ocean-pilgrim

Living overseas for an extended period always requires quite a bit of planning and in my experience staying flexible when things change is an essential skill when it comes to finding a way forward. To get to our home port of Aigio took some fancy footwork this year!

Once again we decided to start our adventures in Thailand and flew into Bangkok via Melbourne. This turned out to be a great plan as we finally caught up with some friends who also have a boat in Greece who we have only every talked with online.  Happy days as we hung out at the same hotel overnight before going our separate ways.

We had held off on booking onward flights and making firm plans this year due to elderly parents and just not knowing if and when we might need to head back home.  A week out from our Tassie departure we bought an airfare via Abu Dhabi with Etihad to get us from Bangkok to Barcelona where we normally have a short break with family before returning to Greece.  Can you see where this might be leading?  We arrived in Thailand as chaos started to unfold in the Middle East.  Every day we watched as flights started to get cancelled and airlines pulled out of landing in the Middle East hubs.  Every day we scoured Flightradar 24 to see if flights were entering or leaving Abu Dhabi.  Every day we got a little more concerned. Every day we looked at other flights and their cancellation conditions. Etihad are great in the air but my experience is that at any sign of trouble they dig in, get unreasonable and they don’t issue refunds. Maybe could reuse the fare next year, however a long phonecall to Etihad clarified that we could make the change at no cost but the fare difference still applied and that was well over $1000 making it a very expensive change.  So we found an alternative flight with Sichuan Airlines via Chengdu to Athens via Istanbul bypassing the Middle East and we could cancel it for a few hundred dollars.  It looked good so we went ahead and bought it then spent 3 weeks wondering if Etihad would cancel (the only way to secure a refund).  They didn’t.  Flights increased to over 100 a day passing through Abu Dhabi. A ceasefire was called and our flight left a few days after it began. Risk is such an interesting thing.  I think we understand more about that after living in Saudi for five years.  It becomes a part of everyday decision making and therefore more familiar and clear and eventually we decided that this was a great window to go. We cancelled the Sichuan flight and they were amazing.  We had a refund back in our account within days.  Perhaps flying with them is an adventure for another year. In amongst all that uncertainty Rick had the best time kite foiling.  He even bought a new board and kite.  We had a lot of fun there with friends we’d made the year before but Intention was calling us and we had to listen!

After a brief and busy week in Spain it was off to the island of Kos to process our much awaited long stay visa after which we returned to our boat in the small town of Aigio via Athens.

Aigio is a lovely town in the gulf of Corinth, bordered by mountains, still snow covered and sitting on the very north edge of the Peloponnese. Lush with orange groves and noisy bird life we stayed in a tiny Airbnb we called the Lighthouse for its spiral staircase up to a super roof top terrace.  I think the glass brick turret at the top cemented the idea in our minds.  That plus the fact the balcony was cantilevered out over the road which was on the seafront. You could feel the salt spray in a Nor’wester.

We asked the boatyard to do some of the bigger jobs on the boat this year as they are well regarded for their mechanical knowledge.  The main job was a new rudder along with rudder bearings including a skeg hung bearing which involved some specialist fibreglass work. We were there a little longer than anticipated as our new rudder got lost.  It was made in Sweden and shipped via truck through Italy only to disappear once it arrived in Greece.  Sweden was rung, couriers were rung, no one knew where it had gone.  I decided it was off on a solo Greek Odyssey and it arrived a week later than expected. We believe it somehow made it’s way to Kalamata.  At least it stayed in Greece! The job of fitting it was done really well and very quickly once it arrived and the May Day spring holiday was over. The boatyard is family run with 3 adult boys and the dad (who is a mechanical wizard) so the boys of the family (all 3 of them) lifted the 220 kilos into place with apparent ease.

Antifoul was then done, boat provisioned, last washing done and put away and we waited for launch. The short trip on the trailer from our parking spot out of the yard, across the road and gently into the water was done with ease.  A problem after launch with our generator and the rope cutter on the propellor shaft saw us on a little quay near the boat yard where we had an anxious 6 hour wait whilst Dad did his magic on both and fixed them without us having to haul back out.  Phew.  At 6 pm off we went and had our first night on anchor since late September.  A hooting Scops Owl, one of our favourite Greek birds, welcomed us back into to a tiny anchorage.  A rainstorm storm followed helping to wash down the decks.  Ugg boots and jumpers were on and it felt like winter but we still sat in the cockpit to eat dinner and to celebrate that now we were on our way.