A bug in the system...

The Goulash brothers setting the new frame up.

 Last week, Adrian, our stainless steel fabricator, finished off the sprayhood and the cockpit awning frame, he should be working on the gantry for the solar panels now.  We had a visitation from a pair of Hungarian chaps who work for Orkide, who is doing the canvas works, to set all the frame up so she could take patterns for the canvas.  Adrian calls these two guys the Goulash Brothers but they are very helpful.

More or less all our worldly good on-board.

Although we have had all our goods and chattels installed on the boat we now have a situation where we had to bring some things back to the house.  A combination of a low pressure weather system, a full moon (exaggerating what little tide the med has) and the wind blowing straight into the enclosed bay means that there is exceptionally high water all the time.  This is so much so that it is causing us to paddle through ten meters of water with the level being halfway up our shins before we get to our gang plank.  Not a good situation for keeping Sandra on side.

The rot started when we had a storm towards the end of last week which resulted in Horatio Todd, the company who asked us to moor there for the work to be done, moving our boat to the outside of a much larger yacht which was side on to the quay.  This meant having to climb over the first yacht to get to ours, not another good situation, in fact Sandra could not have done it and I struggled.  Not only this but they disconnected our electricity (so the potentially full fridge went off), and never asked us if they could move it or informed us that they had.  We were not happy bunnies, but thought this was probably a precautionary action because of the impending storm.  So on Tuesday when it had passed I got them to move it back stern to the quay and thus much more accessible.  The water was high even then but got much worse over the next couple of days and the electricity supply was flooded resulting in me getting shocks from the rigging on the boat before it finally blow out altogether.  People in the next boat to us have moved because of the water and electricity situation saying they have not had any power for over three days.

Unfortunately we ain't. Note the water back here!

I have sorted out as best I can his electrical supply to the boats and at least now it is safer, although as an electrical engineer I should really condemn the lot of it.  There are about six to eight take off points all fed from one extension lead which crosses the main road inside a hose pipe.  much of the southern half of this cable is at least part of the time submerged in water and goes through several joints wrapped in plastic bags or similar "protection".   The black bag in the picture is our power pole! and it's still stood in water.

With this in mind we have contacted our long suffering landlady, Tree, and asked for a couple of weeks stay of execution which she has kindly agreed to, Thanks Tree.  We will therefore be staying in the house until the work is complete and we can leave Vlicho.  And it least with typical British stiff upper lip we are still smiling and warm and safe, which at the end of the day is all that you can expect.  Hopefully there will be some brighter weather and news next week.