Made it to Messolonghi for the winter

We dropped Marion and Hugh off at Levkas to catch their plane and then rushed off down to Vlicho bar near Nidri as we knew a storm was coming through that night. Vlicho is an enormous, land-locked bay with a wonderful mud bottom - superb holding for an anchor.
In the event we we were very glad that we did as we clocked 45 knots overnight and that was in a well sheltered location. Heaven knows what would have hit us on Levkas town quay!
We met up with Otti and Rosi - a lovely German couple we first met in Sami and shared a couple of vry pleasant evenings with them - one at the 'yacht club' which provides superb services and good food to yachties in the bay.

We waited 3 days for nicer weather and then set off on Wednesday. We started early, but had got no more than a mile when the engine cooling water packed up - it turned out to be a sucked-up jellyfish. It took a lot of getting out and the poor thing was distinctly the worse for wear!

We motored past Abeliki on Meganissi and then turned south for a wonderful long spinaker run almost down to Nisos Petalas - near the turn into the Gulf of Petalas. At the last minute, a gust blew up and turned almost 100 degrees - almost wrapping the sail around the mast. We started the engine - which unusually was very hard to get going. We were so busy getting the sail down before we got too close to the fish-farm just down-wind that I didn't think much about it.

We motored the short distance to the anchorage at Petalas, put the anchor down, ate a quick supper and went to bed.

The forecast for the next couple of days was miserable so we decided to stay put so I started the engine to charge the batteries - and again it didn't want to start but eventually limped into life. I couldn't figure it out. Then luckily I looked at the battery charging monitor and notied that the alternator was putting out 200amps! Panic! The batteries, the electronics or the alternator could fry at any second so shut everything down.
After a lot of head-scratching and general cussing, I spotted some chafe on small wire at the back of the alternator. Wrapping it resolved the problem! It was the field coil connection which was shorting to earth and bypassing both the original and the smart regulators.

Once fixed, all the problems went away - except a new one that the oil pressure light is flashing on intermittently. I'm nearly certain it is an electrical fault but we set of on Saturday early under sail just in case. All went well until Nisos Oxia where the wind died completely. We had no choice but to motor the remaining 10 miles to Messolonghi - fortunately without incident!

So here we are, and here Rosa will remain, for the next 5 or 6 months. The marina has come on a great deal since we were here in spring. They have showers, toilets, a yachtie club-house, water and electricity and many tailed moorings are in place. They'll have WiFi soon and more toilets and showers.

That's all for this year. I'll start blogging again when we return in March.