Friday 23 Sep - Finding out what we have and what we don't

From a girly point of view, what we have and don't have on the boat is subjective. John is happy with leftover tools and lines (ropes to you & me) fenders and the electronic sat nav card, whilst I am thinking where is the champagne & flowers to welcome us! We split up and attend to our individual priorities; John to work out the electrics and cooling the fridges for the beers and me to hunting down cleaning kit and a vacuum! Crumbs, this is supposed to be the trip of a lifetime and I'm still wearing my marigolds. The previous owners used to smoke and there's remnants of ash everywhere..yuk. In my eyes, the living areas are grubby and need a good old scrubbing, so I heave ho to it (note the sailing lingo already)

The little port where we are staying is called Finikas, and it is very pretty. Quiet & traditional. Fishing boats sailed alongside the tourist yachts & dive boats. Mind you, the ducks and cats were not behaving in the traditional manner, as witnessed by this cute photo of the little black kitten chillin' with the ducks and their ducklings. There's a tiny supermarket but not much else and we have discovered that we need to buy, bed linen, towels and basics like cups, plates, saucepans and the obligatory kettle. Who can do all this work without a cup of tea or coffee?

So there goes our morning racing across the island at various times and in different taxis to get to Ermoupolis, the capital of Syros Island, costing us a small fortune in euros in taxi fare and household goods. Not speaking Greek meant the drivers didn't understand what we meant by needing to find a shop like Ikea! But the locals here are all so friendly and willing to help that we overcome the language barrier by miming and laughing.

We leaned heavily on the Greek willingness to help when it came to filling up our two massive fuel tanks! No handover by the owner meant we didn't know where the fuel caps were to put the diesel into, which was very embarrassing when the small tanker arrived at the boat to fill her up! We had to unscrew all the caps we could see and sniff at them to determine which was plain water and which was fuel! We couldn't resolve it between us and the fuel attendant so we had to phone the broker to get him to ring the previous owner to tell us what to do. By this time, the whole marina was watching in amazement as the newbies to the cruising world clearly showed their ignorance of an essential knowledge like where the fuel tanks are! Gulp! We've been found out..we don't know what we're doing! John helped the fuel chap and I went into the engine hold..ooh er..to watch the fuel reach the correct level and then shut off the valve. There I am folks..my rear end to the watching world, getting stuck in on a sharp learning curve and doing it in my white jeans..Helloooo, who thought white jeans would be a good idea on this trip? There I was, thinking this was a holiday. Go figure.

Our man at the fuel pumps was so patient with us and very happy when he presented his bill of 1600 euros for 1067 litres of diesel..Yes, that's right, 1600 euros for just the fuel and we use approx 5 litres to the mile!

Finally, a late dinner at the ferry port to meet Gordy at 11pm. How lovely to see him in amongst the heaving crowd and smiling at us after a very long travelling day. He's such a star to come along and help us to do this and hopefully it will be a holiday for him too.