Hi Guys, welcome -we  look forward to entertaining you with our " Kiri Maia" - Adventures

It is now May 2020 and thanks to COVID 19 we are unable to leave NZ for the foreseeable future. Looking back reading my diary & our Facebook posts it is incredible how much we have learned and what an amazing fun time we have had with family & friends.

It is true to say leaving NZ in March 2018 was the start of an adventure into the unknown, in a lot of cases, it is just as well, as along the way I decided that if I had known certain things I wouldn't have even considered buying a boat in another country let alone planning to sail it home.

It was a terrible idea to arrive in Greece on Easter Weekend
Finally, Marcel & I  had made it to Athens and were booked into a very nice hotel thinking we had a few days to go site seeing and shopping, however, we hadn't taken into consideration it was Easter & most of Greece closes for public holidays, definitely not ideal for the planned site seeing and shopping.

We were totally unprepared for how "Efficient" the Greek ferries were

The only way to get to the boat was on the ferry from Piraeus to the Island of Agenia
Fun, fun, fun getting 2 x 30kg suitcases & hand luggage on and off the ferry, the ferries in Greece being super-efficient and in a big hurry providing their passengers very little time to get on and off they don't wait for anyone. At about this time we really begun to realize that a bit more research & planning would have been a good idea particularly after arriving at our accommodation "The Captains Rooms" three flights of stairs to our room with over 74kg of luggage to lug up to the room, then to top it all off a very dodgy shower set up, if used incorrectly the entire bathroom & kitchen flooded.

What an amazing feeling, we were sooooo excited!!!!

To finally arrive at the boatyard safely in our hire car a Fiat Uno we named “Poppy Panda”, to finally be able to walk around the boat & climb on board. We were ecstatic she was in great condition just as she had been advertised & the broker had promised. At that stage even though the possibility that the sale might not proceed was hanging over us we were determined to remain optimistic.

The current owners arrived, at first, all seemed well?

Marcel & I were very excited finally we were getting ready to set sail, the four of us set to work getting the boat ready, cleaning, polishing, cleaning the dingy on a day with no wind putting up the sails, servicing the engines so many things to do to get the boat ready after being packed up for the previous winter.

Sadly once we had finalized the purchase of “Kiri Maia” new name, the previous owners removed all of their gear and disappeared.

Good news though our many visitors now had somewhere to stay.

Shop till you drop this is what we did, as we were left with a bareboat

Thank goodness for “Poppy Panda” (our very small car ) without Poppy Panda there is no way we could have stocked up the boat, every day we crammed her full of newly purchased items, items located thanks to our new friend at the soft furnishing shop in town, he had many friends that sold nearly everything we needed as well as some things we could have done without.
Our most prized purchase being a shopping bag on wheels, it was truly amazing how much we fitted into the bag & trundled around the streets of Agenia & Piraeus.
“photo”

On the 24th April 2018, we moved onto Kiri Maia, our first night on board was very exciting even though we on the hard in the boatyard.
“Photo”