Birvidik

It's all very well this changing job descriptions business. You'll remember that Liz now does all the intricate wheel and lever waggling stuff whilst Bob has now taken over the Heave-Grunt ropes, anchors and fenders business. This can, however, have unexpected consequences.

After the fiasco of the mucky diesel, we left Lefkas and went to anchorages at Vlikho and Astokos, both of which we'd visited before. From Astokos it was into the Gulf of Patras and pastures new.

The first stop was Missolonghi, whose brief claim to fame was as the place that Byron died. Well, OK, it was also one of the original sites of the resistance to Ottoman rule that led to the Greek war of independence and as a result suffered a prolonged siege in which 4000 Greeks died of starvation and another 3500 broke out. Unfortunately 1500 of those were killed and the remaining 2000 were sold into slavery and had their ears and noses cut off for good measure. Must have reduced their resale value you'd have thought. But what's all that compared with the death of some poetic English toff from what was officially reported as 'a fever' but was probably the clap. You know what these poetic types are like, they're all at it. Any time, any body - any species probably.

Missalonghi is a bijou little university town, which is reached from the sea up a 2 kilometre canal dredged from the surrounding salt marsh. There's a large basin at the end surrounded by muddy shallows, and a partially constructed marina which offers free mooring and precious little else. Mind you, we did get a visit from a charming gentleman who handed us a leaflet upon which was an 'artist's impression' of the upmarket completed marina. This boasted hotels, shower blocks, shops, landscaped gardens, swimming pool, restaurants, the lot. And, it insisted, all this would be operational by June 2009.

As this was the end of May 2009, we looked around the dusty, barren landscape and wondered at the amazing efficiency by which the three Greek workers equipped with one cement mixer, one pickup truck, two shovels and a broom were to transform it into the described yottie's paradise in a bare 5 weeks. Look and learn, Bovis, look and learn.

Missolonghi also boasted a rather unusual attraction, a munitions graveyard.. Inside a compound near the quay was a collection of old rusty military hardware - tanks, jet fighters, mobile surface to air missile stations. Of course, we couldn't resist it could we. We clambered all over them, round them and in them, striking silly poses for the camera and making brrrm, whoosh, boom and kak kak kak kak noises. See photos in the 'Back on board' gallery.

We got the bikes out for further exploring and discovered another unusual feature of Missolonghi. Greeks on bikes.

Most Greeks wouldn't be seen dead on a bike. Actually, that's not strictly accurate. Given the standard of Greek driving, and the attitude of most Greek drivers to bicycles (namely an irritation of no redeeming significance which should be disposed of at the earliest possibility) dead is exactly the condition in which they'd be seen were they ever to be so démodé as to get on one.

Except in Missalonghi. Here there are bicycle lanes and loads of fashionable young things pedalling decorously everywhere. We suspect that it's because it so flat. Salt marsh you see.

Anyway, to return to the introduction.

When we left Missalonghi, Liz took the helm and pootled off towards the canal whilst Bob untied ropes, brought in the fenders and put everything away. The trouble was that, with all that moving and turning around, he got a little bit disorientated. Looking up from the locker he saw a buoy ahead and said to Liz "That's an Easterly cardinal buoy - we're going the wrong side of it".

Now, Liz did exactly the right thing, which was to express her reservations, but to do as the captain said nevertheless. That's how it is on boats. Unfortunately, what Bob told her to do was the wrong thing, because it wasn't an easterly cardinal buoy, it was a starboard hand passage buoy, which you have to leave to port if your going out (don't ask).

Things weren't helped by the fact that the sun was now shining straight in our faces so we couldn't read the depth sounder. By the time horrible realisation had dawned, and Bob had said "it's shoaling, go hard to Starboa..." we ground to a graceful, if undignified halt on the mudbank.

We managed to get off by standing on tiptoe and applying hard astern thrust and slid out back into the channel, only to notice that the engine didn't sound quite right. Looking over the side, the spurts of cooling water in the exhaust were noticeable by their absence. The hard reverse thrust had stirred up so much mud and silt that it had been drawn into the cooling water intake and blocked the filters solid.

We had to switch off the engine to stop it overheating and seizing, so we dropped the anchor right in the middle of the narrow channel, much to the bemusement of the Greek fishing boats passing by through the much narrower gap, with much shaking of heads.

Bob shut off the seacock and did a record breaking dismantle, clean, seal and remantle of the engine filters, removing half a bucket of vile, sticky mud. Engine started, all clear on the water front, up anchor and off we went.

Two kilometres further on, just at the outer end of the canal, we noticed that the cooling water was now just a trickle, so off went the engine again and we drifted whilst Bob set a new record for , dismantle, clean, seal and remantle of the engine filters. This got out another half bucket of vile, sticky mud (see photo). Luckily, Arcadia was standing by while we did this and Keith showed great restraint - no sarky comments and not even so much as a smirk. And I thought he was ex Navy.

This seemed to do the trick and we got into Patras with no further incident. Bob did decide that he'd better replace the cooling water impellor when we got in, just in case it had been damaged by grit or by running dry. Actually, it was probably a bit of a penance for his original cock up - it's a bloody horrible job.

Still, on the positive side, he has shown that although he's more than capable of getting us into the shit, he's also capable of getting us out of it.

So far.