14 July 06 - Still in Athens

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Its really hot and humid here now! Easily exceeding 35C.

Oluf fortunately was able to rebook his flight until July 18, which makes very good sense as we wont be out of here until July 22 (hopefully!)

Yesterday night, Andrew arrived in the airport in Athens (around 00:30). He called and woke us up, me saying to Esmeralda... huh... was it today!!!???

Well... it was... and of I go to pick him up at the airport (a good 35 mins drive). As the Dimitris was not suitable for sleeping on board, we were lucky to have a very good hotel staff here at the Best Western Coral hotel (we can easily recommend this place... nice rooms although not super luxus, but the best is the friendliness and helpfullness of the staff!... and then ofcourse the elaborate breakfast with fresh orange juice squeezer machine, cakes, all the usual continental stuff etc. The staff found an extra bed and installed in our room without any extra cost for the emergency sleep over!

Andrew had a look at the vessel at around 2:30 in the night (after some sightseeing... due to me getting lost ;)) and slept at the hotel at around 3:00.

At around 7:00 he left (without much noise) and went to the airport to return to Rome as he decided to move his vacation a week. As we are very keen on having Andrew on board at least until UK, we think the choise he made is the best. We will then pick him up at Mesina.

Esmeralda, Katharina and I went to the most southern part of the mainland Greece, Cape Sounto (if I remember the name right... I probably dont) and had the worst but most expensive lunch yet there. We paid about the same for 3 really boring sandwiches of dried normal toastbread, a winddry slice of cheese and a super thin slice of ham, a synthetic milkshake and a low to medium quality Greek salad (tomatos, cucumber, Greek feta, olives and red onion, with olive oil and vinegar), as we paid for a real meal with dessert and drinks at a reasonable restaurant in Athens or Glyfada. But the trip there is quite stunning. Lots of nice views... and lots of bird cages....

Whats that about bird cages? Well... when driving around the Greek roads one see lots of small houses (size of a small birdcage) placed in the side of the road, specially where there are road turns or on needle turns in the mountains. They are the memorial site for one or more people killed in the trafic, either by being hit by a car, or more often by a car going off road into skydiving. The birdcages range from really poor looking ones in cheap tinfoil to some very elaborate ones almost resembling mausoleums, built in concrete.

Regarding the Dimitris... the work is continuing. The electric mascarating toilet from Tecma arrived today (friday) after we yesterday was getting a request to switch to a cheaper different product, as the Tecma was still on backorder. Fortunately Panos (our boat engineer) had some contacts, and found a new one supposed to be installed in a brand new large luxury yacht which is currently being build, and for which they needed several. They could however wait additional 10-14 days before they needed them all, so we were lucky and got one of them :)

The floor construction has now been glued (using fiberglass) to the hull, and aswell have the new water tanks. Water level meters has also been installed in both tanks.

Then around 10:00 local time, Søren sent an SMS that he was going to be in the marina shortly. Off we went to meet him, and surely enough... he was sitting in the local bar getting a cup of coffee. He originally arrived in Athens July 10. and have been touristing around seeing lots of broken houses (ruins) and other stuff for which Athens and Greece is famous.

After some time waiting around on the ship for some of the workers and Panos, we went to Glyfada to get some food from KFC and have some passport photos shot of Esmeralda, Katharina and I. (I request the crew to bring them, but obviously forgot for ourselves ;).. quite typical.)

One aft cabin in the Dimitris has now been cleaned up, and Søren decided to take advantage of that. So he sleeps over in the ship.

There will however still be some fiberglass work, and Im not sure if he will be able to sleep there while that is going on. The smell is quite terrible, and its also not very healthy. Panos will try to seal the front cabin from the rest of the ship to avoid the fumes entering the sleeping quarters, but if that wont work, we will have to find an alternative for a night.

The carpenters are (supposedly) working in the workshop today on the furniture and will be back during the evening to check some measurements if needed. Tomorrow (saturday) they will work (YIIIHAAAA) to install the furniture, washing/drying machine and the walls for the toilet/shower. So tomorrow is going to be an exciting day!

We still havnt received the paperwork from the broker. It is seemingly the authorities here that have been delaying things. Anyway we have just heard from Panos, that the seller of the boat now have them in his possession, and that Panos will pick them up this evening, or tomorrow... hopefully we will have them in our hands then! The papers include: original bill of sale, VAT documents and the certificate of deletion of the Greek ships register.

Here are some pictures of our latest adventures in Athens.

 

Floor mastercabin 1	Floor mastercabin 2	Mast and floor mastercabin	Tanks with level meter	Port cabin aft
Harbour from Dimitris	Work in progress 1	Esmeralda and Katharina	Esmeralda and Katharina 2	Esmeralda and Katharina in Glyfada
Esmeralda to drive	Katharina to drive	Pipe work in progress	Work in progress 2	Work in progress 3
Katharina bathing	Katharina and Esmeralda at Cape Sounto	In Cape Sounto	Funny tree in Cape Sountu	Lousy meal in Cape Sounto
Posseidons Temple at Cape Sounto	Esmeralda and Katharina Cape Sounto	Esmeralda and Kim at Cape Sounto	Soeren and Katharina in Dimitris	Out at KFC Glyfada
Esmeralda and Katharina Glyfada	Katharina taking picture of us in Glyfada	New arrangement of grey water filter	To be new toilet and shower	The TECMA toilet stored in captains cabin
Fresh water level probe	Water pipes connected to water tanks	Katharina in construction mess