Peter Robinson

I spent the morning on MollyMoo chatting about their broken generator but when I saw a few boats sailing some distance away I said I would go. I did the engine checks, started the engine, motored for a few minutes past the charted rocks, and then tacked under full sail towards land. ther wind was very light at about 5 or 6 knots apparent but it was enough to sail at about 2.5 or 3 knots. I made a few racks to get an angle to get into Vliho and then settled, passing a biggish charter cat also under sail on the way. as I approached the islands the wind was very light and flukey, but common sense told me that the wind would start coming from the Lefkas canal shortly. the wind did indeed pick up and I had a terrific sail for a mile or two as the wind built. I dropped the sails as I reached the islands by which point the wind was around 20 knots and the sky over Lefkas looked angry. I motored through Tranquil Bay and in the protection of the land the wind dropped to about 10 knots. As I entered Vliho Bay I radio'ed the yacht club to say I had arrived. A guy on a sailing boat going the other way said he would come back in a rib in 5 minutes so I slowed down to wait for him. in fact I wanted to knock the engine into reverse but when I did the boat felt wrong and I continued going forward. I quickly put the engine into idle to check that the cable hadn't come.loose and it hadn't. I turned the boat into the wind, cut the engine and dropped the anchor. I was busy checking to see what had happened and calling on the radio when the ribbfrom the yacht club arrived..I was towed to the pontoon but due to her long keel could not get into the berth originally allocated. I tied up and had another look and it was clear what had happened. the cable putting the boat into forward and reverse had been run under the muffler when the muffler had been disconnected when the head gasket was changed, and had been rubbing against the spinning propellor shaft which had cut through it. Another problem caused by my Albanian friend

I was buddy boating with MollyMoo and was expecting to start the trip between 20 and 11:30. in actual fact I received a message saying that they were leaving about 9ish. I quickly got ready and raised the anchor about 5 or 20 minutes behind them. the anchor was very well stuck in Vliho Bay and needed three attempts of increasing firmness of driving over the anchor to get it to pop out. There was very little wind and we motored, MollyMoo about half a mile ahead of me, across to Pogonia. On arrival MollyMoo dropped anchor quite close to the rocks marked on the charts and I came in next to them. yu could clearly see the bottom and there were patches of sand but a lot of seagrass. Judith on MollyMoo pointed out some sand to me but it looked quite shallow on the charts where she was pointing. I dropped the anchor once on some sand and dead seagrass but it didn't bite. I moved and tried again, and the anchor failed to hold a second time, but on this occasion when it came up it was so full of seagrass that I couldn't see the anchor at all. I removed some, dropped the anchor back into the sea, motored to a third location, pulled the anchor up again, cleared it by lying on my belly on the deck, and dropped the anchor again. This time it bit. I anchored in about 7m and put out a similar amount of chain to MollyMoo - about 35m. The engine behaved itself on the trip over but the oil pressure light flickered when I was nearly there despite the pressure being at its usual approximately 10ish psi. I increased the revs a bit and the flickering stopped but came back on some time later. When manoeuvring round the anchorage it was flickering constantly unless the engine was taken out of gear. This is something to keep an eye on.

I woke at 6ish as usual but decided there was no point in leaving too early as I would miss the wind. I left Tow Rocks Bay at 10am innfkat calm conditions with no wind. I turned the engine off two hours later at noon with about 5 knots on the beam. I sailed in lovely conditions for a while but after confirming with Judith on MollyMoo what time the Lefkas Canal Bridge opened I worried I was going to miss the 5pm opening. I held my nerve and the wind and sea.began to build a bit. Within about three hours I was sailing at 4 knots and confident I was going to make it. the wind was about 10 - 12 knots at this point. When the gusts reached 14 I reefed the genoa a bit and again when they reached 16. When they reached 17 I put one reef in the mainsail. it became clear in a moderate beam sea that I would be too early for the bridge so instead of going through the hassle of tying up alongside or anchoring I decided to slow down. I dropped the mainsail. the wind was now touching 20 knots and I ended up with a tiny scrap of Genoa struggling to go less than 3 knots. I expect there was some current or wave action at play as well. Anyway I arrived in blustery conditions turning the engine on about 300m from the north entrance to the canal and there were about 10 of us waiting to go through. several boats weighed anchor as I arrived and there was some shouting and screaming as people.oushed in, etc. The bridge opened on time and we all went through. The canal seemed to go on for ages and when it eventually opened out I turned off the engine and sailed under genoa towards the turn towards Nydri and Vliho Bay. As I got close to the turn the wind shifted 180 degrees (guessing it's a local thing due to the islands etc) and I had to motor the rest of the way. I arrived in Vliho Bay, spotted MollyMoo and anchored in about 6 or 7 metres a couple of hundred metres from.them. the anchor bit immediately. When I did the engine checks the following morning I noticed I seemed to have lost a little oil - only a very little - despite the oil pressure behaving itself..Something to keep an eye on

I woke at around 6:30 but couldn't summon the energy to get going. I eventually got up at about 7:30 to do engine checks and the like. everything was well but the leak that was discovered and fixed the night before in the coolant meant I needed to top that up. I put in all the mixed coolant I had but that cleaned me out. I decided I couldn't go without some de-ionised water at the very least to top me up should there be a problem. I had seen some at the local.supermarket and went round but it only opened at 8:30. I was there when it opened, headed back to the marina and got ready to go. I radioed the marina for help but they said there was traffic so I had to wait. a charter boat came in and made my exit difficult but all was well with some backing and filling. I headed out in very calm conditions, anxious about the engine. The engine performed well. I checked the temperate and oil pressure constantly, and the bilges frequently. the oil pressure still shows very low but on start up it goes pleasingly high and then drops down which it should do..I motored from 9ish when I left until 2pm when the forecast wind eventually appeared. I sailed under genoa all the way to the anchorage at Two Rocks Bay. the anchorage was very busy indeed and I went on the outside and dropped the hook. it bit but I was worried I was too close to another boat. I re-anchored, still too close to the other boat. typing this now I am watching the other boat closely because I may have to move, although my the anchorage is basically full and boats are still arriving. fingers crossed the night passes without incident

I spent the morning clearing into the country starting by a walk to the post office for etepai followed by port police (easy), immigration (easy), and customs (challenging because I couldn't prove the boat wasn't vat paid. it took about two hours to set up a transit log which in the end they did for me because I couldn't get the system to work). I then paddled back to the boat, started the engine without difficulty, and motored to the marina. the oil pressure was high then dropped back, the engine temperature was fine but I still had a worrying leak. I arrived at the marina and got into a very tricky berth with only a little help and before I could call Leonidas the engineer he said hello. his initial diagnosis is the flange on the main cylinder is kaput (his word) and the fuel pump which was taken apart and reassembled by the Albanian mechanic was losing a lot of fuel. Leonidas is returning later to do the work.. hopefully it will be done before bedtime

I checked out at about 11:30 and paddled back to the boat there seemed to be barely any wind, but the engine started straightaway and off we went. I got the mainsail up immediately as usual and after a mile or so I was able to turn the engine off because we had about 10-12 knots just forward of the starboard beam..the wind built a bit and I eventually reefed both the mainsail and genny as we had about 17 knots and I was concerned it might build further into the gap between Corfu and the mainland. It didn't and I ended up shaking out the reef and then dropping the mainsail completely as the wind ended up behind me but it died away to nothing..I saw a few dolphins when I started the engine but on this occasion any luck they brought me was not obvious as the temperature of the engine was all over the place and the oil pressure read really low. more importantly than that, I was getting a lot of something in the bilge. I reattached the air filter as it had come off and the temperature seemed to correct. The oil pressure remained very low though and despite my best efforts at seeing where the liquid was coming from I couldn't. I motored into the anchorage, got the hook down and tried to diagnose the problem without much success..more professional help is needed alas

Having gone to the local restaurant to get good enough WiFi to check the weather I decided to leave the following morning. There were some southerlies forecast and some quite strong southerlies between Italy and Albania but the models showed these some way off..The alarm was set for 5am but I woke earlier. Unusually for this year then engine took three or four goes to start. I reversed off the dock (having gone in forwards) at about 5:20 and after some backing and filling motored out of the marina and headed for the entrance to the bay with two reefs in the mainsail. There was no wind and the bay was flat calm.. I was concerned about the area just south of the entrance to the bay on the seaside because there have been many difficult experiences there in the past, including my own. As it happened, despite some wind funnelling in at the entrance itself, the wind was actually light but typically right on the nose. There was a swell which was on the beam which was sufficiently big to knock things including very big heavy bottles of water over. I ended up putting them in the guest cabin. There were a few times when the engine seemed to make an odd noise but the gauges seemed ok and the bilge looked normal so on I went. I kept the mainsail up pretty much all the way to Sarande. As I was coming into the anchorage the engine seemed to slow and then when I took it out of gear and went back into tick over it seemed ok. After I got the anchor down I looked and pretty much all the oil was gone from the reservoir..from.Max to way below the Min line on the dipstick..It barely even registered. The agent arranged for an engineer to come over on a taxi boat and he discovered oil in the sweet water. He will return with his tools in the morning. I just hope the news isn't catastrophic.

I turned the internet on to get a weather forecast and some info from Navily as I was sitting on the boat at anchor in Durres. My less than 5 minutes of online time cost me £33!! The weather forecast essentially said there were going to be southerlies again but they were going to be very light..I was making decent time down to Corfu to meet Wenna but the anchorage was open to the south in any case so I decided to move on. The alarm was at for 5am but I woke at 3:39am to what I first thought was wash from a ferry or something but which turned out to wind caused waves. I left about 5:15 and although getting out of Durres bay was ok, by the time I got to the next section, ie up to the point I could bearaway into Vlore Bay, the weather was atrocious. There were very steep waves, high 20s winds and significant waves over the deck, etc..They might not have been the strongest winds I have encountered in this boat so far, but they were certainly the worst conditions. Even the toilet when flying at one point. Eventually after motoring at 1.8 knots (maybe it was 2.8 knots) and feeling like I would never get there, I eventually had enough angle to bear away a little..The winds came off the nose about 15 to 20 points but the waves remained very steep until I got protection from the mountains on the far side of the bay. In fact, I could actually sail for a few minutes once I was through the worst of it but then the wind died. I turned the engine back on and had the full mainsail now up (previously I had two reefs in) when one of the shackles holding the mainsheet to the traveller broke.I eventually got to the marina which despite ignoring my hailing on the VHF had an enormous space for me to get into. Despite the very little cross wind, I gave up after a bit and went in forwards. I felt very tired. I ended up staying there for two nights to recover.

I met Mr Froku at the cafe restaurant at 9:30 on a calm day and checked the weather again. I looked at Predict Wind and he scoffed a bit and said these things can't predict local wind, and he was absolutely right. I bought some tomatoes and cucumbers and pears from a lady from the villages and paddled back to the boat. I started the engine and motored in calm conditions pretty much all the way to Durres. About 5 miles short of Durres there was enough breeze to sail so I got the sails up, made lunch and waited for the wind to drop away to nothing as usual which it duly did. I had sailed about a mile. I turned the engine on and motored the rest of the way. I found a spot in the anchorage enough distance from a slightly oddly placed green channel marker - the first one as you left the port itself, and got the anchor down.

I finished up at customs and returned to the boat. The police were fine but the customs lady wanted to see the previous year's vignette, which fortunately I kept. The boat was tied up in a commercial port on a dodgy dock, attached to just one bollard with a light crosswind. I got everything ready, started the engine and released the lines. Typically, and my fault for not being careful, I got a wrap on one of the two lines so I had to leap nimbly back onto the dock, undo the wrap, throw the rope back onto the boat, jumpy back onto the myself and head off, all while making sure the crosswind didn't blow the boat to the other side of the port and disaster. All was well and I tried to sail in the light and shifty winds as I emerged from the port and turned south but there was insufficient wind so I started to motor. I motored to about Ulcinj where there was enough wind behind me to sail. I got the genoa out - it was about 14 - 20 knots true - and sailed almost all the way to Shengjin. The best sail on the boat for a long time. The wind died about 5 miles from the port and I motored the rest of the way. The port bailed me on the VHF asking if I wanted to enter the port and despite the noticeable swell I said I would prefer to stay outside and anchor which I did. I paddled ashore, tied the boat to one of the foundation posts of the not yet open yacht club, chatted to Mr Froku and was then invited to his house (the pavement outside his house that he had enclosed with plants and greenery - to drink home made raki. I eventually went back to the caff restaurant and had pizza while he watched the Champions League final. I clambered back down the rocks in the dark, returned to the boat and let the raki encourage me to sleep