In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we welcome our first patrons onboard, we have a close encounter while leaving an anchorage and there are more issues with ...

Closed Captions (CC):
As captain my prime responsibilities are

the safety of the crew and this vessel

but when we are entering or leaving an

anchorage my responsibilities extend

beyond the boat to also other vessels in

the area and in particular people in the

water. When we're leaving Porto Rafti we had

particularly close call with a guy who

liked to snorkel too close to moving

vessels.

All right just bring it up slowly

Okay let me drive over it

Come on

This f@#$ing idiot getting closer and closer to

a moving boat

Hey! Hey!

Efharisto

It's 11:15 and we've just raised the

anchor at Porto Rafti and we're on our way

to Marmari in Evia. The wind is pretty

much on the nose about seven knots so

we're probably going to be motoring most of the way

unless things change

well we left the anchorage at Porto Rafti and it took several attempts for

the GPS and AIS to actually fire up and

show our position on the chart

Eventually it fired up and I thought okay

well it's just having one of those days

like it does sometimes and we'd just upped

anchor and left and passed the two small

islands at the bay we were exiting and

the GPS and AIS disappeared again. So we

switched them off for left and for a while

and put them back on and it's back on now

but we do... we can see where we're going

we know what our heading should be ... our

compass heading, the only concern is there are

some small islands closer to where we're

going that we'd have to weave through

and I'd prefer to have the GPS working

when we're doing that so that I know

exactly where the shallow bits are. It's

a three hour crossing today, it's meant

to be no wind and no waves but we have

15 knots of true wind coming out of

the North East and guess which direction

we're headed

yeah North East! So you know this

whole AIS and autopilot situation is

really pointing towards us massively

upgrading the system this winter so I don't know we'll ... I'll have ...

It's a huge chunk out of the budget and you

know we can't just upgrade parts because

the course computer, the brains of the

operation and everything, connects into

is a very old system it's a, I think it's a

at T300 or something or an A300 so it's

a very old system so the brains have got

to be fixed or replaced, probably

replaced is best because it's obsolete

for repairing I guess and then we add

parts to it that will talk nicely and

all play together in a nice happy family

kind of way. So right now heading on a,

compass heading of 50 degrees more or less

and

two and a half hours we'll get there.

It's all fun and games!

I've just dived the anchor. Really and

where did you dive it? Marmari. Which is on...

Evia. It's the island of Evia.

Opposite the mainland of Greece. Yeah

What was the situation with the anchor? Well I've never seen it dug in so much, you can't see the shaft

and you can only see half of the roll bar

and the roll bar is a big roll bar so

it's like it's really well dug in and it

looks as if ... so there's sort of very pale

sand on the top but then you can see the

dark black - mud - muddy kind of so

it's well in. Good holding we're in five metres

with 30 metres out and the winds for the

next five days are predicted to be

between 15 and 20 knots from the

north-northeast and this is a well

protected spot for that so. Yeah

We're in. Yeah the only, my only caution

is if you're coming in here just be

aware where you're dropping because when

I did have a look at our anchor about a

metre away is an abandoned really big

anchor - the old fisherman's anchor - yeah you know

the hook type - yeah so if we'd sort of

dropped just a little bit further

forward without realizing we would

have got caught up so - yeah - just be aware

that there's other stuff - and there was a

metal thing in there a bit further along

so... So there are things that could

foul your anchor in this little

anchorage here and it does shallow off as well

The further sort of like south you go so

you've got to get in pretty close to the

little harbor and quay here - missing the

mooring field - yeah

Now the reason we've come here is to

meet some Aussie mates, they're gonna be

here for five days and hopefully we're

gonna be able to take them on - out to

some of the - check out some of these islands here

which looked pretty spiffy on the way in

but like you were saying there are shallow

parts so we just have to be aware of them.

Yeah you've got to navigate fairly good. It

shallows off real quickly and we've got a

1.8 metre keel, we call it 2 metres

just to be on the safe side so

we're looking forward to meeting Shelley

and Ian. Oh can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!

Someone's excited! All right we'll talk to

you guys later. See ya!

Well, this fine Monday morning we've woken up

to dead flat, dead calm water, zero wind

and we're quite happy to leave A B Sea

parked out there on our anchor because

she ain't going nowhere with no wind.

Today we're going out with our friends

Shelley and Ian. They've decided to rent

a car and they want us to drive for them

I'm happy to do that - yeah -

It means we get to check out some of

the island too. Yes coz Evia is quite a

big island and there's a lot to see and

you need a car really. Yeah second

biggest Greek island after Crete.

Well we actually didn't hire a car here

because you can't actually hire one in

Marmari - yeah so we took a taxi across to

the bigger town on the south end of the

island - Karistos - and when we

got there even at this time of year the

end of September they were all rented

out. Go figure! We're leaving tomorrow so we're back

on the boat and we do have Ian and Shelly

with us. They are our newest patrons and

also we're gonna take this opportunity

to say hi to our other new patrons - Alan

and Kirsten Skeldon thank you very much

you two. Yes, and Hugh & Claudia Mair who we met

in Kythnos and their boat is called

Mairmade. Yeah thank you very much to

everyone. Thank you guys. Welcome to the patreon family and don't forget you've also now got

access to our private patreon only page

on Facebook so have a search for that

and as soon as you apply we'll let you

in. Yes. Lots of goodies there - yes - So

we're gonna spend the night here now

this is our final night here and then we

will head out tomorrow. We're going to

go and have lunch at a little bay on one

of the little islands that you can see

behind us and then we're going to go

back over to mainland Greece. Yes. Hope

the weather picks up. So do I. It's still kind

of warm it's just overcast that's all. First overcast day

we've had in seven months

Before we left Marmari we took the opportunity to go

alongside to top off the fuel tanks, fill

up with fresh water and give A B Sea a bit

of a scrub down as well

We are going to make provisions and then we go. If you want to go on our side (raft) it's okay.

He's happy now.

Smile and wave boy, smile and wave!

Grab the opportunities while you can

Morning! Morning! We're going we're leaving

we've stayed here far far far too long

a few days, about a week isn't it?

Nearly a week yeah.Yeah we're heading back to the mainland but before we do

that we're going to sail into one of

these little islands and check out one

of the little bays there - yeah - where

we'll stop and have lunch - yeah coz we've

got our mates Shelley and Ian onboard. Oh yes - so we want to - these aren't illegals, they

are our friends!

Yeah, they've got passports and everything!

Right shall I go and erm - yeah

take the snubber off and bring it the

anchor up and we'll get our tail out of here

It's beautiful

We anchored in Avlavo Bay at

Megalonissos Island and had a lovely

lunch before upping anchor

and sailing towards Porto Rafti

How's the sail, good? Fabulous!

We are back anchored in the beautiful

Porto Rafti on the southern side and

today which is a Thursday I am going on

a solo mini mission

Well I won't really be solo, I'm meeting

up with Nikos who's one of our

subscribers who helped us out here last

time and today's mission is to find some

polyurethane, some acetone, some

disposable paintbrushes and hopefully an

exchange for our cooking gas. Let's see how we get on

Well Nikos has come up with the goods.

The very first paint shop we stopped at

we got a gas bottle exchanged, we got 4 litres of acetone, we got the

polyurethane varnish. We didn't get the

small paintbrushes I think we'll need to

go to like an art supply store because

the paintbrushes they have here were

just far too big for painting seashells

but I'd call that a win and thanks to Nikos

Thanks Nikos. Don't mention it.

Next week on Sailing A B Sea we head over

to Sounion again on

the way back to Varkiza and we check

out Poseidon's temple which is awesome

and I also show you the fun that I have

hand washing the laundry on A B Sea.

If you've liked our video do all those

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We'll see you on A B Sea next time