21 July 06 - Moving in.

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Big moving day. At 11:00 we moved out of our hotel, which I must recommend to others comming to Athens. Great service, good rooms and great food for a reasonable price.

I packed the car (no space whatsoever to any passengers) with our luggage, and drove off to the boat. Soeren has very helpful in getting the things moved on board.

Our cabin was cleared by Panos people yesterday, but as the boat was still looking like a bomb site internally, we needed to get it more liveable.

So cleaning of the toilets, the galley (kitchen) and outdoors was needed. We found lots of worn out (or simply not likeable) things in the cupboards, and decided to throw out all frying pans and pots along with all chemical stuff and old moldy coffee, sugar, salt and other suspicios stuff. There are still more to be thrown.

Then off to shop stuff we needed, like a water heater, new frying pans and pots and other stuff for the galley, some chemicals for cleaning toilets and general living space etc. Fortunately plates are plentifull and actually quite nice, so we decided to keep those. The same with knifes, forks and spoons.

We have got water in both aft toilets now, and can shower there if we want to. Im getting the lowdown on the switchboard for pumps etc. Still need to get a drawing of the waterlines and the 20+ water cocks and where they go. Documentation of water pipes and electrical wires is a city in Russia in this boat.... and all other boats in Greece it seems by our experience by now. Hot water lines and outside shower is still turned off (dont know exactly why thats the case but will talk with Panos about it).

We have been a bit on the throat of Panos and his people as we feel things are going too slow. So Panos and I had a good talk about that, and I hope it will turn out fruitfull. We are definitely not going to be happy staying yet another weekend here, and Panos knows that.

Soeren reported that police and ambulance had been in the harbour, near to the Kitchen Bar, the night before our arrival. We dont know what had been happening, but they are usually partying overthere most of the night. The next morning, our neighbour (having a boat similar to ours) decided to take an unvolunteerly swim as he stepped on to the gangway on his boat, without realizing that it wasnt properly secured. So the gangway continued into the water with him hitting his chin on it on the way down. Later during the day we watched a diver picking up his sorry cell phone from the bottom of the harbour.

The weather seems slightly cooler these days, but still around 32C. Its alot more windy, and Ive heard that it is supposed to be blowing around Beaufort 9.

Latest info from the carpenters is that the varnishing of the walls are proceeding, although not completely on schedule (surprise), as the man hired in to do the varnishing/polishing had a nasty accident, falling thru a window cutting his hand quite badly (needing 136 stitches). They have hired in another person to take care of the varnishing, but it obviously delayed the process some hours. We wish the best for the unlucky man, but also start to pray for getting some luck.

Oh.. the Navtex paper rolls bought yesterday are the right width, but too large to fit completely into the paper compartment of the ICS unit, so the lid cant close. However it fortunately doesnt affect practical use of it.

We had our first meal on the boat (dinner), which was cold potatosalad (Esmeraldas own recipe), meatballs (frikadeller) and tomato salad. Boy was that tasty! After countless meals with french fries and something (often souvlaki which is a grilled stick of meat), its a great relief to be able to eat home cooked food and Esmeraldas food is always the best! At the same time we save alot of money this way... its quite expensive to eat here in Athens... almost the same as in Denmark.

Katharina, Esmeralda and I went to bed around 0:00 in our cabin in Dimitris. Its actually quite spacy and we can easily sleep there all 3. Accessways are always more cramped so brushing Katharinas teeths in the cabins shower/toilet room, needs to be coordinated with who else want to get into the cabin.

Because we are not sure if the shower wastewater drain works 100% in the aft toilets, we decided not to shower in the boat today.

We also had an experienced sailor from Denmark (Kenneth) contact us to hear if we would like to welcome him onboard. We look forward to say hi to him on Wednesday in Athens. He has followed our ordeal on this site, and knows about that delays can potentially happen, although we surely dont expect to sit here yet another weekend!

As we have no cheap internet connection in the boat (pnly GPRS at 70dkr/MB), we will delay uploading pictures.