A realisation that, although we were currently sitting on a 20 day 'credit' of Schengen days, we would be overstaying if we followed our plan to head through Greece for the next 90 day, meant a sudden and swift trip back to the UK to get out of the Schen area. It can be so complicated managing this if you are moving in and out regularly.
Kerensas home for 2 weeks without us
We got back to the creaking infrastructure that is the UK nowadays, with a complete lack of trains at Waterloo. Nevertheless we managed to get to Portsmouth to see family and get a chance to watch the SailGP event there. From there it was off to see Nigels side of the family at Guildford and Nottingham. Back in Whitstable it was great to meet up with friends and do a bit of dinghy racing again, something Nigel is missing badly.
All too soon it was time to head back to Kerensa. We had left her in Kos, with an agent instructed to obtain the correct transit log we so badly wanted. Sadly after 2 weeks they still hadn't obtained it and we are now going to have to petition the Greek authorities for it. Kerensa was no worse off after we deserted her for the 2 weeks, but we had to stay in the harbour for another 3 days while meltemi winds blew through.
When we departed, even before we had chance to get the sails up, we snagged a random rope on the prop. Fortunately we were close enough and shallow enough, to drop the anchor to investigate. With no drive, forward or reverse, the worst case was being assumed i.e gearbox damage. Nigel dived under the boat several times to free the rope from the prop shaft. Kerensa is fitted with a feathering prop, meaning the blades fold inline with the water flow when not in use. The wayward rope had got stuck between every blade and the body of the prop. This was really tight and took several more dives to sort out. (Nigel was wishing he still had the breath holding skills he had during his waterpolo career, sadly not the case!). After an hour we were on our way.
Nigel emerging from the water after cutting the prop free, the rope is at the bottom of the picture
We stopped for the night at Kalymnos, Ormos Vlychadia, a lovely bay surrounded by Tavernas. There are 4 mooring balls here, all full, and anchoring was really tight, we had to be brave and squeeze in between the balls and the very shallow beach on a length of anchor chain shorter than we would have liked. We managed it but there was only 5m between us and one of the moored boats. Lovely spot, great restaurant.
It was an early start in the morning, today, for a long 70nm sail to Koufonisia, we have to get across the Greek islands by the middle of August to pick up family. We are currently doing 3.8 knts into the wind and against the waves, this is the cost of trying to get West at this time of year. There is only 10knts of wind and this is forecast to drop later, ahead of 3 days of gales later this week. It's all or nothing in the Med!