Well it certainly feels strange starting to write the blog for this season, not yet having finished the blog for 2021-22. I only got as far as Diane coming out to Paros I think.

I had planned to finish it off over the winter but didn’t manage to get around to it, so I will have to get my finger out and retrospectively catch up in between writing the current year’s masterpiece.

Diane has even been for yet another visit in the interim this year, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Well we had to leave sooner than we would have normally liked as the house owner Corinna & Ton, our rental house owners were coming out for a holiday. We also didn’t want to stay in the marina as a pack of dogs had taken up residence and were aggressively chasing the cats . It just wouldn’t have been fair to lock Lily inside the boat after nigh on 6 months freedom.

Camira leaving Samos Marina on the morning of 21 April 2022

In April the weather is changeable and with southerlies it proves challenging to find sheltered spots to anchor. One of the options when you get South winds is to go North, so that is what we did. After a couple of nights in Posidonio we had an early start at 0530.

The first swim in Posidonio off the new platform

We firstly paid a brief visit to the fuel pontoon back at Samos Marina to pick up our new replacement water pump that Sara had collected for us and then had got up early at 0700 to hand it over! Thanks Sara and Brian.

10 minutes later with Lily creating to escape the boat we set of for Marathocampos at the other end of Samos. When we were nearing it we decided just to continue on  & head on up to the next island of Chios . Transiting between Samiopoula and then Fourni we headed the 50 miles or so to Chios “Marina”

We arrived at 1900 ish after a long day and about 70 plus miles in total. Chios Marina was empty and it was nice to be back and have our first passage of the season under our belt.

Nicholas had arrived before us cursing us for starting from the “good” end of Samos while he had started from the other end on account of him thinking we were going back that way.. He had no wind and further to sail .

The next day the old pump gave up when Louise was washing her hair! – so very fortunate we had arranged a replacement. With the new pump fitted it was “luxury “ showers on our new bathing platform.

The new bathing platform with integral T shirt Cat Overboard Retrieval system.

We still have an oil leak however so the engine will be wearing nappies for the remainder of the season. Other than that it’s all systems go – a statement that probably will be the kiss of death!

The pictures are from Chios Marina.

 

and I had written on Lily’s passarelle “For cats only” as we returned one time to find a woman standing on it getting her picture taken .

Well that’s it for now Happy Easter

The dinghy eventually arrived about a month later than promised but at least both it and the electric outboard were here, given I had flogged the old ones.

We inflated it in the conservatory just to see what it was like ……..big !

This should be fun inflating on the deck of a 9m boat –what do you think Lily?

In the afternoon we headed to Ireon to celebrate having all our deliveries here just in time only 9 days before we would have to be out of the house and on our way for the 2022-23 season.

Well that’s it  – the final winter post from 2021-22.

Catch you all after.