Finally – beginning of May 2024 the Fortuna Princess went back into the waters around Leros. During the winter it had obviously served some birds as a hotel – they built their nest in the boom.
It then took several days of cleaning – the fenders, the deck, the interior… about 4 litres of teak oil. My favourite product is “Teak Wonder”. Now everything is nice and clean again, the water maker is working, fenders were scrubbed with “Cif”, the leak on the heat-exchanger of the engine has been fixed and I still have hope that even the outboard engine for the dingy will be in full operating condition.
After spending a few days in Lakki marina for provisioning – where I met nice fellow sailors – I sailed via Arki, Pathmos and Fourni to Ormos Marathokampou marina on Samos, which becomes more and more of a home here. Stephan who runs the marina, his dog and his family; I step out of my boat and see that of Angelos, the taxi driver who would take me to the airport, familiar faces in the supermarket, bakery and the Trata restaurant… Great to be back here!
Shipping address for a stuff I did not want to carry as baggage on the flight? Obviously Ormos Marina! And UPS did it: sent on April 24th and on May 16th the box arrived in the marina as my birthday present! So then I had the material to re-wire my fridge which is now running smoothly again.
Learnings: When buying teak oil, don’t start with 1-litre cans – get the big 4l can right away. And – don’t pay a boatyard for charging batteries: 300€ for that job is way too expensive and yet the bow-thruster battery was empty… (the others were charged by my solar panels). I Guess I’ll get a b2b-charger to allow charging starter and bow thruster batteries from the solar-powered service batteries.