Week 89 - In and Out

In, out, shake it all about… back out of the water. Cruising the Mediterranean on our boat Matilda.

We may be done with COVID, but I don’t think COVID is done with us yet.

Perhaps because we’ve been on the boat out on the islands inside Greece, it’s been of little concern to us this last few months. We’re triple-vaccinated and use our masks as required and while we’re cautious at times, it’s not stopping us doing anything we want to do.

But with big plans to meet up in the US as a family for the first time in 2.5 years, all of sudden it’s raising its head again. The guests we had scheduled this week reached out and said they were ill (possibly, but not yet confirmed COVID), so in an abundance of caution we cancelled the visit. Jasper’s flatmate has COVID, only a week before he’s scheduled to fly to meet us in the US. Inge’s flatmate had COVID a week before he flew out to Portland to meet Ella and now Matt & Maggie, who we are planning to stay with in San Francisco are dealing with COVID. After 2.5 years since we’ve been together as a family, we really don’t want anything to fuck this up, so it feels like we’re dodging bullets and threading the needle to get us all back together again.

With time on our hands again and a deadline coming up Saturday to haul the boat, we opted to spend a second night in Korfos. Originally we planned to stay at the spot we’d anchored, at a taverna, but the owner was hopeful a big charter fleet would come in and basically kicked us off, so we headed across the bay and dropped anchor there instead.

It was quite wet the first two days of the week with more red sand in the rain coating the boat. We travelled back to Aegina from the lower helm position for what’s probably only the second or third time.

The boat has been running very well after all the work that’s been done to the engines — one big improvement is the fuel efficiency, we were doing about 14 lph at our cruise speed of 1650 RPM, but now, we do around 10 lph which is a significant fuel efficiency boost!

We pottered around Aegina, did several boat jobs (including re-caulking the kitchen countertop) and headed into Athens on Thursday for some shopping and a quick change of pace. We also visited the apartment which is moving forward in the right direction again with the floor now being laid.

Saturday we hauled out again. I think we’re getting a little more used to it, but there’s still something very unsettling about seeing your home yanked from the sea and driven around the boat yard.

With the new air conditioner here, there’ll be no issue getting it installed while we are in the US and when we return we’ll be ready to head off around to the Ionian Sea.

Of course there are several other small jobs in the last month that need attention, so we’ll get those knocked over too — a power outlet broke, the guest toilet is leaking water, the anti-foul needs a quick touch up in a few places, but fortunately there’s no big jobs left.

As for us, we’re excited to be heading back to the US to see the kids. It’s literally now 2.5 years since we were all together as a family and it will be exciting to get back together and spend some time celebrating Ella’s graduation.

Want to see where we are now? Check us out on NoForeignLand https://www.noforeignland.com/boat/matilda

Until next time,

Tim & Karina