After the cold, wet winter in Lefkas, finally with the
coming of April, spring in the Ionian has decided to arrive in all its glory.
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| Flowers of the Judas Tree |
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| Vineyards and escarpments |
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| Wattle - it feels like Australia! |
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| Tiny wild flowers dot the ground |
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| Goats and wildflowers in an olive grove |
We found out rather late in the winter about the fantastic
Wacky Walkers group, organised by Bill and Jo on Menna, who are avid walkers and have been cruising around the
Mediterranean for the last 20 years. Every Sunday
morning, weather permitting (and sometimes even if it is drizzling, so desperate
are we to stretch our legs after a confined winter), the group gathers outside
Porto Café for a walk to various places around the island. The back blocks of Lefkas are lovely and with
the spring flowers everywhere the scenery is stunning. There is a great group who regularly come
along with the ages ranging from 6 year olds to fit septuagenarians. The walks last several hours, usually 8-10 km
in length and then, feeling virtuous if being calorically counterproductive,
about half the group will continue on to have a late lunch (Linner) at one of
the great tavernas on the island.
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| The Wacky Walker Group |
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| View from the monestary overlooking the beach |
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| The lagoon and beach |
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| Lefkada village tucked in the hills |
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| The Wacky Walkers taking an artistic selfie |
With the better weather we were finally able to do those
essential outside jobs we had to put off all winter. So with our new mast steps installed, Bob
scampered up the mast many times to replace some rigging and to install the
repaired wind instruments and deck lighting.
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| Bob changing the main mast back stay |
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| Glenn looking on offering very helpful and knowledgable advice |
We also decided to try to fix our singing propeller. This issue has been an ongoing saga that probably
deserves a blog in itself but the details are just too depressing. The short story is that when we got our new
engine in 2015, the engineers noted our existing propeller was a bit under
propped and, although not a huge issue, we should think about getting a new
propeller that was a bit bigger with a different pitch. So when we were wintering
in Marmaris during the 2016/17 winter we decided to get the
new prop as Marmaris has excellent engineering services,. It turns out that this new
prop took the name of our lovely Songster
a bit too literally and sang loudly in a 5 note pentatonic scale at revs from
1000 to 2200 rpm. It drove Bob
crazy. I thought running the engine at
various revs would be a novel way to make new Indonesian gamelan music (which
uses a 5 note scale) but Bob was not amused.
We put up with it for the first half of the season until miraculously
while in the harbour at Skiathos last June, the singing stopped. Apparently just enough marine organisms had
grown on the propeller to stop the vortices making the singing noise.
Sadly by taking Songster
out of the water at the Boat Club for July/August, the organisms fell off and
we were back to the singing propeller.
It was so bad that when in Poros in September we hired a diver to put
the old propeller back on. Meanwhile we
read up on this phenomenon of singing propellers and found out that by grinding
a chamfer on the leading edge you could stop the vortices and the noise. This Bob did and we hired yet another diver
to put the new propeller back on. (He
also did a great job of cleaning our bottom after 4 months sitting still in the
marina.) Unfortunately and much to Bob’s
dismay, all the chamfering did was reduce the 5 note scale to 2 notes. We are really hoping the marine growth comes
back quickly as we begin the 2018 sailing season!
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| The diver and his rusty tools of the trade |
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| Having a well-earned Mythos after the job |
