Friday, June 24, 2016

ENVOY CONTINUES CRUISING SOUTH

Envoy is currently anchored off Yiyhion on the mainland Greek southern coast with our friends Kevin and Diane aboard.

After leaving Lefkas Marina we cruise south to Argostoli, the port capital of Cephalonia, and anchor in the harbour seeing turtles for the first time this season as they pop their heads out of the water, take a look around and dive back to the depths. It's a quaint town that suffered considerable damage during an earthquake in 1953 and was then largely rebuilt in its original Venetian style.

Vista of Argostoli from Envoy at anchor

Chris and Laurie enjoy ice cold Mythos beers at Argostoli - someones gotta do this!

For the first time we visit the island of Zakynthos and anchor one night off a great beach at Alykanas before going into Zakynthos harbour so that Envoy will be safe while we hire a car to look around the island. The marina cost is a reasonable 35 Euros (about NZ$58) per night including power and water.

Envoy in Zakynthos Marina

Alykanas is a great settled weather anchorage

In Zakynthos we have a rare bad dining experience with poor quality and over-priced food costing 100 Euros (about NZ$167) for the three of us. To be fair this is partially our fault for not checking the price of off-menu specials so that we end up paying 50 Euros (about NZ$83) for a small snapper that we'd throw back in New Zealand. After Chris makes our complaints known on behalf of all of us, they offer free meals for the following night although get off lightly as we don't take up their offer.

We loved this rustic old stone building

On the south side of Zakynthos is a marine reserve where turtles return to sandy beaches to nest and breed. Understandably boats are not allowed in most of this area but are allowed at nearby Ormos Keri where we spend two nights and we're able to replenish our fresh water supplies from a tap at the local small boat harbour.

Gathering fresh water is a regular activity

Ormos Keri and its local boat harbour

Two miles off the anchorage the island of Marathonisi has numerous sea caves that we are able to explore taking our RHIB completely inside.

Marathonisi Island looks like a giant turtle

The sea caves of Marathonisi have exceptionally clear water


We are inside the cave looking out at Envoy

From here it's about 50 miles east to the mainland Peloponnese coast where we 'll spend the next several weeks, so we break the journey about halfway at the remote and lonely Nisidhos Strofadhes Islands. We are the only vessel here and the cruising guide says gales from any direction cause the seas to be like a giant washing machine swirling around.
We don't encounter a gale but even the 15 knot winds causes an uncomfortable swell to enter our anchorage making our flopper-stoppers necessary. The islands are inhabited by a solitary monk who looks after the 13th century Ay Panayis monastery, built like a fortress to withstand historic pirate attacks.

The fortress-like 13th century monastery

TECHNICAL
All fuel used by Envoy is filtered (or “polished”) using a 7 litres/min !2 volt pump feeding a 2 micron Racor filter and a magnetic DeBug unit into our in-use fuel tank before being used by any of the engines. Before if gets to the engine it then goes through a Racor primary filter and secondary on-engine filter. Shorty after leaving Lefkas Marina the 12V polishing pump fails, emitting just a faint clicking noise, so we replace it with our on-board spare - a simple exercise except for the time required to remove the pipe fittings from the failed pump and refit them to the new pump. As a new pump costs about US$500 and there was nothing to loose we decide to utilise Chris's expertise and attempt to repair the failed pump, which consists of three separate parts – a rotary vane pump, a 12V DC motor and an electronic controller – any one of which could be at fault.

Chris fixing the failed polishing pump motor in Envoy's pilothouse

We dismantle the vane pump and find no broken parts or blockages so dismantle the motor and find the armature and its associated brush housing in poor shape. We clean it up with white spirit and carefully clean the commutator grooves with a sharp blade and fine emery paper, then reassemble the motor without the pump and test it on a 12 volt power supply, but it still doesn’t run and makes the original clicking sound. However when we remove the motor from its electronic controller it runs perfectly. We take the controller apart and find two relays hard-wired onto a circuit board – by elimination probably the cause of failure. We consult the specs to find these relays simply enable the pump to be switched for forward or reverse operation. Our use is for one direction only, so we remove the relay board and hard-wire the motor using its existing switch and fuse, reattach the vane pump and it works perfectly.
We finally confirm the cause of the seawater leak to the guest cabin bilge. The outlet hose from the aircon's seawater cooling system discharges out of a through-hull fitting (without a seacock) just above the waterline. This hose is not visible or accessible for its complete length and must have a split or developed a small leak so that when sea water has been splashing into this hose it's been leaking into the bilge. We fit an in-line gate valve near the through-hull and when closed the leak soon stops. Normally gate valves aren't recommended, but this is an above-waterline and non-critical application so we're comfortable with it. The hose will need replacement.







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