This morning my last trans-Atlantic crew member, John P flew home to the UK. Kelvin and Drew flew home yesterday. Now I’m back to single-handing and leading a solitary life in my new home, Greece. It is quite an adjustment after months of passage making and having had various “room mates” aboard Nakee, starting with the passage from Philadelphia to Puerto Rico in October 2024. I imagine it will also be quite an adjustment for my trans-Atlantic crew, being back in their normal lives in the UK after months at sea, starting with virtually unlimited amounts of fresh water and electricity!
Before the crew left, they helped me moor Nakee stern-to on the causeway road connecting the island of Lefkas to the Greek mainland. Even with crew it took us several attempts to get the boat moored, in part because of the cross wind and current, but also because it gets shallow near the wall we are moored to, and what passes for metal rings to attach mooring lines to are few, old and very rusty.
There is no way I could get Nakee moored stern to here again while single handing!
This place isn’t really prepared for stern-to mooring, presumably because it is a sort of no-man’s land outside of Lefkada town. There is no power or fresh water available here (as there is in Preveza), but on the positive side, I didn’t have to leave on Friday to make way for returning charter fleets, whose handover is on Saturdays. That was the case in Preveza, as well as on all of the charter company pontoons in Lefkas Town, which are free to use Sunday to Thursday.
The Lefkas causeway is also, at least so far, free, as no one has come around asking me to pay a municipal mooring fee. I can walk to town in 10 min and in the other direction about 12 min to a beach where I can swim in the ocean and there is a free fresh water shower. Swimming in the channel where Nakee is moored isn’t really attractive as the water does not look that clear and there is a lot of boat traffic, especially at the scheduled times when the floating bridge opens.
The main motivation to moor here in Lefkas Town was to be able to get the guys who will work on Nakee when she is lifted on October 20th, to visit the boat and discuss the work to be done (through hulls, gel coat repairs, dorade vent modifications). Both of them did come and so that work is set.
Since being in Lefkas Town I’ve also met Dimitris, the manager at Lefkas Marina, where I have a winter berth from Nov 1st to March 31st and explored the town by foot in quite some detail. I’ve seen the dry dock and travel lift, visited a few chandleries, explored about 4 supermarkets (but not yet Lidl, which is a bike ride away), visited the Saturday farmers market, a great hardware store, and a computer repair shop that can repair my iPad.
On Tuesday I hope to receive two new reverse osmosis membranes for my water maker at Nautilus, the bigger chandlers. The output of the watermaker is down to about 5 gallons per hour, compared with the 29 gph it should be. To fix this I have to disassemble the high pressure vessels, remove them from the inside of the boat, take them apart, remove the old membranes, replace the o-rings, reassemble and re-install them in exactly the same way as they currently are. It will likely be an all day job, but I want to complete it here in Lefkas before I leave the stern-to mooring, in case something goes wrong and I need new parts or help.
Since arriving in Greece I’ve already managed to hire a local accountant and get my Greek tax ID, which I needed to get a mobile phone contract for my phone and for Nakee. Total monthly cost for both SIM cards from Vodafone is about €35 with unlimited data for both, a big saving over the $250 a month Starlink pricing which also now no-longer offers unlimited dockside data. Needless to say I’ve paused Starlink indefinitely. The Peplink 5G dome installed at the top of Nakee’s mast gives great reception up to 40 miles from land.
I am keeping my US cell phone number, also used for WhatsApp (+1 609 5486663) and have the new Greek eSIM simultaneously active on the iPhone (+30 693 2800748) so can be reached on either number.
This morning I put up Nakee’s boom tent and Bimini extension to combat the heat, it gets quite hot during the day.
