SAILING KOKORO

 I sit down to write today and I don't know where to start.  I am a ball of nerves, raw in every way, exhausted from having to think the simplest thought and yet I am putting every bit of what remains into slowly packing things away, throwing things away, earmarking things to be put in its rightful place as we prep the boat for leaving her on the hard for anywhere between nine to twelve months! Long story short, our engine has failed, we are now in the process of assessing what is wrong before we go about assessing how we get that righted.  Let me try to start somewhere that could be considered a beginning.  My brother came to Chania, Crete to spend time with us as we anchored in a beautiful and sheltered bay off Marathi beach. He had a wonderful short visit with us and then left two days later. Our goal was to leave shortly after he flew out to Athens. We always check to see the engine is good to go before we depart anywhere, this entails turning it on, running it f...

  We are in Chania, Crete at the moment. We got here on the 27th of June in preparation for my brother getting here to see us. My brother flew from Singapore to Athens, stored his baggage at the airport in Athens before boarding a plane to Chania with just his backpack, swim trunks and roaming Wifi device.  My brother got here on the 30th and he stayed with us for two nights before leaving for Athens on the 2nd of July. It was after he left that we decided to run the engine just to make sure everything was good, plus, running the engine charges the batteries some. The last time we'd run the engine was just a day or so before my brother arrived, when we moved our anchorage to a little bit further out so we were in deeper water as we knew the winds would be picking up and being in 3-5 meters on the depth gauge was a bit too close for comfort for a boat that has a 2.3 meter keel. Well, short story long, when we turned the ignition, there was a slight hiccup of a sound and nothing...