Second day in Greece and we wait for Yiannis the broker to arrive to start the procedure of retrieving our boxes from the airport. The hostess of the establishment served coffee and great cakes for our initial meeting with Yiannis, who incidently doesn't drive. He takes taxis or gets his poor wife to drive him around. The 3 males take the hire car and head back to the airport, this time to the cargo area.
Starting the paperwork came to an abrupt halt when Gary didn't have his passport with him. Sorry! come back tomorrow. So Yiannis organised a van and driver to pick Gary up the next morning and go back to the aircargo place.
While this was happening, Liz and I walked to the close by shopping area at Glyfada. We had been told it was too far to walk and we should take the tram. It was only a few klms and the walk did us a lot of good. The shopping area covered about a 3 block square and had some exclusive shops and of course loads of cafe/bars and eateries.
Back at our accommodation I asked directions to the closest ATM to have Gary financial for his trip the next day, thinking perhaps we would have a huge customs bill plus the 300 euro for the truck. It is a lot of money but the driver speakes the lingo and does most of the negotiating. Back to the directions from "Manwell": take the next road adjacent to this and the bank is only about 4 blocks, "but I'm not entirely sure". After a 6 block walk and no sign of a bank we attempt to ask a kiosk operator. No bank but try the supermarket 2 streets across and 2 streets up. Joy!!! a supermarket and not 1 but 3 ATMs. Become financial, buy some things for a self catering breakfast ( we have a fridge in our room) and head back. The streets are lined with fruit trees, mainly orange and loaded with fruit falling to the ground. No one seems to be bothered about the waste or about harvesting them.
We again eat at NtpslkwpA. Don't ask for a pronounciation and with out Greek characters on the computor that's the best representation I can make. Again the tasting platters came and after we had our main meal our host produced an assortment of desserts. A couple of beers and a wine and we were ready for bed.
Take 2 for getting the boxes. With passport in hand Gary was collected by the truck and after he left, we packed our bags to take to the boat. We were relinquishing the car the next day at the airport, catching a bus to Lavrion so this was the only opportunity to transport our bags to the boat, and meet Gary and the boxes there. I had a time trying to make the hostess understand that while we were taking our bags, we were not checking out. We were coming back and checking out the next day. Althought it is quite a distance between Voula and Lavrion, we had a good run and arrived to see the local markets in full throttle. Parked by the marina and walked to find "Panormitis". By the way, we have been told to pronounce it Pan-orr (slight roll of the r)meetis. Yiannis said we should have changed it. Too late now and anyway I think it should stay. Found it eventually after walking around the complete marina area. No Gary, so back for a coffee and a bite to eat and wait for him to make contact.
We take a coffee back to the boat for Gary who is not a happy little vegemite. 8 cartons have not arrived. Some one thought they would be in London tonight and in Athens tomorrow morning. That's fine but that means double handling fees and another 300 euros for the van again. Lucky Gary only had to open one carton and there was no customs to pay. We packed away some of the gear and stowed the rest of the cartons before leaving for Voula. The boat is quite dirty and I was dissappointed with its inside presentation. Yiannis assured me that they had only cleaned the outside and would be back the next day to clean inside.
Friday and we take the car back to Avis at the airport,then prepared ourself for some public transport back to Lavrion, hoping the cleaners would be finished for us to at least get our bunks made (some linen was in the cartons). The cleaners didn't finish until about 3pm and we filled the time with finding the local supermarket and other places of importance. So we had our first night on board after having a dinner of scratch....toasted sandwiches then HOT showers.
We waited til Monday for the final attempt to get the remains of our boxes, as over the weekend you pay about 70% more. In saying that you have to pay storage for the weekend which we were made aware of on Monday. We had decided that the delivery was deliberately split so as to get the handling fee twice. So an early start to the bus, Gary getting off at the cargo terminal to start things rolling and to take delivery of our spinnaker which has fortunately arrived from Hong Kong. All the cartons are there and were just given to him and the truck driver as they were included in the clearance yesterday. Not so the sail. Coff up some import duty please. 129 euro will do nicely!!!!
Meanwhile the rest of the crew stayed on the bus and got off at IKEA. Yes that's right. And next door was the equivalent of a Bunnings and Spotlight combination, with an electrical store on the other side of the huge car park. We shopped until we could not carry anything more and checked out the electrical store for a toaster and kettle. No thanks!! €55 for the kettle (a Tfel) and €60 for a toaster. Anyway we couldn't carry them. Get to the bus stop and when our bus came he didn't stop for us and we had an hour to wait for the next one. I had decided that I would sacrifice myself by getting into the bus lane to force a stop. Gary of course was back at the boat with a stack of cartons to get on board. Over the weekend we had a visit from the refrigeration man to commission the airconditioners and the watermaker after their winter shut down. During that time we asked for a quote to convert the ice box into another fridge. Agreed on the price but now I'm on a bus to Lavrion and the job has been done and Gary doesn't have enough money to pay him. How he thought I could hop off the bus , acquire the money and get back to the boat NOW I don't know. Because of the lost hour at the bus stop and and hour and a half trip it was getting on dark when we got back. Got the money, paid the man and decide a drink was in order. So now we only have 8 boxes to find homes for the contents. Tomorrow is another day.