Heading South

Thursday, December 7th, 2017

Today was a day on the water.   The weather was near perfect if a little cold, and the route was almost a straight line from Corfu to the Lefkada bridge, so we had plenty of time today to work on projects.

Corfu is the western-most part of Greece, but is still seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Being at the far end of the time zone means that the sun comes up over the horizon later than the far eastern reaches of the time zone.   Today we were taking lines off of the pier at 7:15 am, just as the glow of the sun was hinting at the day to come.

So what does one do while at sea for 10 hours?   If someone is jet lagged, your morning might look like this . . .

One of the best parts of our live abroad trawler is that it has these really cool, well thought out features. In this case a pilot house berth that allows you to lie comfortably in the pilot house and rest. If you are on watch (and you trust yourself to stay awake), you can look out the window from the berth without lifting your head. Obviously Jinhee wasn’t on watch!

Following the coastline of Greece has other benefits as well.   One of the primary benefits is an internet connection.    The boat is super comfortable for sleeping in the pilothouse berth, or for scoping out year end performance reviews from the pilothouse table! I think Jinhee put in a full day of work while we moved the boat South.

As the sun set, we made it through the Lefkada rotating barge (kinda like a lift bridge), and through the channel into sheltered waters.   .

The story of the rotating barge is interesting. The local government apparently would lose significant financial support from the government if they are connected with a permanent bridge, so this rotating barge allows the island to remain connected to the mainland, but not permanently so, and thus they have help from central government. In any case we were happy to get through before dark. We will spend the night at anchor.

One of the bits on the boat that is not working properly is the speed sensor.   It really hasn’t worked for a couple of months, and I have been relying on GPS for speed readings, but we lose the benefit of a distance log without the Raymarine speed sensor.   Tonight I located the sensor to see what was wrong.   The photo below shows pretty clearly why the spindle isn’t turning.  All sorts of marine growth is preventing anything resembling spinning.

It has been cleaned and put back, and tomorrow’s journey will provide insight into the quality of my work.

We are now less than three days from Athens (Piraeus) and in new territory.  I will post more over the next few days and really look forward to transiting the Corinth Canal.