In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we are crossing east across the northern part of the Aegean Sea with no time to stop and enjoy the islands as we have an issue with a fizzing anode and the alternator not properly charging batteries.We're in a race against time, with no time to stop, as we head east towards Turkey

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Honey_and_Milk by the 126ers

Entire by Quincas Moreira

Nice_To_You.mp3 by Vibe Tracks

Hey_Girl by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena

Where_Am_I by Text Me Records

Soul_Ballad

Closed Captions (CC):
If you look behind us you'll probably

notice that we're not

at anchor, we're actually tied up in the

port of

the island of Skyros in Greece and the

reason for that

is because on the way over I noticed

that the house batteries and the

starter battery were not getting charged

by the alternator on the engine

We're on the move, we've been here for

two nights

yeah two nights uh hiding from the Meltemi

The first one was pretty blowy

The second one didn't pan out to be much

as was predicted

but the problem with this bay is as

beautiful as it is

you can probably tell uh there's a lot

of rock and roll going on here and I

really don't want to spend the third

night rocking and rolling like this

Oh this is bad

We're in O. Mourtia

on the south end yeah yeah

so we're going to move around the corner

to the eastern side of

Alonnisos. Okay all right Cap'n

I'll go and get the anchor up. Yep

Excellent decision captain very nice

little bay

It is um it was a bit wavy coming around

here yeah it was blowing

15 knots steady, gusting to 20 and

the waves have had a long time to build

up so it was probably about a two metre

swell yeah and coming into this little

place it looked a bit busy

but as we got closer we can obviously

see that

some boats must have left this morning

and the ones that decided to stay

are still in the position they were in

so we've come in and we've dropped in uh

three metres. With 20 metres of chain out and

and then snubbed. Yeah um so it's well

protected yeah there's no rolly rolly here

and there's a little taverna on the

little beach

and we're surrounded by beautiful -

kind of like sandstone

cliffs not very high with pine trees and

it's very

very pretty and the sea is just a

beautiful blue

But I've got to go down below and do

some work now gotta get today's video

uploaded for the patrons

yeah yeah. I've done my bit now it's your

turn. It is I'll make lunch. Okay?

Okay sounds like a plan. All right

This is where we are right now in the

little bay of Milia

on the Greek island of Alonnisos and

today we're going to do a seven-hour

trip to Skyros so it's quite a way out

and by the way this uh chart

representation of the bay

is very misleading it looks rather small

but in reality

this is quite a big bay and there are

you can get quite a lot of

boats at anchor here swinging free at anchor

so from there we're gonna head this way

all the way to

this anchorage in Skyros

Now the forecast did say that we should

have about 15 to 20 knots of wind

coming from this direction so really

it's going to be a good run for us today

if that prediction is correct

uh and if the prediction is correct and

we do get those wind speeds

that'll reduce our trip from seven hours

to five hours

So we'd better pull the anchor up and

get this show on the road

If you look behind us you'll probably

notice that we're not at anchor we're

actually tied up in the port

of the island of Skyros in Greece

and the reason for that is because on

the way

over I noticed that the

house batteries and the starter battery

were not getting charged by the

alternator on the engine

Now there is no alternator light on the

dashboard

so it tells me that it thinks it's

producing electricity

so we've called in here today because

this has now been an ongoing thing that

I've been monitoring for two days

which means that the windlass battery

and the starter battery

have been used to start the engine and

bring the anchor chain up and down

but they've not been getting any charge

because they're also not

getting charged from our solar

so what we've come here for is the

electricity it's going to cost us a

bit because

that's that's the way the cookie

crumbles but the thing is

it gives us at least a day to charge

the batteries completely - and troubleshoot -

and then I can start troubleshooting why

the alternator is not

doing what it says it's doing. Yeah

Meantime this

is a bloody nice place, we got, we

got a great greeting

the harbour master came out in his

little red dinghy

and had a chat with us said what d'you

want where do you want, you know what do

you need? Stayed with this while we got

our fenders together

yeah he also said oh I notice

you've got a bloody great big

dingy on you on your davits would

you like to go outside too

so we said well yeah that'd be really

helpful. So they tied us up at the dock

told us exactly what they needed and

here we are

so it includes i think it's gonna

Steps!

It includes steps, they gave us steps!

I'm so easily impressed

25 euros a night that includes water, electricity

the showers and toilets, the wi-fi and

the laundry

so we're gonna get the batteries

on charge now

and then we're gonna check things out

and we'll show you around. I'm just

impressed with it because the back of

the steps say Welcome to Skyros

It's fantastic

And three of them came out and helped us

with the lines when we actually came

you know, it's well worth coming here and

it looks like a charming village

Okay work.

Okay. Work work!

Our AC panel says we are connected to

the shore power so let's

bring that on, great. Now we've got a

reading here

next thing we want to do is switch on

our battery charger and see what happens

Well that's interesting it shows all

three as green

Aha

something dropped out there

Okay we'll keep an eye on that

and see what happens but we're still

going to troubleshoot exactly what the

alternator

is or is not doing

About 30 minutes after switching on the

shore power and the battery charger

this is what the circuit lights look

like now. So circuit one is definitely

getting a bit of a boost

circuit two is kind of in between and

circuit three which is the bow thruster

and windlass battery

is looking good so we'll just pop out

now and have a wander around town

and see what it looks like when we come

back

Crystal clear water

Parked right next to a supermarket so

we're good for beer, hahaha

Another great thing about coming stern to

in the harbour here

is that every berth has a lazy line so

there's no need to drop your anchor

and therefore no worries about getting

anchor entanglement

and anchor rage

That's a brilliant service

also here on the quayside they've got a

book swap

or book-take exchange so

lots of languages represented so if

you've got any books that you've read

and you want to swap them out for

something different

feel free to do so. They tell you all

about the local stuff

they have directions to every facility

there's also free wi-fi in the marina as

well which is

excellent. I've tested it out and it

works and it's very good speed

every bit of information you could need

about taxis, scooter rental, car rental

laundry, disco shower and the disco

shower

every night between seven and eight

with bubbles

fantastic. Just one thing of course you

can fill up your

water tanks here but you're not allowed

to wash your boat. It is an island and

therefore water is limited

The ferry comes in here

and here. Calm conditions today but

I'm always in total awe of the Greek

ferry captains they just handle their

vessels

perfectly. This is the fuel station

and this is the tiny marina here. They do

have mooring balls here

so if you can't get stern to here you

can tie up on a mooring ball there

I love this place it's really cool

They're also very big on recycling, this

is all electronic stuff that's waiting

to be picked up for the next ferry

They're collecting lids

and these are all the recycled two sign

which can all be processed in one go

They have their own crushing machine

which crushes up the plastic bottles and

the aluminium cans

and bundles it all up ready to be taken

back to the mainland for recycling

That's where we've spent our first and

second night on Alonnisos. A bit rolly in

there so we moved around

to here for our third

night absolutely beautiful little

anchorage and today we've come all the

way across here

down here, around here and into here

Tomorrow we go even further that way

I woke up at six this morning here at

the Greek island of Skyros in the

harbour port area

and prepped the boat, had a shave,

had a shower

it's now seven o'clock and

life for me right now is about

babysitting the boat

and the systems, massive logistics

and handling stress

one thing I didn't plan on was that

ferry behind me coming in

yesterday and staying for the night

because the ferry just happens to dock

right next to the fueling station

My plan was to fuel up this morning, hahaha

because we've used probably around about

50 percent of our

fuel capacity in the main tank and

being a conservative kind of person in

case I need to go to a contingency plan

I like to have full complement of fuel

on board

The ferry doesn't leave until eight o'clock

so then we can leave

here and just pop over to the fuel dock

and fuel up

approximately a 100 litres from our best

estimates looking at our

engine hours and distance traveled but

then again

we've now got a

10-hour hop to the next little island

that we're planning on staying at

That's a plan A. Plan B is a further two

hours after that

so if you calculate that time worst case

scenario we'll be pulling into Plan B

around about eight o'clock at night when

the sun is just going

down to the horizon so again it's all

about logistics

but it will be what it will be that's

that's my story this morning

Mine is i woke up at 5:30 hahaha

and kind of lay there thinking oh

okay we've got a long trip

a bit nervous because you know like

because we're sort of like looking at

electrical issues on the boat as well

aren't we

that too - which we'll go into at

another time. But you've just gotta

keep going step by step and

so, you know, close the hatches, close the

seacocks

got all ready, it's ... you just ... I think

I think there's always some kind of

uncertainty or fear or

unknown or issue

when you're sailing or with a boat if

you're living on one

um and I think you just have to

learn to grow big enough so that you can

kind of

encompass all of that ew, worry

and still enjoy the good stuff along the

way. So that that's kind of where I'm at

this morning so bacon sandwiches

always good

fill the belly with something tasty

And I think

on this long trip I will be having a

sleep sometime in the in the middle of

the day

Anyway let's find out what happens when

we get to fuel up and get out of ... get out of town.

Get out of Dodge

It's been a nice Dodge

Yeah it's a beautiful place

oh yeah if I ... if we had time I'd stay

here for a few days and have a look

around the island definitely

It's, I think it's the biggest

of the Sporades islands

Visit here if you're in the area it's good

So our calculations of how much fuel we

used was

pretty spot-on it was 108.7 litres

that we put in and we estimated

around 110 I think

so that was uh 133 Euros

Okay it's just after eight o'clock

it's time to hit the road Jack

Well that was an interesting ride all

round really

It started off with absolutely zero wind

slowly built up to 10 and mostly 15

and by the end when we just came around

the lee of this island

I looked and it was 26 but considering

it wasn't too bad but the waves were

just huge. Yeah on the beam

Right on the beam. It was like a roller

coaster ride. Yeah

and um so we've we've anchored, this is a

basically an uninhabited island

it's called uh Anti Psara and

Anti Psara

We call it Aunty Sarah

and there's just this big bay on the

south of the island

where it's pretty much three or four

metres deep that's it

and it's all sand so we just thought

we'd stay here for tonight because

well why not um a bit of isolation does

you good

and you just dived the anchor and it looks

good? Oh yeah all you can see is the roll

bar and

just the top thin edge of the uh shaft

so it's

like couldn't get in any further in really

Trying to get back on the boat

I kept swimming and the boat kept going

away and I'm like

I could be here forever

That was me with the bow thruster!

So - all right - we're staying with Auntie

Sarah tonight yeah

She's a quiet thing - yeah - shouldn't be

any loud music. And the next hop is

to Chios. Yeah. I want to check the

weather for tomorrow

and I just want to once again

uh look at my plan a, b, c anchorages

I'll join you with that. Okay we'll do that.

Oh

I'll join you with that too. Cheers

Join us next week on Sailing A B Sea

as we continue southeast to Chios island

and then on to Samos to check out of

Greece for Turkey

and also try and solve our anode and

electrical problems

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Have a great week and see you next

Saturday on Sailing A B Sea