Summertime Voyage

After a heavy night in the fleshpots of Kos (I wish), we tootled out and set of round to the S of the island and headed for Nisiros. Turkish Coast Guard Jet Boat! We sailed a bit and motored a bit until the afternoon breeze from the NW came in and we had an excellent point of sail for the last half of the trip. We had planned to moor at Palon on the NE end of the island as the harbour there is much preferable than the at the main town of Mandraki (well every island seems to need one). Nisiros - 1/3 Island Missing from Volcanic Explosion Nisiros is basically a large volcano. It is said to be extinct (Greek Tourist board) but on closer inspection it still seems pretty active. I think it’s official classification is “dormant”, which means there are still soft bits in the crater that you can’t walk on and there are noxious gases emanating from fissures in the ground. It exploded same 30,000 years ago, and as you approach you can imagine the bit that is missing, whcih look

C. I enjoyed a quiet couple of days in Kos old harbour, just me and Summertime, while M. travelled back to the UK. I did a few jobs, found a bar that sold Stella Artois and became mates with the barman, and generally recovered from the rigours of a negotiated existence. I did some rubber caulking on the teak in the cockpit and sugar scoop at the stern. That involved hacking out all the old rubber, masking the wood with tape, applying the black Sikaflex and smoothing it off. That all worked quite well, indeed M could not find the bits that had been fixed. Success! Worked I also attempted to fix some hairline gelcoat cracks. I had bought a spray product in the chandlery, sold as the perfect stuff for this problem (17 Euros). My GRP guru on line, Andy from Boatworks today, says you have to use a Dremel to widen out cracks and fill them with proper colour matched Gelcoat but I thought it worth giving this a go. I taped up all around the various cracks, in thre

It is said that a sailor’s best friend is his Mum, but could be his toothbrush, or the toilet brush. But there is a very strong case that it is his diesel engine. However many s kippers seem to have a profound disinterest in mechanical matters and deride th ose that do as geeky, a bit lik e Scottie on Star Trek. However at sea the well being and reliability of the iron topsail is probably the single most important item for the safety of the vessel. It is therefore beyond me how people will go off to sea without a working knowledge and skill set to address engine problem s . While berthed in Kalymnos, I became aware that the Turkish family, two blokes, two ladies and kids, on the large powerboat next to us were having some issues. There had been repeated attempts to start and stop the engines during the evening, some of which were successful and others not. The next morning a mechanic arrived and the back end of the boat was elevated on it’s powered hydraulic rams to ex