Saturday evening in Preveza, and I think everything is set to go. I'm assured of a hundred or so small projects that could stand doing, but I need to head north to Corfu. The past week has been a bit of a blur, so I'll try to recap as best possible.

Flight out of Seattle on Aer Lingus on Saturday evening. Not a bad flight. Enjoyed a beautiful aurora, watched a couple movies, and caught a couple of good naps. Arrived in Dublin around noon on Sunday, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the airport. I had a connecting flight with RyanAir, and had to sit with my bags until 3 hours before the flight. The reason for multiple bags was that I had a small chandlery's worth of parts and lines. Ryanair flight was uneventful and without movies, so knocked off a book before nodding off again. Arrived in Athens around 1 AM, and headed to the hotel. Got a fair nights sleep, then bus to the bus station, to catch the bus to Preveza. Great to see Greece in the Spring, with a good topping of snow on the major peaks. More sleep. Somehow I managed to quickly adjust to the time zone change, which will mean I can get more done.

Got to the boat on Tuesday. Our friend Tim, came and picked me up at the hotel. Really nice of him to give me a lift. Tracy and I met Tim and his partner JaJa when we were here in October checking on the boat. They have been here for a month or so, prepping the boat to go exploring. Tim was sanding down the hull in prep for anti-fouling paint. I've done this twice on my previous boat, and made a deal then that I'd pay someone else to do this job. Really unpleasant job.

Picked up the boat key and walked out to inspect the repairs to the hull and to the shaft. Pretty happy with both. Paint had been touched up and waxed, and made her look new. Now for the hard part, getting through my work list. Even though I'd made extensive lists of work to be done, it was still and ominous looking task. I had to start somewhere, so started putting her back together. Took a couple of days to get things moved around, and moved around again, but things slowly started taking shape. Get dodger up and out of the way. Put bunks back in place and re-stow gear. Pull the forward battery bank and put the batteries on deck. That was a pain! That's what we get for leaving her sit for so long. Turns out that my solar charger did a terrible job of regulating the charge rate, and fried the forward batteries. Made a couple of trips back to office to inquire about my replacement batteries, as well as some shore power. Finally the forklift showed up in the late afternoon, so I got the new ones on deck, and he was nice enough to take the old ones off. Always leery seeing the batteries being moved on the forklift. When I was originally loading the big 8D batteries back at Herrington Harbor during the refit, the forklift tipped forward with the batteries at boat height. Both fell off and dropped 15' to the ground. Costly mistake, so glad that there was no repeat in Greece. Spent the remainder of the evening hooking batteries up and getting power system online. Amazingly, everything came right up. And that was the first day. It was nice to have a hotel to return to at night, instead of sleeping aboard in the yard. It really made a difference. Souvlaki and beer for dinner, then off to get some sleep.

One of my biggest concerns was with regards to the amount of time the boat had been in Greece. We had put the boat in bond when we put her on the hard in July '17, and had been told we would be able to extend the amount of time the boat was allowed to be in Greece (18 months with extension to 20 months). However, our experience in Greece was that we would get a different answer from each office we went to for either immigration, port police, or customs. A bit concerning, as I was worried that we would get the answer that we had over stayed and would have to pay a fine. Fortunately, we asked the right person, and got the correct answer, and looked to be in the clear. But come back tomorrow, after you put the boat in the water. So a taxi back to the marina, and back to work.

I needed to redo some of the plumbing, specifically the tangle of hoses around the water maker. The water maker that has never managed to make water. Lots of time, effort, and anguish was spent on the install of attempts to make it work. Eventually, we gave up since water didn't seem to be an issue on the trip to date. And the water in Greece is excellent, something that they are very proud of. While I was crawling around under the settee, the sailmaker showed up with the new sails and the SailTrack. That is the track that mounts on the mast and enables the fully battened main sail to easily travel up and down the track. Barry and his assistant got to work on the install while I finished up my plumbing job. Looks much better and should resolve a recurrent leak.

The new sail looks great and we got it bent on and hoisted before the wind came up. We got it far enough along that we could put it in the lazy jack bag, which will have to do until I get to Corfu and can get the reefing set up modified. Also have a new jib, which I'll bend on after going in the water. Lots of rigging work,so I expect to make a trip or two up the mast.

Starting to run out of time before launch on Thursday morning (tomorrow), so back to the work list. One of my quick tasks was to change out the impeller on the raw water cooling pump. YouTube shows it done in about 20 minutes, so should be something to quickly cross off the list. Wrong! Whoever put the last one in, must have driven it on with a hammer. It took a couple hours to slowly work it off, largely by removing the failing rubber. Good thing I decided to change it. Too bad it was taking so long. Ok, with old impeller off, new one should be a quick install and screw the cover plate back on. Wrong! The top of the shaft was smashed, so I couldn't get the new impeller to fit on. Now what! Off to borrow a file from Tim, since I believe my nice small detail files are back home in Seattle. On the walk over to Tim's boat, I run into an engine repair guy. So I lined him up for the morning in case I can't make this work. And the answer is, that I couldn't make it work. Time to call it a day and head back to the hotel. Dinner at the taverna where we met Tim and JaJa last year. Grilled octopus and a Fix or two! Yummy

Checked out of the hotel and back to the boat in the morning. Fortunately the engine repair guy showed up and got to work. Bad news, he has to pull the pump. Having experienced something similar in Crotone with the fuel pump, I was worried that I was going to be stuck without a working engine, and I was launching in less than two hours. Good news, he fixes it and brings it back just as the boat is towed to the travel lift. Back aboard before the boat goes in the water, he re-installs the pump and pronounces it good to go. With the boat in the water, we test it out, and amazingly, the engine starts right up. We are good to go. What a relief!

Motored across the channel to the town quay, tied up and headed to Customs. While I had to sit and cool my heels for a while, I was rewarded with the precious document stamp and extension on my Transit log. Good to go. Now to the Port Police for their approval. These are the ones that everyone in the office has a different opinion, so it is never a known outcome. Fortunately, I got the right Port Police and was soon on my way back to the boat, with all documents in order. Now, back to work. More stowing gear, running rigging, changing fuel filter, etc, etc, etc. and back to the taverna for dinner again.

I spent Friday in the bilge, cleaning it out and replacing the bilge pump. Never a fun job. But hey, four hours later and we have a new pump that works great. Made introductions to a British boat in front of me. Ian and Laura have been here for six months working on their boat, and just got her back in the water as well. Got to talking and invited to go to dinner in the evening. Tim came over to help me with rigging, and I got a Birdseye view of the town from the top of the mast. Couldn't have done it without him. Drinks and dinner with Ian and friends turned into a late night. Lots of fellow cruisers here getting ready to go exploring.

Today was the day to wrap up loose ends, like putting on the headsails. Ian was kind enough to help, and though we had a few snafus and a second trip up the mast, it was all complete. It would have been extremely difficult to get that done without their help. Glad that fellow cruisers are ready to pitch in where they can. They headed off this afternoon to explore the bay a bit, so I won't see them again on this trip. A couple of hours waiting for the Port police, and then I had my documents stamped to head to Corfu in the morning. One last provisioning run (somewhere in there I made 3 or 4 trips to the store) and now I'm just trying to crank out this post so I can get it off before departure in the morning.

I have really enjoyed Preveza and we have some good memories here. We arrived here almost two years ago, and have gotten to know the town. I will miss it, and hope that we get a chance to return some day. The Greek people, food, and culture are really great. So it is off to Corfu in the morning to get the crew of Robert and Joe. Looking forward to the next leg of the trip.