Of Aegina and Engineers

"Hello Fiona" I was greeted as we tied up in Flisvos Marina by a man I'd never met before in my life. "You're the reason we're here in Greece." My first thought was that the nice people from Camelot had tracked me down after tracing a winning ticket back to my name, but amazingly, that wasn't the case. It turned out that Alex and his family had been boating off Scotland for a while, but after reading our articles in Motor Boat and Yachting, decided that the Med was the place to be, so they'd bought a boat in Croatia and last year sailed it down to Athens! Fortunately, all seem to have gone pretty well, otherwise I think we may have been blamed for their decision!!
Flisvos is a huge, modern and efficient marina, with restaurants and bars along the waterfront and some amazing boats tied up here. The largest is akin to a small cruise ship and has not only it's own berth but an entire pier to itself! If Greece is broke at the moment, I'd love to see the boats they'd buy if they were feeling flush!!
Frank flew back to Jersey for a few days and I stayed on board. With overcast skies and the occasional drop of rain, I spent the first day just getting Zaffina shipshape, and the following morning, assembled my collapsible (but hopefully not whilst I'm on it) bike and cycled off to explore the area. There's a lovely park just outside the marina, and then a long seafront promenade which stretches for miles and has a couple of nondescript little beaches along the way - Flisvos is not a bad place to be stuck, and once the sun put in an appearance and the rainclouds completely disappeared, I was able to enjoy a pleasant and very hot afternoon on the beach, near a group of elderly Greek men who were playing a board game and singing along with a tinny radio, very loudly and extremely out of tune.
The marina has a facility to do grocery shopping, and as there aren't any supermarkets within walking distance, I gave them a long list of items we required. When my shopping appeared, all was well apart from one error...instead of a Galia or Charantais melon, the most enormous watermelon, three times the size of my head and weighing a ton, was delivered to the boat! Despite giving away large portions, setting up a little table with a notice saying "help yourself" and trying to come up with various watermelon salad variations, it's difficult to get through such an gigantic fruit when you're on your own! I don't think I ever want to see a watermelon again in my life!
As usual, there were a few hiccups to be dealt with whilst we were in port, and workmen came on board to check out the various tasks. One problem was that the blowers on the engines weren't working, and although in the short term that wasn't a big worry, we didn't want to undertake any long journeys without them. But small problems sadly can turn into big ones, and we were told we'd need several days in port whilst they were fixed, and indeed, repair may be impossible and instead they may need replacing at painful expense.
The engineers weren't free until after the weekend, so with Frank now back from Jersey, we took a gentle trip down to the island of Aegina, just an hour away from Athens and earmarked a couple of lovely anchorages for future visits. Although we only nosed in for a quick look, Aegina Town seems delightful and we'll definitely head back there later in the summer, but after spending the afternoon at anchor, we continued to a very quiet little port further south, Perdika, where we spent the night tied up to the town quay. Our arrival was almost textbook, despite a cross wind, so it was fun a short while later on to watch a professional skipper on a boat slightly larger than Zaffina make a complete pig's ear of his berthing, amidst much shouting and swearing at his crew.
On Sunday we meandered a short way along the coast to Pirgos, one of several anchorages on the south coast, and I had my first swim ashore with the ropes of the season - not my favourite task, especially when the water is still pretty chilly, but worth it for the security we have once we're tied from both stern quarters, as well as firmly anchored in situ. As Sundays go, it was pretty idyllic, just lazing on board, swimming occasionally and watching other boats - mostly large motoryachts with crew on board - come in and tie up nearby. But when evening fell, we were one of only two boats remaining at anchor, and spent a perfect and peaceful night on a remarkably calm sea. For our first night at anchor of the season, it really couldn't have been better.
It was an early start on Monday as we needed to be back in port for the engineers, but we'd overlooked one vital fact...using the engines for an hour meant they were too hot to work on when we got back into Flisvos and consequently we had to put the work back by another day. Very frustrating, especially as the sea conditions have been perfect since the weekend, and we were hoping to get down to the Cyclades this week; instead, we're still waiting for the blowers to be fixed, but the good news (keeping fingers firmly crossed) is that the engineers said they've managed to repair them so they don't need to be replaced after all, and they should be fitted tomorrow morning. Watch this space!