Day 8 – Meet Blaze

Blaze is the star of Blaze and the Monster Machines (see piccie below).

Balze is a favourite of Art’s, our Grandson. Art brought Blaze for a sleepover in Milton Keynes and left him there so we thought we’d bring him on holiday. This blog is really all about Blaze, but a couple of other matters first. I mentioned a small issue for Bill parking yesterday, a first for us both. It turns out if you let the lazy line (the mooring line that goes from the bow to a concrete block on the sea bed, instead of using an anchor) to close to a bow thruster (which pushes the bow to port or starboard when parking) it will suck it in and prop wrap. You can kind of see from the piccie below how that might happen. Oops.

We secured Bill’s boat with a line attached to Les Troyens and Denis and I went to the bow in Bill’s dinghy armed with goggles and our sharp wit. Dennis volunteered to have a go and after repeated dives, swallowing most of the harbour eventually cleared to prop. What a hero! The morale of the story is don’t operate the bow thruster when the lazy line is anywhere near the bow. What’s the chances of me doing the same you ask? Zero, and that’s not arrogance, it’s just that Les Troyens doesn’t have a bow thruster! We also said goodbye to chums Denis and Mel today off to Athens on the monster High Speed 4 ferry (piccies below).

Back to Blaze. Ellison thought it would be good fun to send Art a picture every day of what Blaze was up to. Today for example he was helping me with weather forecasts, he has previously been a lookout for ferries, been on anchor duty came out for the day when we hired a car, applying sunscreen and helping with lines. Some piccies below. Suffice to say Art loves it, although I’m sure the day is not too far away when he won’t be happy with Blaze going on holiday without him.

We’re still holed up in Pano Koufonisia (gusts of over 25 knots today) and may well be tomorrow and potentially Monday. A reminder below of the hardship that causes us.

Yamas!