Pre Departure Checks

Later in the afternoon of our arrival, we had our first briefing, and also a walk through the boat with our engineer Jamie, taking us through all the technical aspects. I hung onto Jamie's every word as I know there is a lot that can potentially go wrong on a boat. 

I was still getting my ear attuned to all the exciting noises Analipsi makes - my favourite being water lapping against the hull - when I heard 2 noises I wasn't expecting coming from the heads (boating name for the bathroom!) following a visit by one of my minders. 

Firstly the water pump roared like an aircraft engine being fired up, and then when all was quiet again, I heard what sounded like rain. I didn't think I'd brought the English bad weather with me. I hadn't, it was coming from the panel beside the toilet. 

I called Jamie over for a consultation, and minutes later he was hard at work replacing a section of pipe which had a small leak. As tends to happen, one thing leads to another and our water pump also turned out to be faulty. 

We took up quite a bit of Jamie's time before we set sail the next morning, but it did seem a good idea to get everything just so before we left base, where all the kit and spares are, and also the Chief Engineer. 

I find boats so interesting that I offered my services as engineer's mate. There isn't a lot of space on boats for working, so I thought my small and flexible paws might be useful for getting into tight spaces. 

In our first photo you can see our new pump on the floor, ready to go in. 

I'd quite like to have stayed to see the job through, but Patrick and Louis insisted I left Jamie in peace and quiet and joined them for our first taverna evening. When I heard they planned to go to the Ionian taverna, scene of many a happy meal in the past, when the Jaguar flotillas used to moor outside, I couldn't resist the pull. 

Amazingly the proprietor,Yannis, remembered us - perhaps he doesn't get too many bear visitors. We had a lovely waterside table and a beautiful meal and it was great to be with John and Emily again and catch up with all the news from Northern Ireland. 

Louis introduced Patrick to Plomari ouzo, in his opinion (and he's not alone in this opinion) the finest ouzo there is. As you can see, Louis couldn't wait to get to it. Rather unusually Patrick approached it with some caution, which may have been due to the pungent aroma, but it soon got his paw of approval. I prefer to stick to beer and I'm especially partial to the Greek beer, Mythos and anyway, I wanted a clear head for leaving harbour for the first time in the morning. 

Lots of love, Eddie and the crew of Analipsi xxx