Having a nice holiday...?

I'm always a little amused when people say things like 'Are you having a nice holiday', or 'You must be enjoying your vacation'. It brings to mind iced G&T sundowners on the rear deck, snorkelling in crystal clear waters with palm tree shores, romantic sunset dining in cute taverna's on the beach, and so on.

The perpetrator identified!

Life on a boat is SO not like that. Sure, there are moments like the above, but the reality is that living on a boat is hard work, interspersed with moments of sheer terror. Its also a very full time job. Here's an example of why 'Having a nice holiday?' just doesn't capture the experience.

Dawn discussion and information swap

We were tied up at the port of Kythnos, was our second day in port. We noticed a small yacht pulling into the dock, really with no idea where to drop their anchor. Later on, Megan noticed that they were hitting the dock, but didn't really know how to pull off the dock properly. 'French charterer's...', we said, with our slightly superior airs!

The offender up close, at least they came into the dock!

The night was windy with an unpleasant chop in the port. The wind was 90 degree's across the boats, blowing about 25+ knots. Sleep was uneasy, Megan was up worrying about every unusual sound. All of a sudden, Megan is screaming for me to get up. Its 0300 and I'm groggy with sleep. I stagger up into the cockpit, just in my knickers. Why is it on boats, that you face every crisis just in your knickers?

The morning after

The French boat had decided to depart the dock at 3.00 am, pitch dark in 25 - 30 knot crosswinds. Lunacy to begin with. As soon as they released their stern lines, they were being swept down on top of us. That was the source of Megan's screaming. After fending them off somewhat successfully (Megan carries a map of the operation as bruises all over her body), they pirouetted in front of us, only to smack into the large catamaran next to us. We yelled for the crew of that boat, who weren't keen to come to the scene of the crime.

Soon, there was a whole cast of folk in their knickers, trying to disentangle the French boat. They' snagged an anchor as they tried to raise their own, and it was dangling from their bow! It didn't take long for the realization to dawn that that was OUR anchor, and we were no longer moored out the front. A mad scramble for keys, fire the engine into life, and we just managed to hold off the dock. Well, almost. The port corner of the transom was collected by the concrete and rock dock, and we lost some skin and teak capstripping.

Damage to the transom

Least of our problems at the moment! We were now twisted 45 degrees to the dock, bearing down on the catamaran, with the anchor piled up around us, pitch dark with a howling cross-wind, motor running full revs to avert catastrophe. The crew of the catamaran now just started screaming at Megan for us to 'Get Off', repeatedly and maniacally. Of course, this was not so simple. We managed to retrieve the anchor with no further snags, but were trying to rig a long spring line back to the dock to straighten Pavlov enough so that we could pull off without hitting anything else!

Somehow, we picked the right line to release, the boat straightened, I yelled to Megan to drop ALL the lines, RIGHT NOW, full throttle departure, and we managed to get off. Still in knickers, now 4.00 am.

A not-so-repentent skipper from the offending boat.

Now, we had to anchor in a strange harbour in the dark. Of course, our faithless windlass chose this moment to seize up completely. I had to go below (during which time, the boat is drifting in strong winds) to try and free the tangled knot of chain in the chain locker. I'd fallen down the companionway the previous day and had strained my hand and wrist quite badly. Needless to say, I failed in unravelling the winch. Poor Megan had to go down and literally beat the chain into submission.

We had anchored, but really had no idea how much chain we had out. We needed to stand watch, but both of us stayed up. It was pre-dawn, and we were too shaken to sleep. In the aftermath, we needed to persuade the French boat to come back to the dock, so we could exchange details. (They were strangely reluctant!). After a breakfast and a brief rest, we decided to depart for Kea, our next stop along the way.

We'd motored out into a rather sloppy sea, and were about 1.5 nm from the rocky coast, when abruptly, our engine just stopped with a PHUT (got to use your imagination for the right sound). Tried to fix the motor, couldn't understand what had happened. Tried to sail, not a breath of wind and we were drifting into a very inhospitable shore, steeply shelving with little chance to get an anchor out.

Some young Russian sailors saw our plight and attempted a tow. Their vessel was too light, and their helming too reckless so we abandoned that attempt. Out of idea's, we issued a 'PAN PAN' distress call, and requested assistance into the port. Megan, on the radio, was directed through a variety of rescue agencies, until we got onto the Port Police in Kythnos. A wonderful officer there left her office, went down and commandeered a fishing trawler. On the VHF radio, she said to Megan "I'm on this white boat and I am coming to you". Sweet words indeed.

We successfully towed in and docked back at the place of our nemesis the previous night. 100 Euro for the fisherman's time, and then we had to face Greek and Australian bureaucracy. The port police took our boat papers, and we had to obtain a certificate of seaworthyness before we would be allowed to depart. We'd determined that the cause of the problem was a gearbox empty of automatic transmission fluid. (Its funny how all the symptoms seem so clear in retrospect!), and had filled up the gearbox. Leak was from blown oil seals in the gearbox, but we should be all right if we keep the gearbox topped up with ATF. It could have been a very expensive exercise to get a mechanic onto the island to survey the boat, but our port police angel came to the rescue. She called an ersatz mechanic that surveyed the boat OVER THE PHONE! 5 minutes, and 200 Euro later, we had our certificate.

10 hours more of dealing with bureaucracy (Australian Embassy had to give their approval for our release, along with the Greek authorities), and by this stage, we'd been away for about 40 hours. Finally, the paper work was completed, we could slink home to bed.

Not really my idea of a vacation!