Ann departs on the 06:30 minibus to Athens. She is taking a road tour of Greece for a 10 days now.
We haul out at 11:00 and now we can start the out of the water boat jobs. Dave loves the ones where we flush out the sea water inlets of freezer and sea water pump. He stands below the boat with the hose up the inlets getting saturated while I turn them on for 5 minutes. If only I was taller I'd swap jobs with you Dave....Its a good day for it though, at 30 degrees I need a swim too.
Busy day of packing and cleaning.
One more day for us here, then we start the journey home. Will be great to See Reggie Dog again. We do miss him so.

The 2016 summary :
4 weeks of sailing
283 Nautical Miles
25 engine hours
32 L of wine
57 beers
4 new anchorages
Completed a circumnavigation of Lefkas Island
No contact with solid objects.
Managed to be in port for the storms.
No major breakages for a change (not counting the dunny seat, and the intermittently working depth sounder)
No f'ing dolphins. Not a single one. Where are they this year?? Consolation prize was 'George' the turtle in Vathi.

So that, dear reader, is that.
Solero is up for sale so there may or may not be another installation next year. You'll have to wait and see.....

xxx

Another day of boat jobs!
There is always so much to do. We are getting through the list at a pace.
Town seems busy for a Sunday, and we finally work out why when we get to the church. They are just coming out from a wedding service. Dave has a chuckle at some girls who are struggling to stay upright on their high heels.
Wander around, wander around. Oh we just happen to be outside the Art Cafe again. What a coincidence!!! Shall we have a beer or two? Why not indeed.
Bunny and Bill (Onset) arrived yesterday at the Marina. Another fluke. We bumped into them a few times last season. This year they have had a long journey and been up through Croatia and back. Lovely to catch up over a glass of vino. Their boat is also for sale, and they may take her to Genoa next year if it doesn't sell by then, from where the ship carrying ships leave for the USA.
Lovely seafood dinner for Ann's last night aboard.

Up early to get through Lefkas channel and canal to the 10:00 bridge. We even set an alarm. On holiday. The bloody depth log flashing in doubt on several occasions. We have touched the bottom here last year, so would have been good to have a reliable depth sounder. There's a winter job to replace it.
Once through all that it is hoist the sails time. Wind is perfect. Enough wind to do 5 knots, but not too much to cause salt spray on our genoa. We washed her in Lefkas and need her clean and dry to stow.
Dave does a lovely job parking us in the corner at Preveza Marina.
Now its time for boat jobs, boat jobs and more boat jobs. The big one is getting the sails off and folded, being alongside here is a big help and we can flake them on the quay.
We do take time out to wander into town. The new find is the Art Cafe. A trendy little bar selling Belgian beers. Yum. Great music. Ann likes the painted mini buckets they have plants in. The owner says she will part with one for 5 euros. Sold. More stuff to carry home..... Calm down Dave. It is wafer thin...
Dinner is at the place with great food and poor service a few streets back from the waterfront. This time they manage to have even worse service than usual. They have done their dash now, we won't go back. Shame because the food is rather good.

Spartochori is a quaint village up the hill from Babis's restaurant, and for us a short taxi ride from Vathi. A little walk around the narrow winding streets, a little shopping with our favourite guy there, and a little breakfast upstairs in his restaurant. Dave tells me to stop buying stuff, we are supposed to be taking boat stuff home this time, not my souvenirs.
With no wind by midday we set off with the iron sail for Vliho and anchor near Elena's restaurant. They have had their quay improved since last year. When boats went by the waves came up between the boards and wet the feet of diners!! Not any more.
We went into Nidri for a look and a chandlery and on the way home bumped into Kay and Mike (Cinnabar) who we met 2 years ago in Corfu. We both had tied our dinghies to the same quay and were getting in our dinghies at the same time. What are the chances???

Dinner at Elenas was fabulous as always. In fact probably the best meal of our trip. There are 2 other restaurants on this side of the bay and they have about two tables of diners, Elenas is packed. The food and friendly service are hard to beat. Gotta feel a bit sorry for the other guys though.

Weather wise we are having a great time of it now. Mornings are a little chilly, the blankets are out. But lovely sunny days, with temps in the mid to high 20’s.
This morning we are out to boost the economy of Lefkas. Ann likes to shop and there are plenty of them to look in. Dave’s eyes have soon glazed over with that tortured look of a husband in shopping mall. Lucky I have Ann with me, Dave would not have let me shop for an hour!!! He has to be nice to his Mum!
Gyros for lunch. Very good one too.
Now we have good winds to head off to Vathi on Meganissi. One of our favourite towns. Our arrival is nicely timed, as the wind really picks up to 25+ knots after we have secured our berth. Making later arrivals more difficult.
Stavros for dinner. A beautiful greek salad, fried calamari, moussaka, fried zucchini etc etc.
I forgot to tell you about my expensive beer in Vathi.
I spied in the fridge of the gourmet bakery a bottle of truffle beer. Now I like a good beer, and I love truffles. What would a truffle beer be like? The best of both worlds or a horrible waste of two products. There may be a reason (besides the price) that I have not seen truffle beer before. So before dinner I insist we go there (TJ and Lou were with us that day) and ask her to bring it out without showing the bottle. No one was able to guess the mystery flavour. In fact it smelt like truffles, but didn’t actually taste of them. My theory on truffles is that they have to have some fat in with them to emphasise the flavour, and there is no fat in a beer. So a bit of a waste. Adding insult to injury is the 35 euro price tag (750ml bottle). OUCH !!!

Dinner last night was ok only. Perhaps poor choices on my part.
We have had lovely beetroot 'salad' before- it comes as a dip. This was not one of those times. It was merely slices of beetroot with a bit of oil on top. A hastily ordered tatsiki makes it edible. Zucchini fritters are better. Baked lamb is a tender lamb shank on mash. The stuffed eggplant is not on, so we have stuffed tomato and green pepper. Again not the best version we have had. The filling is a bit overcooked and of baby food consistency. A rare weak restaurant meal.

Small world. As we are walking into Little Vathi for some exercise, we meet 4 other Aussies who were here last night. Two of them are looking to move to Lake Macquarie, so we are able to give some information re the suburbs they are looking at.
Dave insists on buying a chicken pie, thus ensuring we go back and visit the good looking lady who owns the shop. I'm sure that her looks have NOTHNG to do with it, he only goes for the chicken pie. Right Dave? She tells us she is closing on Oct 15th. A date we have heard other businesses mention, so that really must be the end of the season around here. Panos better stay open longer than that - the owner we spoke to this morning is hauling out at our yard on Oct 23rd ! He'll need to eat dinner somewhere. Dave loves Panos so much he has already decided which dishes to order on both our dinners there - pasticcio and mousakka. Calamari and gavros will feature too.
Soula (shop keeper) gives us a very friendly welcome. When she and her husband went back home to Australia for the first time in over 20 years, he declared the first thing he wanted to eat after arriving was a meat pie!! Another Aussie who lives 6 months in Vathi and 6 months in Australia on hearing this story decided to make him a meat pie. It was a great hit, and apparently now she is busy making eight more to last him the winter!!!!

Back to the boat and we have a good enough tail wind to take us north to Lefkas Marina.
Time for a boat repairer to come and quote all the little jobs that need doing over winter. On stepping aboard he did not believe Solero is 7 years old - "gee you've taken good care of her. I thought she was new". What a lovely compliment.
We also visit a local boat broker as Solero has been for sale for nearly a year with no serious interest.
The Raymarine specialist gives us his advise on our depth sounder. On our way into Vathi (a new anchorage for us, so we had no real idea of the depths) the bloody depth sounder stopped working. We were able to get it working again after cleaning a very small amount of growth off the transducer. So we think that may have been the issue. He said the transducer should last 5-10 years, so maybe it is on the way out.
Dave buys me a belated birthday present. As an after thought I asked if they had a chartplotter cover (loyal readers will remember we lost ours in Vliho last year when it blew 60 knots - its probably still on the shoreline somewhere). Well they do !!! We have had a quote for 80 euros for a new one, a rectangular piece of bloody plastic and his is only 46euros. What a relative 'bargain' for a piece of bloody plastic.

Dave's mum, Ann, arrives at 8pm. Poor thing has come straight thru from Australia to Athens then a 5 hour minibus trip to Lefkas. Mezze on board and an early night.