In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we can say that we finally made it to our winter haul out destination. Yes we finally made it to Livaditis boatyard at Lim...

Closed Captions (CC):
Monday morning just a little bit after

nine o'clock we are anchored up at the

Chalkis bridge and we're going over to see

the port authorities to pay our fee and

get a timeslot for going through the

bridge when it opens tonight between

10 o'clock at night and 1 o'clock in the

morning and then we come back to the boat

and chill out for the rest of the day.

Oh that sounds good.

But you'll be working. Oh that doesn't sound good.

Slave driver

This general area here is the anchorage,

the waiting area for people going from

south to north through the bridge

The office where you pay your fee for

passing at the bridge is just there and

it's right inside the Commercial Port of

Chalkis entrance and you can see this

pretty obvious landmark: the anchor

and the big brass screw.

So now we paid we'll go to the port police office at four

o'clock this afternoon where a guy

will tell us all about the procedure we

have to go to go through the bridge and

I'll show you where that is right now

So if you're anchored out in the waiting

area and you come ashore this is the

bridge itself this is south this is

north if you come across the bridge

you'll see this wonderful bust of

Aristotle - very clever chap - anyway that's

beside the point. Cross over from the bridge

and just to your right there's a

small little sit down sheltered park,

there's a blue parking sign on your left

Keep walking straight ahead

This cream-coloured building with the

single balcony on the top is the back

end of the port police

And just off this very busy street is

the port police building, you go in

through the door here and you show them

your cruising tax paperwork, that's pretty

much all they ask for but they did say

they want us to come back at 4 o'clock

so they can explain the procedure for

going through the bridge.

After we'd visited the port authorities we took a

short walk around town

At 10:30 p.m. on Monday we received

instructions from the port police to

make our way through the bridge

There's a little boat already parked

Where is it?

On the right where you're aiming

Oh and there's another yacht in front

Directly in front of us

by the pine tree

We docked safely at the town key on the

north side at 11 p.m.

After giving Baz a high five, I turned

my ancle getting back into the cockpit

It felt like a bad injury

Look where you're going.

Stop rushing and take your time

With engine exhaust issues and my injury we wanted

to get to Limni and haul out as soon as possible

so we left early the next morning for Artaki bay.

It took us an hour to

reach Artaki. When I was dropping the

anchor, the windlass tripped and neither

up nor down switches worked until Baz

reset the circuit breaker

We had a bouncy night with swell coming

into the bay so at 8:35 the next day we

left, heading north towards Limni

However we soon turned west as the wind

was too strong and we didn't want to

beat into wind and waves

Five and a half hours after leaving Artaki

we anchored at Ioannis Theologos

Bay in sand with 30 metres of chain out

in 5 metres of depth

We have just had the most unusual sail

that we've experienced in two years it

was, the wind was, it was everywhere it was

doing this, it was doing this, and then it

was doing this, then it was doing that!

No seriously it was, it was, you know, I'd get

the sails out and it'd be like, well

you've got your sails out I'm going to

stop now, so I put the sails away. But then

it would blow from the east other side

yeah the east and then all of a sudden you'd go

alright great we'll tack,

so we'd tack and they'd go

No no no no no no. We're going over the

other side this time. Then when we were coming into

this place which is called ...

Ioannos Theologos. Ooh, we're still in

Greece by the way, mainland Greece - when

we were coming into this place we've

come around this top here and as we were

coming through there the wind was

solidly from the east, then we come

around here and it comes from the northwest. Like that!

Anyway we are here. It's a nice bay. It's a beautiful bay

It's very big, but it's pleasant. The holding's good here

it's sand and mud and the anchor is

definitely in. There's quite a lot of

shallow areas so it's you know you can

pick your spot if there are other boats

but we're the only people here. Yeah, at

the end of the season. And it's almost

the end of the Season for us. I don't

like to use that because we don't have

seasons, we just keep going but this is

our last stop before our final nine

nautical miles over to the east to Evia

island where we're going to haul

out for our winter maintenance and boy

have we got a lot of stuff to do, so that's gonna be a

lot of fun bringing you all the jobs, the

jobs list and going through the jobs and

explain why we fixed them and

how we fix them and all that in there

And we can do a little bit of touring

while we're there like we did last winter.

We are gonna do that, yeah we will

rent a car and we're also gonna feature

a lot of the yard and explain why we

chose this yard to haul out

yeah looking forward to it. It's in Limni by the way

just north of Limni. Yeah. Yes so we are

going to welcome our new Patrons. Oh yes

Oh yes Martin and Julie Collins and

Cathy Jura. Welcome aboard

Yes and also a big big THANK YOU to

Lynette Blackburn- Leary for the most

humongous Shout Us A Beer contribution

that'll keep us in beer for ooh, ages

A long long time. We bought a barrel and it's

stowed, you know we'll just be sucking it

out there with a straw for months.

Thank you so much. Very generous,

thank you very much. And

thank you to our Patrons it's

great to have you aboard. Yeah, talking

about which we've got to go down below

now and finish off this week's video and

get that up and then we've got to write

blogs so. And I've got closed captions to do

So but it's a nice calm anchorage to do

it. It is yeah. It's very pretty it's very

green up this end of Greece, yeah

All right peeps talk to you later

The chain was jumping over the place

We have arrived at our winter

destination, well kind of close to our

winter destination we're actually tied up

to a mooring ball just offshore from the

yard where we're going to be hauled out

which may be today or more likely

tomorrow as Harris says he's a little bit busy today

It's a really pretty bay actually and

for a place that were going to be

staying for a few months it's attractive

There is a road to Limni which is

about two kilometres away but I do

notice that it's possibly going up and

over a hill. I was thinking you know we'd

get some walking in to and from the shops

and it would be you know really good for

exercising so I think we're gonna be

fitter than we thought we'd be if we do

the mountain hiking too. When you can

finally walk. Yeah well if I've got a cast on my leg

I can walk anywhere can't I? No but

we'll see.

So that's the next pressing

thing once we get out of the boat is for

me to find a doctor or a place that can

diagnose whether I've got fractured foot

or not since I sprained it just after

we'd tied off at the dock when we came

under the last bridge. Chalkis. At Chalkis, yeah

So what we'll do is we'll drop the dinghy,

we'll go and introduce ourselves to

Harris ... he runs the yard with him his

wife and his son and probably a few

helping hands here in there and see what

the drill is for getting hauled

out. There's no big sling lift here it's

actually a sled that goes into the water

just off the beach literally off the

beach and I'm assuming that I just

gently drive forward onto the sled until

I can't drive forward anymore and then he

hauls the sled out and hopefully somehow

there's some distance of at least three

two or three metres between the

bottom of the boat and the ground when

we do get hold out cuz that's that yeah our keel

Yeah I mean there are big boats

with big heels in the yard so - it works somehow -

we know it gets done properly

somehow yeah so I'll be interested to

see actually how it works yeah yeah so

we'll be able to hopefully be able to

film that too so that you can see how it

works as well yeah

But before we get to the end of this video I just want to

point out a little conundrum that we've

found ourselves at or with on this

Monday morning. We're in the town of Limni

and the plan was we were going to come

here, buy the postcards that we mail out

each month for our $10 patrons and have

a beer and a coffee while Aannsha writes

them and then we could mail them

straight away from the post office, however

that only place over there that sells postcards is closed

Yeah we don't know if it's closed just for

Monday or whether it's closed for the

season because you know we are the only

tourists in town yeah and if that's the

tourist shop then I can understand if

they would've closed for the season yeah

We did have a plan B didn't we? We did

that was buying Christmas cards but again there is nowhere in Limni that sells

Christmas cards yeah so we've got a Plan C

yeah and all I'm gonna say is watch your

email inboxes soon coz Aannsha's gonna do

something special

that is the best thing that we can do in

lieu of our postcards to our $10 patrons,

I hope you like it! And talking of patrons we just

like to welcome on board to new patrons

that is Marcus Nettleton welcome aboard

Marcus welcome and Steve Harrington welcome

Welcome aboard both of you thank you

very much for helping to make our

journey sustainable. Yes it's great to

have you with this yeah. Right now it's time for a beer and a coffee

Cheers. They do good coffee here. Apparently but I don't know, I don't drink the stuff

Next week on Sailing A B Sea we get hauled out at the

boat yard here at Limni and it's a first

time getting hauled out by a sled rather

than a sling it's gonna be interesting

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