Has anyone here seen Billy?

Regular readers will remember that we have had a few battery problems since launching Missy Bear. We had a boiled engine battery coming into Sardinia, and another boiled battery in Kalamata marina. We set off from Leros marina on Saturday afternoon, motored out and then sailed up to the island of Patmos, where we anchored in a lovely bay. Padding around in the saloon in bare feet, you tend to register temperatures underfoot. The floorboard covering our house batteries was hot. Sigh – here we go again!

Our Covid surface temperature thermometer has served us well keeping a regular health check on our batteries. Sadly, this time, they were definitely off-colour, and in need of some TLC. We agreed that if they were still high in temperature the next morning, we would go straight to Samos. Luckily, they cooled right down, so we sailed to the small, remote island of Agathonisi instead and went on-line to hunt for a marine electrician. Facebook turned up trumps with a recommendation for a guy on Samos named Kleanthis, who agreed to come out to Pithagorio on Samos the next day.

He gave our electrics the most in-depth review anyone has done. He was able to show that two of our batteries were shot, one was borderline, and one was OK. We decided the time had come to replace all four under our Beneteau warranty. He also rewired our badly-installed solar panels [Ed – Amongst other things, the French guys at SAS had wired them to the regulator with too small diameter wire, and wired them in series not parallel]. But sadly, they too are bad - all three 110W flexible panels – and need replacing under warranty from Sunbeam Systems, hopefully when we eventually arrive in Gocek.

Klianthis and his brother Greg run a boatyard on the north of Samos. [Ed - their father, an ex-fisherman, had bought the land. Kleanthis had studied electrics at university and also spend a few years as an electrician in the merchant navy. Greg does all the fabrication and gelcoat etc.] We were extremely impressed with the effort he put in. He also checked the batteries remotely as we WhatsApped photos of the battery data to him.

With all of this going on, we had not had the chance to explore as much of the island as we had hoped by the time our friends John and Sue arrived on the ferry on Thursday evening. Klianthis was due to fit the batteries on Friday morning, so Richard stayed with the boat while we went into the nearby town of Pythagorio, named after one of its most famous inhabitants.

Quick Pythagorus joke (and not the one about the squaw on the hippopotamus hide…)

Pythagorus walks into a bar, muttering “if a right-angled triangle has a short side X; a long side Y, and hypotenuse Z, then the sum of Z must be equal to the sum of the square of X, and the square of er, um…

The barman says “Y, the long face?”

Fortunately, for all of us, the batteries seemed to be behaving themselves, so we were able to leave Samos on Saturday morning, and you are excused any more Pythagorian jokes.

Like all good sailors, we had been watching the weather forecast, which changes in the blink of an eye around here. With heavy winds due to come up later in the week, our island-hopping plan read:

“Arki, Patmos, Lipsi, Lipsi, Leros”

…which sort of became extended to include Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, or any variation you can make from it.

Arki, Patmos, Lipsi, and Leros

We set sail on Saturday morning and headed to the island of Arki. Now many privately-owned boats have marine “AIS” – Automatic Identification System - which transmits a signal of data giving boat name, position etc. We use this sometimes to see if there are any boats where we plan to moor, but it’s not always accurate if the AIS transmitter is out of range. And of course, most charter boats don’t have it at all. But my Vessel Finder app said there were only three boats on the town quay at Arki, and Missy Bear’s chart plotter didn’t see any AIS boats at all. But when we got there, the quay was absolutely full.

We went into a nearby bay, and found a lovely little anchorage, with only a few other boats to keep us company. Kleanthis had recommended a taverna which was an easy walk from our little beach, so we flubbed ashore (always an exciting time (hey Jane?). Nikolas, the taverna owner, told us that some of the boats on the quay had been there over a week. Given that the weather had been very stable, we thought that was a bit greedy/unsociable.

As with so many of these bays, it was surrounded by low, scrubby bushes, with herds of goats tinkling about. And of course, at 08:00 it’s feeding time, so from all around all you can hear is the clang of goat bells as they trot and gamble towards their breakfast of cereals, I guess, put out in a walled enclosure. I came up into the cockpit, and Sue pointed out that two men had brought a large, horned goat down the to a small jetty, and we wondered if they were going to kill it. We also joked that it was waiting for a boat, maybe a ferry.

Then suddenly, the big billy made a bid for freedom, dragging the long line with which he had been tied up. He managed to get free and leaped up the hillside, followed by the two Greek men, shouting and gesticulating wildly. This naturally drew forth an audience on all of the anchored boats and we laughed as they chased after the goat.

For two slightly-overweight men in singlets and flip-flops, they were quite agile up through the rocky hillside. Amazingly, they managed to re-catch the poor thing, although he certainly wasn’t co-operating, and brought him back down to the little jetty, and tied him up again. The goat moved as far from the jetty as his tether allowed him.

Not long after, a small motor boat came in through the bay, and tied up on the jetty. The goat bucked and pushed back but he was wrestled on board, and held on the bow by one of the men. And off went the boat.

Puffing and Floating Billy

But where was it going? Was it on the way to the abattoir? I admit both John and I had eaten goat the previous night, so I couldn’t be too squeamish. Sue preferred the version that he was being taken away to comfort a lonely nanny goat. What we really needed was a Goat Finder App.

But has anyone here seen Billy?