The Start of Our New Adventure 2018

by Chantal & David · Published June 8, 2018 · Updated January 27, 2020

After the normal few weeks of getting Casa Del Mar ready for the rental season, a flying visit to family and friends in the UK, we finally took off for Athens and then onto Samos on the 3rd June. Wow, what a temperature change… this time last year we were still in jeans, not this time and we have been told we are in for a melter!

Over the winter, we had quite a bit of work done on Seaclusion, including the polishing of her hull, topsides and sanding of her decks, amongst more crucial but mundane things, and so had high hopes of her looking stunning for this years adventure, and we were not disappointed!. She looked like new when we first spotted her in her winter home, Andreas and Aigli did us proud!.

We then spent a record 1 1/2 days waking her up, and launched on Tuesday 5th to set sail to the south of Samos and back to Pythagoria where we had an appointment with a lovely chap called Kleanthis who had promised to put a stop to our squeaky boom, something we have lived with since new. He turned up on time, so not Spanish, on the 6th, worked his magic and once again we were not disappointed, not a squeak!

All was going swimmingly well, that was until we left the safety of Pythagoria, heading south west to Patmos and then onto one of the few islands we missed last year, Amorgos. With not a breath of wind, we gunned the engine, and sadly found white smoke pouring out from her exhaust and the tone changing as if someone had taken her baffles out and fitted a super sports exhaust to her. On checking the manual, we starting trying to work out the problem, one suggestion was condensation/water in our fuel tank, which brought about my first blonde comment of the season.. Something along the lines that water sinks so it couldn’t be a problem so soon as we were nowhere near the bottom of the tanks.. to which David pointed out that the engine couldn’t possibly draw its fuel from the top otherwise it would be constantly running out! Clearly we didn’t know what the problem was, so safety prevailing we turned 180 degrees and headed back to Pythagoria.

On our way back we had a first sighting of Dolphins, but they clearly didn’t like the sound of our sports exhaust so wouldn’t come out to play, thankfully some would say, otherwise you would have had 100 photos to plough through!

On arrival, we meet with our mechanic. After an hours investigation he showed us a very sorry looking exhaust manifold! Still, after 6 years, 12,000 miles and more than a few engine hours, we cant complain!.

So we are now waiting for our new part from Athens in Pythagoria. For those of you who read our blogs last year and saw my pics of this lovely town and island, you will agree there are far worst places to be holed up!.