Current Cruise - Greece 2010

Malua started her cruise from where we hauled her for the winter, in Preveza in Greece.  

Iain and I arrived in Athens after a long flight from Sydney.  I never try to calculate how long it actually is, I just try to sleep for as long as I can then wake up at the destination.  This time it seemed to work rather well as I was not jet lagged in the slightest.  Greece is in a financial crises and is being helped by the other memebers of the EU.  When they entered the Union they like many other fudged the books.  But like most Greeks they do it better than many.  Well the GFC hit Greece hard and out of the woodwork came the worms.  On top of that the Greeks dont like to work hard.  I believe the government retirement age is 45 or it could be 55 but anyway well before the Germans or even the French.  Athens had one of its mant strikes on the day we arrived and the mob was demonstrating.  The government has raised the VAT from 18 to 21 percent and it now sounds as if the EU memebers will bail the country out if they raise the retirement age, cut wages, and pensions to more resonable levels and raise the VAT to 25%.  The are also going to impose a tax on sailing vessel over 15m of 300 euro a meter each year.  Well that will drive the charter fleet out again.  Will they ever learn that tourism could be ther saviour.

We arrived at Previza via bus to find Malua spick and span - Bristal fashon.  It is great that we have now perfected a system to winter Malua which keep it is such good shape.  The two battery banks where at 13.4 thanks to the solar panels, the bilge dry and only a small trace of mold in one cupboard.

Iain helped me take the two anchores out from the cabin (placed over the centre of graverty of the vessel) remove the RIB which we had stored down below and roll back the cover over the cockpit.  It was then getting down to finding everything and putting it in its right place.  Not a simple job because there was always something in the way or some excuse to do that later.

We set a deadline for five days from arrival to go in the water.  It concentrates the mind and focusus the effort.  The firts job was to wash and polish the topsides.  As always I was able to secure a plank and a couple of tressels from the nether reagions of the yard.  This put Iain at the right height to hand wash every part of the white topsides.  Not a difficult job but I could not do it with my arm.  He did that in half a day then set about waxing the sides.  I sounded like the Kirati Kids mentor ...wax on wax off  Unfortunatly there was not the same dedication but we got hte job done.

The following was was sanding the oold antfouling.  not a great job but with an overall and a very good gas mask the task was completed.  Just a wash and then the following day we applied the Micron Extra Light Blue anti fouling.  I use this product because the boat is out of the water for 6 months and thier specifications note that the antifoul does not deterirate.  We put on 3.5 leters over the whole boat.  Quite a change from thr 12 leters I use to put on in Australuia but there again that was not as effective as the 3.5 European mixture.  Thanks OZ oyster farmers from keeping me in work but healthy not that I eat that many oysters.