work on the new dodger, the old dodger had chaffed through at some points that I had reinforced earlier in the year... Long story short, after 4 days work, some cursing I was done with the new dodger..  I managed to get some new plastic for the windows from he local sail shop - who was extremely  helpful, his prices were also very good.
Early in the process - more intact grey than white
Finishing off the starboard front panel
Port front panel
Almost there...
And we are done!!!
 I also changed the way the solar panel was mounted - this way when it rains, there should be no rain below the dodger..
 While I was at it I changed the sun awning - the original one is still ok, but I wanted something that I could remove in a hurry - also visible is the new tridata intrument, the original one was acting up.

Next on the todo list was Otto - that cost me 180EUR, for three new bearings - one of them was a phospor bronze bush, that had to be custom made. I thought it was pretty cheap..

Otto Von helm's drive unit

The end of his shaft had to be dressed - someone had employed percussive maintenance which had spalled he end of the shaft 
The shaft above, fits into the bronze bush below, which was badly worn. This is the electric clutch of he drive unit.
New bronze bush
The other side of the above shaft.
Another new bearing
After assembling the drive I mounted it, it engaged quietly, it used to engage with a clunk - ever since I have owned the boat.

On Thursday, the Raymarine people came round to install the new kit. It took three of them from 9-5. I decided to install the radar on the side of the mast so no sheets of sails get wrapped around it (I was initially going to mount it on the front, with a guard, but I changed my  mind). They ran into a bit of a snag - they couldn't feed the radar cable all the way down - the mas is closed about 1m above the deck and has a pipe with a hole - i took then about 1/2 an hour o discover this.  The new charploter is a bit smaller than the old one, so they had to make a faceplate. The old me they would be back on Monday 9am o finish off the job (install the 7" display in the cockpit as it was sill stuck at customs). Monday came, and they showed up a 9, without the display - it was still stuck in customs.
New Radar

On Sunday, I decided to do some teak repair work, some seams were not it a good state, so I spent the early part of the day fixing some of the teak.
Seams were in a sorry state..

Foredeck seams
Port section
Starboard section
 The repairs were pretty symmetrical - which makes one wonder, if that is where someone took a break and didn't prepare again...

I also polished all the stainless steel on he boat as it was starting to rust..  Today I spend the day removing old wires from the old equipment and ensuring all the equipment still works..

BBQ has been cleaned an polished, boat is now almost seaworthy, I just need to install it again to be ready to sail.

Boat has also been cleaned..

Over all I am quite impressed with this marina - they  have a pretty good chandlery (probably the best I have come across in my travels) - it is open 7 days a week, from 08h30-19h00, the prices are pretty good as well. All the workshops are open 6 days a week and pretty much keep the same hours. The mini market here is also open 7 days a week and closes at 9 in the evening.
Looking at the stores and restaurant

Restaurant has live music on Fridays 
Panorama shot of the marina

I'm off to England tomorrow to he boat show, I will look for an EPIRB, satellite coms, storm drogue, first aid kit and ditch bag.

I made a sheet bag - but it looked rather woeful.. Will have to come up with another solution..

Also figured out why the boat points horrendously to port - the instrument is not calibrated correctly - today the wind was blowing pretty much from the bow (every other boat's indicators were also pointing in he same direction), I was showing a wind of 40 degrees to port - which is where I was going into irons....

I now have two crew members, Tim and Evan who will be ready in early Oct.

I decided to scrub the decks just before setting off, and they don't look half bad..

----------- Update 6 Oct

I went to England on the 17 Oct, to have a Lim Cello Party with Mike and Michelle and to go to the Southampton boat show and to see Derek. Unfortunately Mike wasn't feeling to well so the Cello party was out of the question. It was good to catch up with them.

The Southampton boat show was not overly impressive, there were lots of boats to see but not a lot of boat systems , as aa result I didn't buy anything - I was mainly hunting for a wind generator. I didn't end up getting that.

I came back to Marmaris, on the 23rd, the whole of that week was a series of holidays. Long story short, on the Monday, I got the remainder of my chartplotters,


the following day I got my sails back. They looked like new...

The rest of the time was spent cleaning the boat and looking for things to fix, new snubber and charcoal filter for drinking water


Charcoal filter


The new crew started arriving on the 30, 4, and 5. They have lent a hand  and she is ready.

The last outstanding item was the watermaker - I discovered, through paying(obviously) that a utter moron had assembled the water maker last and an even bigger joker installed it originally. The watermaker was plumbed incorrectly (inlet was configured as outlet and vice versa). The original joker that installed the thing pit hopelessly inadequate cables - you could only run the thing for 15minutes before the cables were ready to melt.. That got fixed. So now we have fresh water and we can produce it for periods longer than 15minutes.

Cable on left was what was originally installed, to carry 40Amps... The one on the right the current one..


On Sunday, we took the day off and went to Bodrum.

Today we spent the day provisioning and tomorrow we are off to Rhodes, then Malta..



Yatch Marin - Marmaris

3 Sep - Checking out of Greece proved to be rather simple - but I can see the potential for issues. We had to go to the harbour police, where they demanded to know when I had checked into Greece and they weren't happy with my crew list - I told them I was a French boat - EU boat had never left EU waters and was just checking out..  Initially they foresaw problems, but after some thinking they agreed, EU boat.. They kindly got me to fill out their version of the crew list (this thing si fit for BIG boats), then they asked me to go to passport and finally to customs.. Passport control - simple, customs, gave me the same story - "There is a problem, you don't have the right papers", I explained again, EU boat, never left EU waters, VAT paid certificate and not sure what other papers he wanted.. He went and checked with his supervisor and agreed it was OK, then issued me a clearance piece of paper (in triplicate) and advised me to get my paperwork in order (WTF ?) and sent me on my merry way.  I then had to go back to the Port police who stamped me out after getting the piece of paper from the customs guy..

We were then cleared to leave Greek waters, and we headed to Turkey, the wind was kind on that day and was blowing straight to Turkey, at between 20-30kts at 120degrees off the port, I was lazy and opted only to put up the genoa - we were doing a nice 7kts with that much canvas out. As we approached the Turkish coast the wind and swell died down (as per the forecast - shocker!) and we motored the rest of the way.  We arrived at Yatchmarin outside of Marmaris and I went in to pay for my spot and clear customs..  I paid for a a month, 325 EUR - by far the *CHEAPEST* berth to date.. Then expecting to clear customs at the marina, I was told that they no longer could clear us here and we had to go 2NM, to the old town to clear customs, they were extremely helpful, took copies of what was needed and told me their guy would be on the dock to help. I ran back to the dock and told Jack we had to leave *NOW*. We hurriedly, got the boat ready as we had to get to the passport for 17h30 and it was 16h45..  We made it there on time and after a quick docking we cleared customs, got the transit log and were welcomed into Turkey and told to have fun and move along - Tooooooooooooooo easy!

We motored back docked and that was the sailing done for the day, and for a month as I get Wollombi II ready for the next part of the trip.

We had dinner that night and Jack informed me that he would not be joining me any further - a big thanks to you Jack, for your awesome hospitality at Paros and your help along the way.

The following day, Jack set off to catch a ferry back to Rhodes then then another to Santorini and another to Paros.  I went for a bike ride to Marmaris, there were a number of hills on the way, which gave me some much needed exercise.. On the way back, I saw 6 wild deer.

So far I am extremely impressed with the marina and Turkey, a very efficient (night and day from Greece) and friendly country.
On the way back from Marmaris (just before seeing a herd of dear)

Yatchmarin by night

Dinner at the restaurant at Matchmarin, good live music



Rhodes

2 Sep, the trip to Rhodes was pretty uneventful, which is good, we made quite good time.  The winds were from our rear, 6-10kts and so we motored the entire way.  About 15NM from Rhodes the wind picked up and was blowing a nice 20-30kts by the time we reached Rhodes..  We coked stern to and setting the anchor. We did a brief walk around and dinner and back to the boat as we had to check out of Greece the following day and head for Turkey. To stay in the harbour was only 17 EUR, next time, I will anchor outside the harbour, which provides as much shelter and use the ducky to go into town.

Entering Rhodes Marina

Kos

1 Sep, we set off from Katapola at 06h00, a bit early but we had to get to Rhodes - 66NM away and the forecast was for not very much wind. I opted to go round the northern part of the Island as the wind was coming from the NW and it was slightly shorter. The waves bouncing off the land weren't too bad, but in hindsight, I should have taken the southern route as that was the lee shore.. We successfully rounded Amorgos an the forecast being wrong again, we had wind off our starboard hind quarter for most of the way and we made good distance. On the way to Kos, we saw a largish turtle about 75cm big - second bit of wildlife in Greek waters, the other was solitary dolphin that swam with me for a couple of minutes on the way to Levkas. As we rounded the southern tip of Kos, the wind went from 6kts to 30kts - WTF... it continued like this till we reached Kampos on the SE tip of Kos, there it dropped to 8.. The Aegean is certainly and interesting place to sail, that much has to be said.. The following day, we departed for Rhodes..

Looking at Kampos
Leaving Kampos
The Sun about to report for duty..

Katapola

31 Aug, we left Paros early on Monday with a new crew member - Jack. Jack and Nikki have been hosting us at Paros and showing us around the Island they are currently calling home. We headed south between Paros and Antiparos, through a small channel that gets down to 2m deep, we managed to successfully motor through that and once clear, up came the Genoa as the wind blowing above 20kts (from about 10 in Paroikia)from our aft quarter . The wind continued to help us for the ramiander of day. As we approached Amorgos, the sea got choppy as there was a northerly wind, changing to a NE with the waves bouncing off the island. We anchored in a little cove just at the entrance of Katapola, had  braai and early night as next day we were heading to Kos
Leaving anchorage at 06H00