CRUISING NORTH TO CORFU

Throughout the Adriatic and the Central Med there is very unstable weather with Force 7-8 gales in most areas, and Envoy is in the marina at Bar, Montenegro sitting it out.
Kevin and Diane O’Sullivan joined us yesterday, coming by bus from Dubrovnik – not the ideal day for them to start a Med holiday.
After leaving Lefkas Marina we went up the Lefkas canal, through the road bridge that opens every hour and on to Gaios on the island of Paxos. We were the only boat anchored there until we saw a Nordhavn 47 steaming into the bay. This turned out to be “Mad Sunday,” owned by Ian and Linda from the Isle of Man and kept in Corfu. The next day we met them ashore in Gaios for coffee – it’s always interesting to talk with other cruisers and especially Nordhavn owners.

Mad Sunday and Envoy anchored off Gaios

The next day we moved to a sheltered bay further north on Paxos called Lakka. Here we made friends with some Australian guys, Simon and Glen, on an Oceanis 473 sailing yacht. It turns out they are heading in much the same direction as us, so we’ll be seeing more of them.

Laurie and Chris enjoy a drink while BBQing at Lakka

Chris, Di and I went ashore for drinks at a taverna, and when we asked for the bill they said the drinks were free as it was their first night open after being closed for several years and they were celebrating – we need more tavernas like that.
About every 10 days or so we lift the large RHIB out of the water up onto Envoy’s boat deck, and use the small RHIB for a few days so that the large RHIB doesn’t get any marine growth (it’s not anti-fouled).
After moving to Mourtos we decided to re-launch the large RHIB. I tried to start the Yamaha outboard which normally bursts into life immediately, but it wouldn’t start. Chris and I spent some time checking it out and were about to remove the spark plugs when Chris said, “isn’t this supposed to have an emergency stop lanyard?” Then the penny dropped in my brain - while at Lefkas Marina I had removed the lanyard and its plastic button to buy a new one, then not replaced it. As soon as we plugged that in the Yamaha fired up.
From Mourtos we cruised to Corfu and anchored off the medieval castle.

Envoy (speck in the distance right) anchored off Corfu

View of Corfu castle from Envoy's anchorage

Unlike anywhere we’ve been so far this year, Corfu is a major city and has every facility and great shops. Di spent a half day wandering around the picturesque streets and checking out the bargains.

Street scene in Corfu's quaint Old Town

While in Gouvia Marina we hired a rental car for a day’s touring of Corfu’s northern part, and it was great to see some of the mountainous interior.

Laurie and Chris having morning coffee at Agri Bay during hire car tour of Corfu

“MacGyver” Chris left us at Corfu after we’d enjoyed his company for three great weeks.
Chris loves to be active and doing stuff, and helped us with a vast number of maintenance and improvement jobs aboard Envoy including installing a new DVD player and LCD screen, replacing window gaskets, repairing our fridge handle, fitting a new solar air vent in Guest Cabin – just to name a few projects on a list of 23.

TECHNICAL
I’m looking forward to typing in this space “nothing to report”!
We’ve had a couple of issues with the generator. Firstly the starting relay failed (it was last replaced about two years ago), but this was easily solved by using a spare. A few days later we were in a spectacular anchorage overlooked by Corfu’s castle and decided to use the water maker – which requires power from the generator. When we tried to start the water maker, the generator couldn’t develop enough electrical power to run it, and an oily soot came out of the exhaust and spread across the water. We had to go into nearby Gouvia Marina to clear-out of Greek waters, so we arranged through A1 Yachting for some mechanics to take a look. They came aboard the same day we arrived, and after starting the genset and applying some load diagnosed the problem as faulty injectors. I was a bit skeptical as I understood injector problems don’t happen suddenly. It only took them about an hour to remove the three injectors and they took them to a nearby diesel injector and fuel-pump specialist who pronounced that the injector tips were burnt and the injectors were generally worn. New injectors were ordered from Athens, and they arrived and were installed the following day.

This is what a diesel fuel injector looks like

At the same time the valve clearances were checked and adjusted (although they were pretty good). After that the generator worked perfectly and we were able to use the water maker again. The cost of this repair was a very reasonable Euro 565 (about NZ$870). Northern Lights recommend checking and cleaning the injectors every 600 hours (for us about two season’s use). Passagemaker magazine recommends checking injectors every 1,000 hours while other people have told me they only need checking when there is some issue or every 2,000 hours. In future I think we’ll check them every 1,000 hours or so, and this winter I’ll also have the main Lugger engine’s injectors and valve clearances checked as it will be more than 2,000 hours since their last check.

ENVOY LOG (to 17 May)
50 days aboard so far this year, 209 miles cruised for 44 engine hours.