Dafne impounded at Siros

For the last two day, following our rescue operation by Siros Coast Guard, Dafne was impounded at the harbour in front of Coast Guard. According to Greek Law if a vessel is rescued by Coast Guard due to malfunction, it is required to have an inspection and get a certificate of seaworthiness from its flag. This is a law designed for big ships and the Coast Guard was totally confused about how to apply to Dafne since we said we can not fly in an inspector from UK, the flag country of Dafne. After 24 hours of red tape, finally we were helped by Ms Marianna, a lovely young officer who arranged for a local inspector. During our long stay in Siros we met several people who stopped by to talk about Dafne. We also met a young shipwright who is building and restoring classic yachts in Siros. We visited his yard and looked at the boat he is about to finish restoring, a 1950's gaff rigged Swedish boat of 32 ft. We ended up enjoying Siros, a bustling town with students from local university. We will try to revisit Siros and our friends from the island next year...
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Rescued by Coast Guard...

We sailed all morning and made to Siros island midday as the wind started to gust at 25-30 kn. Just aswe were planning to enter to harbour the engine failed with cooling water problem. With the wind picking up we had no alternative but to call Coast Guard for rescue. They sent a boat which pulled us to the harbour and we got tied in front of Port Authority. The wind is still blowing gusts but Dafne and us are now safe and secure. We will fix the water cooling problem and then show it to Port Authority's specialist mechanic that it safe to go, then we will be allowed to depart. The good news is that the wind is expected to slow down tomorrow onwards. Hopefully it will be a smoother run to Bodrum than onwards...
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Pooh Bear on board...

We left Poros at sunrise, 6am eastbound. We stopped at a small deserted island on the way for a swim. Mick and I went onshore for a small expedition and collected a few cast away item on the beach, including a set of white stones for Sinan and rescued a small Pooh Bear which was about to be eaten by the goats of the island. The Pooh Bear is now safe and secure on board at Dafne, and enjoys his new home...

Then we sailed to Kithnos for 5 hours with 20 kn winds under single reef. Dafne sailed beautifully and was at ease with wind and the sea...

Finally we arrived at Kithnos with strong winds blowing and after 2 hours managed to secure Dafne on some rocks on shore and with anchor.

We are off to some dinner now if we can find a place in this small island...
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Poros...

After passing Korinth Canal we went to Poros which is about 6-7 hours South-South East of Korinth. Weather forecast was 25 kn winds with 2.5m waves from South so we decided to get a safe berthing at Poros and take the day off. Poros is a very cute small island village separated from mainland with Poros channel which is about half mile wide. The sea traffic is busy with a ferry crossing back and forth every half hour.

We had good lunch, followed by a siesta, climbed up the hill with clock tower, checked out local shops, bought food for the boat and had a nice taverna dinner.
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Correction...

In the last blog update, I wrote that we were now six on board, actually I meant four, Mick, Anil, Ozlem and I...


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Passed Korinth, now in Agean Sea

We passed Korinth Canal at 17:30. It took us 35 minutes to cross a long and deep cut canal of 3.2 miles long and 25m wide. We are now in Agean waters, getting close to home. Ozlem, Anil's wife, joined us in Korinth, so we are six on board now.
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Storm...

In the late afternoon dark clouds started to gather and soon lightenings could be seen at distance. Dafne was under sail with one hour to go to our anchoring destination when the storm reached us. As we ran up to the mast to put sails down (or actually reef it), the squall hit us and wind speed went from 10 kn to 40 kn in one minute together with hail falling. We tried to bring the sail down but it was blowing too hard. As we released the halyards the sail just did not come down. In the meanwhile the boat went into a broach with 40 kn wind in the sail. We should have completely eased of the main and jib sheets to avoid the broach, mistake. But anyway we finally managed to bring the sail down and went on to our protected bay under engine. The whole episode lasted 15 minutes and then it was quiet again. Lessons learned: start preparing way in advance of squall actually hitting you, ease of sheets before bringing sails down, if going into broach sheets should be totally and immediately eased off...


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Rion Bridge

Saturday 18:10, we just. Passed Rion Bridge at the channel that connects gulf of Patras and Gulf of Korinth... The mighty Rion bridge... We asked for permission to pass on VHF 14 from Rion Traffic Control, and proceeded under engine. We have been sailing downwind since morning with cruising chute and gybing regularly to avoid the ship traffic. We plan to anchor in about 2.5 hours.
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Mick on duty...

As usual Mick again is doing all the tough skilled work.
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Sunrise...

We decided to sail through the night and did not stop at Lefkas. It is now 6:30 Saturday morning. We did 3 hour watch shifts during the night. Mick and Anil are sleeping, Dafne is motoring in absolutely calm weather. Mystical sunrise...
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Peaceful sail to Lefkas

We are sailing 4.5 kn with 6.5 kn wind, towards Lefkas with main and cruising chute up. It is 19:43, nice evening, we have 6 more hours to go... Night sailing...
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Leaving Corfu

We left Corfu midday on Friday after cleaning the boat nicely. We have not yet done our customs clearance yet, the Port Authority in Corfu was very busy with a lot of large ferry and cruise ship traffic and the Gouvia marina official said they can not do it in Gouvia, despite what the Pilot Book said. We decided to do it at next stop, Lefkas. We have 12 hours to Lefkas, we should arrive there early Friday 2am or so.
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Safe and secure at Gouvia Marina in Corfu

We arrived Thursday afternoon to Corfu. After docking to a nice berth in Gouvia marina, we decided to open up the fuel tank and put a small filter at the fuel outlet to catch any debris that can go into the engine pre-filter. The local chandlery was closed so we bought a small tea sieve from supermarket and used that to make our coarse filter. Taking the tank out was a bit of a work. It worked out well and last part of the job was sucking the diesel out from the tank to engine, this time Murat did the delightful diesel tasting. Finally we tightened a few loose pipes and the engine is now in good working order, knock on wood...

After washing up we headed for a late night meal at the marina fish restaurant, well deserved...

I woke up in middle of night with my hands itching like crazy. The diesel book said that diesel fuel can allergic and can itching and rashes. After a few soap down in the middle of the night, we all slept till 10am...
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Dolphins at sunrise

It is 6am Thu morning, we have 9 hours more to go before we reach corfu. The wind picked up during the night, reached 20kn Northerly. At sunrise we had visitors, five large dolphins...
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Engine problem again at night...

Just as we got ready for the night, trying to catch some sleep that we missed the previous night, the engine started giving alarm of very high temperature. We stopped the engine immediately, put up sails and again started opening the engine at 10pm. Engine was extremely hot and we decided to check the sea water cooling system. The pipes had cold water all the way to impeller and very hot water after impeller, indicating that the impeller was no doing its job. This time we took it apart much faster given our experience from previous night. The impeller looked okay, but was not turning freely. After fixing this we turned the engine on and it worked fine... We retired to our shifts: Mick 11pm-2am, Anil 2am-5am, Murat 5am-8am.
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Dafne under full sail

We had great downwind sailing conditions Wed afternoon. We hoisted up the cruising chute, small asymetric spinnaker type sail. Dafne was doing 6.5 to 7 kn sailing beautifully at sunset.
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Tired crew enjoying brunch on board

After a difficult night with engine problems, Wed we cooked ourselves a good brunch and enjoyed a calm day
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Open sea to Corfu

We left Croatia on June 16th Tue afternoon at 17:00 after doing our departure paperwork at the town of Corvat which is 5 miles south of Dubrovik. We will be sailing for 36-48 hours non-stop bypassing Montenegro and Albenia to reach Corfu in Greece.
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Engine problem!

Tuesday, June 16th at 1am ou engine stopped running. There was no wind either so we started drifting in a pitch black night.

We opened the engine and checked sea water cooling system, incl water filter and impeller. Then we checked the fuel system, bleeding out the fuel from tank all the way to spark plugs. There was no fuel coming to the primary filter, and the pipe was full of air. We tried bleeding the air out with hand pump lever for an hour with no success.

In the meanwhile Anil was trying to steer the boat under sail with only 2kn wind. A big fish trawler came very close, we flashed light to our sails so that they could see us and avoid a collision.

We were totally exhausted by sunrise after 5 hours of trying to fix the engine. Finally, Mick decided to take a part the fuel pipe that goes to primary filter and suck the fuel from tank to get it moving. As doing this we realized that something was blocking the tank outlet from inside the tank. Mick blew this out and fuel started flowing and engine finally worked... It was a tough night with no sleep, but we are back on our way to Corfu...
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Dafne at Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is a beautiful old city. We arrived 9pm Monday night, dropped anchor in front of old city walls, and rowed our dinghy onshore to check Dubrovnik at night.

Tuesday morning Dafne looked gorgeous in harmony with the old city...


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Dafne's flags

Dafne wearing her flags, British flag (her registration) and Turkish flag(crew nationality)...
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On our way to Dubrovnik

We had a lovely fish dinner in the old town castle of Korcula. In the morning the repairman came to fix our battery problem. It turned out to be a quick fix with the cable out of alternator being loose. The repairman was a big old jolly guy and we told him that we are from Turkey. He said that Turks and Croats have a similar genetic make up, they both have their forearm 2cm shorter than world average...

After getting fuel, we are now on our way to Dubrovnik, which should take us 8 hours. It is midday, clear skies, 5kn of S SE winds, we are under engine until wind picks up later in the day.
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Arrived at Korcula

We reached Korcula Marina after a good downwind sail where Dafne made 5kn with 12kn downwind. We sailed next to kitesurfers and windsurfers.

We have a problem at the boat. The batteries are not charging from the engine's alternator. There is a repair shop at Korcula Marina, the repairman said he will look into it tomorrow morning at 930am. We will see how it goes. If we can not fix it, we can charge up the batteries with shore power then sail with no navigation and no refrigerator for several days no problem until next charge with shore power.

Until tomorrow morning all we can do now is to have a few beers...
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Bedouin tent...

Mid-day heat, we made a tent from bed linen sheets, worked great... Anil at the tiller under shade as we sail along.
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Beautiful Dafne at Hvar

Early Sunday morning at Hvar harbour at anchor. We left 830am after paying the agent in Split who sent his friend to collect his money before we disappeared...
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Arrived at Hvar

We reached at Hvar island and dropped anchor at 10:30pm. We rowed our little dinghy to shore, Hvar is a beautiful old island town with a great castle and old town square. The island is also for itsl local wines. We drank a bottle of Zlatan Plavac red wine... 6am dept tomorrow...
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Sunset

On our way to Hvar, one hour to go, beautiful evening breeze...
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And here is Murat working hard...

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On our way under sail...

We are now on our way with full sail, going 180 towards Hvar. Dafne is doing 6 kn with 10 kn true wind. We are beating 47ft Benettau boats no problem. Very nice afternoon sail. Anil and Mick are working hard!
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Team is here is Split ready to go

We loaded food and drinks for one week from the local big supermarket GETKO and enjoyed a good cold bear at local pub. After a good night sleep, on Saturday we washed Dafne well. Anil arrived at midday. Then we went all the way to Split to get Vignette (the cruising permit) which costed Euro 250. We had to give the port authority Insurance, Registration and Skipper license. They did not accept my Canadian license that Cumhur Hoca had issued, saying that it is just a School License. Thanks to Anil, his Turkish Captain official license did the job. On the way back we loaded four 10 litre jerry cans with diesel fuel from the car gas station because there was no fuel station at the Kastela Marina that we are staying. We are now finally ready to depart
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On the way to Split

Mick and I are at the Gatwick airport 5am in the morning... Boarding for Split with Costa coffee to stay awake.
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Dafne arrived Split!

She was discharged and put on a berth, engine started with no problems...

Ivan Reic of Tankerkomerc, the agent at Split was very helpful. Thanks Ivan...

We will fly in to Split in two days time with my friend Mick Groves. Mick is my crewmate from Atlantic crossing last year.

Murat
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Awaiting at the streets of London

One week to go until Dafne reaches Split in Croatia. I am here in London, can't wait to start sailing her in ten days' time

Murat Kaptan
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Reaching Gibraltar

Aalsmeergracht, the ship carrying Dafne, is reaching Gibraltar today ETA 13:00, after that Dafne is in Med...

Aalsmeergracht ETA schedule set

Please be advised MV Aalsmeergracht sailed from Southampton last Friday and gives the following eta's

 

Gibraltar                    2nd of June 13:00hrs        Loadmaster Mr Ian Wylie

Palma de Mallorrca  4th of June 06:00 hrs        Loadmaster Mr Ian Wylie

Genoa                        6th of June 06:00 hrs        TBA

Split                            9th of June 23:00 hrs        TBA

Lavrion                       12th of June 23:00 hrs      TBA

Derince                      14th of June 23:00 hrs      TBA

 

I could have send DAFNE directly to Derince port in Istanbul to arrive 14^th of June...!

 

Now, she is arriving to Split in Croatioa on 9^th of June when I need to be at home in London since Sanem is in New York that day.  I need to fine somebody to unload DAFNE.  I am given the following Agent in Croatia to sort it out.

 

Split

Tankerkomerc d.d. Zadar

Mr. Ivan Reic
Gat Sv. Duje 4
21000  SPLIT
CROATIA

Phone      :+385 21 338 337
Fax        :+385 21 338337
EMail      :ivan.reic@tankerkomerc.hr