We launched!
Literally & figuratively Homecoming would not be in the water without help. We are thankful for all the assistance.
Everything went to plan (as we adjusted our expectations).
The port police asked for more documents, then stamped our paperwork. The shipyard asked for cash, but took credit cards. The shipyard's maintenance guy, which is a different entity, asked what I wanted to pay as they had no invoice.
We bought a restaurant gift card for what became our shipyard workers "group" for lunch as a Thank-You. We found out that this is not a normal thing but after some back and forth & explaining, the Pizza guy was happy to take our money on a slow Sunday, we hope everyone is happy & enjoys it.
Funny stressful story here - The crazy thing is we had shipped three packages from home a month before we left & one arrived in seven days, one in 14 days, and the last took an eternal tour of Europe, visiting France & Germany & then Greece. It was given to a local delivery guy on Friday am (we were scheduled to launch on Monday). We continually checked the status & kept a look out of the cars coming in and out of the yard & asked the security guard to let us know if anything for Homecoming came to let us know. Nothing came & knowing that Sunday everything is closed we were giving up hope. Monday morning arrives, controlled chaos begins to happen. The car rental gets picked up. We hired a captain (friend of one of our new friends here in the shipyard) to be with us for the day. He was coming from Athens which is 1 1/2 hours away & had not arrived yet when the yard crew was saying they were ready to put Homecoming in the water. Makas the captain arrived & jumped out of the car & much discussion between him and the crew ensued at which machinery started jumping into action again. The status of the package was checked one more time & low and behold it said it was delivered! Colleen frantically climbed down the ladder and sprinted to the office. As we backed into the ramp she came back hauling this package & one of her yard friends threw the package up. The launch driver was laying on the horn. She is trying to get on the boat now that it is on the lift so we dropped the ladder & she puts one foot into the guys hands & pulls herself up to the ladder & climbs on! The whole scene was just comical (now).
The launch itself was a lot like putting the pontoon boat in the water in Rhode Island. A bunch of guys standing around talking, you push the buttons for the engines and pray they start, the guy on the machine gives you the go signal, throttle in reverse, and you slowly break free, trying to keep it straight so as to not bump the machinery.
Makas helped us with the systems & overall running of the boat. The boat is a web of distinct yet intertwined systems, most of them rely on seawater, so we could not start them in the yard. The generator had a hidden fuel pump switch, which we ended up texting the old owner to discover. Once we got enough electricity we tackled the water maker. The water maker takes the sea water and pushes it at high pressure through a super tight mesh, that only water can get by. The water maker had a chunk of chlorine in the intake to keep it ready when in storage, so the sensors thought the water had too much salt. Once that was discovered, it was a real thrill to see the water gauge slowly go up. The inverter takes the 12 volt electric that we get from the solar panels and is stored in a bank of batteries and makes it work in normal plugs. Chargers, printers, ice maker. The inverter is housed in the back of a cabinet that can only be reached by laying in the cabinet and wiggling forward into the back recesses. After climbing in and out a few times, we discovered the sequence and now have a working inverter.
We had a great sail to Athens and tied up to a wall with an inordinate amount of exercisers. After the olympics in Athens they turned this area into a running fitness park. Like a trail of ants they would run, bike, and walk along the harbor. After the eventful day Colleen was ready for a fancy drink. So we got in the stream of exercisers and headed to the bar. Colleen did slow down markedly while passing the chin-up bar station with its strapping young men.
We are so glad that we were able to get here before May 15th when the regulations changed for Greece. We got to know the cute little town of Agioi Theodoroi all to ourselves.
Good to be on the water, good to be going.
Good to not hear Colleen asking, when that third package will arrive & Colleen (who has been co-writing,says so glad to not hear Peter keep asking "when will we get this boat in the water".
Picts/Videos are posted. The one long video is the complete launch real time 9:17 minutes even with the package holding up the train at 2:25 minutes when Colleen “leapt aboard”. The other one is a GoPro fixed to the front on time warp, taking pics every few minutes :57 seconds long.
To end this one, we are very thankful to have gotten this far & we are thankful for all of the help, love and support here and at home!