We are currently back in Ay Eufimia, still cruising with fellow Kiwis Bruce and Lesley. All is well and the weather has been great – high 20s and sunny with little wind.
This is our last week cruising as next Sunday 7th we go into the marina for the winter.
This post takes us up to 11 September.
A PLUG FOR GREECE
While cruising we rarely read newspapers or attempt to catch up with “the news”, but we were given a copy of the International Herald Tribune, 27 September.
What a shame to see on the front page a picture of some louts throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Police in Athens. If you read the facts on this, there was a peaceful demonstration of about 40,000 people protesting about further cuts in income and pensions to meet the terms of Greece’s lenders to release further money. Then a few masked hoodlums acted violently, as apparently the same small group always does, portraying Greece in a totally false light - just like the so-called London riot a few months ago.
Having spent over four months in Greece this year, we have yet to see any kind of violence, intimidatory behavior, or even anti-social behavior, and we certainly feel safer walking around at night here than we do in our own country. Neither do we see soup kitchens or miserable faces.
Yes Greece has major economic woes caused by lack of exports, oversized and inefficient government bureaucracy, rife government corruption, and failure to collect taxes among other reasons, but most Greeks are hard-working, honest, helpful, and extremely friendly people. Among OECD countries, working Greeks work more hours per year than any other country except S Korea. Sadly though, there is currently 24% unemployment, and 55% youth unemployment.
The average wage here slipped from Euro 20,400/yr (about NZ$31,900) in 2010 to Euro 15,800 /yr (about NZ$24,700) in 2011, a decline of about 25%, while VAT increased to 23%.
“Services”, including tourism, accounts for 85% of Greece’s GDP, while Industry is 12% and Agriculture only 3%. Interestingly Greece has the world’s largest merchant navy accounting for 16% of total tonnage.
KOMBARI AND GERALD DURRELL
We left Corfu town to explore some of Corfu’s coastline we hadn’t yet been to.
Diane has been an avid reader of author, Gerald Durrell, based on his life at Corfu, so it was great to spend a night anchored in Kalami, where their family home, the White House, has been converted into a taverna. Of course it was mandatory to make a pilgrimage ashore for a cold beer there.
This is Diane’s contribution.
“We were steaming along the sparkling east coast of Corfu, heading towards an area that had fired my imagination since my teen-hood. Ever since I’d read Gerald Durrell’s fascinating and often hilarious "The Corfu Trilogy" I was determined to see the place that he had written about.
He had grown up as a young lad in Kalami, a small Corfu seaside village, during the 1930s, and later wrote about the local characters and the various birds, animals and insects he studied. It was here that he started his lifelong love of collecting and conserving all species of the animal kingdom.
Kalami itself is an absolutely stunning area, consisting of several small white-stony beaches, vivid clear water and green hillsides dotted with rather sumptuous villas and small hotels. It was in one of these bays where “The White House” languished, right on the waters edge. This was the former home of the Durrell family with the often mentioned olive grove alongside, and the small beach where Gerald would spend hours, swimming and boating. It is now a very popular taverna owned and operated by the Greek family that ‘did’ for the Durrells when they lived there. We went ashore that night for a drink and were told that the Durrell family had continued to return with their families for many years.
Looking up at the beautiful lush mountains I could well picture a young Gerry stalking up the hills with his dogs in tow, and his bag full of specimen jars in which he placed his ‘finds’. It was so satisfying to see reality actually improving on my imaginations of old.”
Former home of author, Lawrence Durell in Kalami
.JPG)
Envoy anchored in Kalami
.JPG)
While anchored in Kalami a charter yacht crewed by a young Dutch couple had some problems anchoring, and fouled the anchor of a German yacht. They seemed to have no idea what to do about it, so I went over in our RHIB to lend a hand, and showed them how to take the weight off the chain that was fouled on their anchor using a line made fast to their bow, then release some tension off their own anchor chain, free and retrieve their anchor, then let the other yacht’s chain fall free – job done!
TECHNICAL: I have been taking further temperature readings around our Lugger main engine using a laser digital thermometer. Sharing these readings with Northern Lights (the Lugger manufacturer), they believe it most likely that the keel cooler is the problem. Silicates can build up inside the cooler, while on the outside you get some marine growth, plus accumulated anti-fouling. It’s probably best not to antifoul these. When we go into the marina I’ve organised a diesel engine mechanic to take a look at this.
I noticed an odour of lpg around our gas bottle locker on the Portuguese bridge. On investigation I found that the regulator on top of the gas bottle was leaking and needed replacement.
LOG: Up to 11 September had spent 165 days aboard, and cruised 1,533 miles for 296 engine hours.
This is our last week cruising as next Sunday 7th we go into the marina for the winter.
This post takes us up to 11 September.
A PLUG FOR GREECE
While cruising we rarely read newspapers or attempt to catch up with “the news”, but we were given a copy of the International Herald Tribune, 27 September.
What a shame to see on the front page a picture of some louts throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Police in Athens. If you read the facts on this, there was a peaceful demonstration of about 40,000 people protesting about further cuts in income and pensions to meet the terms of Greece’s lenders to release further money. Then a few masked hoodlums acted violently, as apparently the same small group always does, portraying Greece in a totally false light - just like the so-called London riot a few months ago.
Having spent over four months in Greece this year, we have yet to see any kind of violence, intimidatory behavior, or even anti-social behavior, and we certainly feel safer walking around at night here than we do in our own country. Neither do we see soup kitchens or miserable faces.
Yes Greece has major economic woes caused by lack of exports, oversized and inefficient government bureaucracy, rife government corruption, and failure to collect taxes among other reasons, but most Greeks are hard-working, honest, helpful, and extremely friendly people. Among OECD countries, working Greeks work more hours per year than any other country except S Korea. Sadly though, there is currently 24% unemployment, and 55% youth unemployment.
The average wage here slipped from Euro 20,400/yr (about NZ$31,900) in 2010 to Euro 15,800 /yr (about NZ$24,700) in 2011, a decline of about 25%, while VAT increased to 23%.
“Services”, including tourism, accounts for 85% of Greece’s GDP, while Industry is 12% and Agriculture only 3%. Interestingly Greece has the world’s largest merchant navy accounting for 16% of total tonnage.
KOMBARI AND GERALD DURRELL
We left Corfu town to explore some of Corfu’s coastline we hadn’t yet been to.
Diane has been an avid reader of author, Gerald Durrell, based on his life at Corfu, so it was great to spend a night anchored in Kalami, where their family home, the White House, has been converted into a taverna. Of course it was mandatory to make a pilgrimage ashore for a cold beer there.
This is Diane’s contribution.
“We were steaming along the sparkling east coast of Corfu, heading towards an area that had fired my imagination since my teen-hood. Ever since I’d read Gerald Durrell’s fascinating and often hilarious "The Corfu Trilogy" I was determined to see the place that he had written about.
He had grown up as a young lad in Kalami, a small Corfu seaside village, during the 1930s, and later wrote about the local characters and the various birds, animals and insects he studied. It was here that he started his lifelong love of collecting and conserving all species of the animal kingdom.
Kalami itself is an absolutely stunning area, consisting of several small white-stony beaches, vivid clear water and green hillsides dotted with rather sumptuous villas and small hotels. It was in one of these bays where “The White House” languished, right on the waters edge. This was the former home of the Durrell family with the often mentioned olive grove alongside, and the small beach where Gerald would spend hours, swimming and boating. It is now a very popular taverna owned and operated by the Greek family that ‘did’ for the Durrells when they lived there. We went ashore that night for a drink and were told that the Durrell family had continued to return with their families for many years.
Looking up at the beautiful lush mountains I could well picture a young Gerry stalking up the hills with his dogs in tow, and his bag full of specimen jars in which he placed his ‘finds’. It was so satisfying to see reality actually improving on my imaginations of old.”
Former home of author, Lawrence Durell in Kalami
.JPG)
Envoy anchored in Kalami
.JPG)
While anchored in Kalami a charter yacht crewed by a young Dutch couple had some problems anchoring, and fouled the anchor of a German yacht. They seemed to have no idea what to do about it, so I went over in our RHIB to lend a hand, and showed them how to take the weight off the chain that was fouled on their anchor using a line made fast to their bow, then release some tension off their own anchor chain, free and retrieve their anchor, then let the other yacht’s chain fall free – job done!
TECHNICAL: I have been taking further temperature readings around our Lugger main engine using a laser digital thermometer. Sharing these readings with Northern Lights (the Lugger manufacturer), they believe it most likely that the keel cooler is the problem. Silicates can build up inside the cooler, while on the outside you get some marine growth, plus accumulated anti-fouling. It’s probably best not to antifoul these. When we go into the marina I’ve organised a diesel engine mechanic to take a look at this.
I noticed an odour of lpg around our gas bottle locker on the Portuguese bridge. On investigation I found that the regulator on top of the gas bottle was leaking and needed replacement.
LOG: Up to 11 September had spent 165 days aboard, and cruised 1,533 miles for 296 engine hours.
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