Empowerment, defeat, and humility

I felt like I could take on the world after we left Missalonghi.  We didnt like the harbor, so we left with a freshly cleaned boat, sweet-clean smelling clothes, fully provisioned, and feeling fully empowered.  We had a beautiful sail to Kryoneri, where we quickly realized it not a viable harbor for an overnight.  So we hoisted the sails and went screaming across the gulf toward our next destination, Navpaktos.  Awesome...this is why sailors sail.  Fifteen knots on a beam reach, it felt like we would just surf our way in before dinner.

Per protocol, I called the bridge traffic coastguard 5 miles out from the Rion bridge.  Yep, that is us: Sailing vessel Why Knot: Whiskey, Hotel, Yankee...Kilo, November, Oscar, Tango, heading is westbound, 5 nm from bridge, requesting permission pass.  Yes, our mast is 5-0; 50 in height.  Duh...I can only imagine the traffic control dudes looking to the west of the bridge (not east,as eastbound boast come from the west because they go to the east) while looking for a monster of sailboat that I described with a 50 meter mast.  Our mast is 50 feet, not fifty meters.  They let me pass through with a very wide berth, wondering what the hell was wrong with either me or their radios...like the former.

No matter, we are through the bridge and still making great time for Navpaktos.  Maybe feeling more humbled by my faux pas, but I am sure it happens to everyone.  

We pull into a miniature harbor in Navpaktos, as the pilot book promised.  The harbor is surrounded by a midevil fortress with a storybook castle above on the hill.  There are great restaurants and tourist shops but not the usual tired crap that we see in every tourist town.  Here, we have antique shops, bookstore/restaurants, a kid-friendly beach with a bona-fide playground.  It is sweet sweet sweet.  We drop the anchor and pull into one of the three spots available for overnighting.  The wind had kicked up to 18 knots outside the harbor, so we felt incredibly lucky to find a spot to moore.

I wasnt so comfortable, however, with the mooring situation.  Our stern seemed a bit too close to the ledge, which we noticed also had scarey pieces of metal protruding outward.  We did not drop our anchor far enough out (2 boatlengths seemed perfectly reasonable at the time), so there was little we could do to pull ourselves forward ( think of the angle...the further out you are, the better the leverage to pull yourselves forward.  In contrast, if your anchor angled downward, there is less run to pull you forward).  So there we were, not very comfortable with the situation, but not much we could do except re-anchor.  After weighing the 'devil-you-know-for-the-devil-you-dont', reanchoring seemed to be a great option.  Only one problem.  The engine would not start.

I did not know at the time but we had a fauly relay switch AND a bad start button.  The start button had been flaky from time to time, but it was just an idiosyncracy of our boat since we bought it, but the boat always started.   That is, until yesterday.

I called Code in to the recue, and as always, he delivered.  I reached him at 2 am my time and learned how to hot-wire the boat two different ways.  By morning, we could start the engine, pull up the anchor, and move the boat two a better spot on the wall of the harbor.  By the time I hung up with him, I was comforted, empowered, and ready for a much more comfortable spot in our harbor.  

The kids and I woke up, had some breakfast, and before I was finished my coffee Aethan and scoped out our new spot.  We were ready to go, Aethan was at the bow, and I hot wired the boat to start it.  Nothing happened.  Then I tried not-wiring method #2.  Still nothing.  Empowerment starts to wither.

Coast guard dude shows up needing us to do routine overnighting paperwork.  I mention that we are having electrical issues starting th engine and he calls for backup.  Big greek guy in coveralls shows up sometime later, diagnosis our problem with the obvious (need new start button), then he, in turn, calls for back up.  He also showed me a 3rd and far scarier method of hotwiring, which is where I believe the term 'hot wiring' takes its name as it involves inserting a screwdriver deep into the bowels of the engine, some smoke, and alot of sparks. The back-up electrician at least spoke some english and I was able to explain our situation thus far.  Between him and Code on the phone with me, he fixes the start button, which was part of the problem, but not all of is as the engine STILL would not start.  Turns out there was an issue with a relay between the alternator and the house battery.  Of course...why didnt I think of that?

Nonetheless, he fixed it all for the sumof 30 Euros ($50);a bargain considering how important it is to have an engine when boating.

Back to Act I.  Aethan is at the bow, I start the engine (seemlessly, I might add).  Aethan raises the anchor to find it embedded in nothing less than what appeared to be the contents of Sanford and Son's junkyard.  I counted 2 anchors (one kedge one danforth), a propellor still attached to the drive shaft, 2 heavy ropes, and a rusty crab trap.  I thought there was money in scrap metal.  If so, there is a goldmine here in the center of Navkaptos Harbor.  We tried fruitlessly to free ourselves, motoring forward and back; port to starboard; raising and lowring the anchor.  No dice.

We lowered the dinghy from the deck into the water.  It is partly deflated, much like me at that point, but still functioning.  I called Code for advice and the best next step was to tie a trip line (a line on the distal end of the anchor which allows you to empty the contents of the anchor like tipping a basket).  I was able to raise the anchor enough and, with a mask and snorkel, reach deep enough, to tie a line through the trip-line attachment of the anchor.  With that, we decided that since life gave us some lemons and the anchor was no-doubt-about-it anchored, we may as well re-attach our stern lines to the wall. In doing so, we ended up quite cock-eyed and not at all square against the wall.  Worse yet, while motoring in backward, our prop picked up another mooring line and it fouled around our prop.  By this time, I was feeling defeated.  We were in a harbor with hundreds of tourists, locals, and fishermen casually watching this unfold over 2 hours.  No one stopped to offer assistance.  Of course, I dont expect it, but maybe I do as I was clearly having trouble, and clearly doing this alone (well, sort of, Aethan is ahuge help). With Aethan on Jellyfish watch, I take my knife and jump overboard.  Not feeling at all confident that I could do much, but instead, soldiering onward due to the lack of any alternative.  Three, four, maybe five dives later, I manage to cut the prop free.  

At this point, it all becomes a blur.  I know I tried calling the harbor master to have no reply.  A man, George, offers to help pull in our stern, which made us stable, at least in the moment.  George leaves, the line previously wrapped around the prop, the line which I had freed us, was the only thing keeping us from swingling beam on into the other fishing boats along the port side.  At least having the prop freed allowed me to start the engine to move us off, until I foul the prop again,with the remainder of the rope on the mooring line.  I freed us again. I again called Code, but this time I was completely defeated and the tears just gushed forth.  What the fuck am I supposed to do, and why the fuck is nothing going right and everything is instead going wrong?

A cry is a good thing.  Stress gone, but situation no better, we devise a plan to at least stabilize the boat until tomorrow.  By now it is 3 pm.   I can put spring lines in from mid-ship to the wall astern which will keep our bow pointed out.  Stern lines will further stablize the boat on the wall. The stern has all 8 fenders keeping the transom (stern) off the wall.  Plan in place and ready to go, George shows up and offers more help.  Seems that he had been in a similar situation in Kephalonia this summer.  So I am not alone. 

All I needed at this point was muscle.  George pulled, I tied, and Aethan dropped the anchor to further reduce the our pull to port (and the props of the 1/2 dozen fishing boats that we were pulled to).  We are at least stable.  Thank you George for being the one person, after a 4 hour struggle alone in the middle of a busy harbor to help me out.  He later commented that people here just never help out sailors in trouble.  They watch, comment, all very indifferently.  They are not sailors themselves so they have not found themselves in situations like these, and on top of that, it is small town, so there is an element of bashfulness among their neighbors.  George was brought up in NY, and despite the bad wrap, a New Yorker (or, for that matter, any east-coaster) will go out of their way to help another.  I dont know where the bad wrap originates, but I have never found it to be the case.  I was grateful for his not being afraid, whatsoever, to help.

I am scared to face the anchor tomorrow.  I will swim out and take a look, maybe take the scuba tank incase I am able to easily unfoul it.  I might detach the anchor to the chain and try pulling it by the trip line.  Worst case, I am stuck in this beautiful town until Friday, when Code once again will come to my rescue.

It has been a horribly long and emotional ordeal that I was simply incapable of fixing alone.  By the time I needed it, I was more that grateful for the help from George and from Code.  Maybe we hate to admit that we need help because we are afraid of it not being there for us one day.  Mabe it is better to realize that help is all around us, and asking for (and giving) help it is just part of what bonds us together tighter as humans.