We were warned and all the boaters here were busy fastening everything and putting on extra mooring lines. It started raining in the late evening, the first rain I have experienced in months. At around 2 a.m. the wind started howling and the predicted 50 miles an hour wind is here. Mostly in short gusts. Boat covers are being shredded, particularly on boats where the owners have gone home. Good thing that I took my dodger off yesterday, to have it repaired and replaced. I managed to salvage part of it and the price came down from the original nearly $600 to $ 400. This way I also saved the 40 Euroes that the installer has to pay to the marina for working there on my boat.
I repaired a leak in my water tank, a rubber bladder. This takes major surgery, to remove it from behind cabinetry. The deck caulking I did in Khios seems to have plugged a few nasty leaks, I found out after this first rain fall.
There used to be a non-denominational English church service here but by lack of interest the pastor moved to Fethiye, further south east from here. So, no church pictures today, sorry. The day after I arrived here, “Wilde Zwaan” became my neighbor for two days. They sailed yesterday to Fethiye. They are Henk and Ankie Jansen, from Leeuwarden. I met them in my first Greek harbor, Mitilini. Yesterday I was invited for a beer aboard “Belle Bête“, with George and his daughter Caroline. They are from Wesel, on the Dutch border and know von der Linden, who put a NAJA together about the same year I had mine built. I met him in Wesel in that period. Through the association with Whisstock Boat Yard, the builder of the NAJA kit, he became the German importer/distributor for the West System. Caroline studied architecture in Berlin and lives in Red Hook, N.Y. Right across from me is charter boat with an English group, I was anchored right in front of them last Tuesday night. They came in to escape the effects of the storm. The skipper has a friend who had worked in the Whisstock Boat Yard, in Woodbridge. Just to show again how small my world really is.
Today would have been my father’s 113th birthday, he lived only half of those years, 1 year longer than Steve Jobs.
Below are a couple pictures, I just received, from John and Bobbie, my Canadian friends, on “Quck Beam”, they made the pictures in the Black Sea off the coast of Bulgaria. It is a rare opportunity to have pictures taken while under sail.
