Diver down ......
01 October 2013 | Lavrion
George.
Well, that has been an exciting 24 hours. On leaving Lavrion we caught a lazy line round our propeller. These are lines which are attached to the quay, with the other end secured firmly to something in the water some distance out, so you can pick up the line and fasten it to your boat, and moor without using the anchor. It wasn't the line we had used, we always check carefully that they have sunk before the boat moves, but this was a rogue one which somehow must have got caught up with ours and we didn't spot it. The effect being that the wind caught the bow of Fandancer and blew us almost 180 degrees round so our bow was now almost touching the quay and the stern wasnt moving. Luckily or unluckily we didnt have boats either side of us, and no one to help us.
We tried our luck with a boat hook, as we thought the rope had only got caught in the gap between the hull and the rudder, but it didnt budge. I think Tim was waiting for me to offer to put on my swimming costume, mask and flippers and go down and take a look. I have happily done so before, when I discovered and removed some debris attached to the propeller(using the galley bread knife) when we were moored in the crystal clear waters of San Stefanou in Corfu, but this was a harbour, and although it didnt look too disgusting, the thought of swimming in murky water wasnt pleasant. So Tim managed to get ashore and went to the charter boat office who were very helpful, and promised a diver would be along in a few minutes after he had finished another job nearby.
Of course that was a Greek few minutes, which actually turned into almost an hour. But he did eventually arrive, was very polite and helpful, spoke good English. He was in the water under the boat for about ten seconds when we saw the rope go slack, and thought 'we are going to end up paying 100 euros for ten seconds work', but he didnt reappear. The cynic that I am, I thought, well, he's going to stay down a bit longer, have a cigarette, a cup of coffee, make a few phone calls. Just to make us think we've got our money's worth....
But it turned out he had just cut the big lazy line to ease the tension and make it easier to remove the rest of the line rom the prop. Eventually he resurfaced with a large handful of rope debris, then inspected everything on the boat underwater to check the prop and propeller hadn't been damaged. Everything was ok, and he only charged us 30 euro!
Tim decided we could still leave the same day, despite the worsening weather forecast. We should be able to make our destination before nightfall.