David's Diary: Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Exploring Lavrion

I spend the morning taking a taxi to the one store that stocks our brand of windless motor. Fortunately, it has one of the models that match ours, although the shopkeeper has to take the showroom windless apart to give me my new motor. I walk back to Dragonsinger, a few hundred Euros poorer, with the windless in my backpack -- quite a weight to carry around.

It takes me two tries to get the windless back into the boat. Boat projects are always like that, especially when I haven't done the project before. It always takes two or three tries to get it right. On my first try, I hadn't realized that there is a tiny "key" that is needed to complete the connection between the windless engine shaft and the windless itself. The only way to insert the "key" is to completely remove the motor, fit the "key", then put everything back again.

Supermarket

We need to stock up on supplies, so I take the kids out shopping with me. In addition to the big street market that shows up once a week, there are a couple of excellent supermarkets in Lavrion. When you have visited many small villages with tiny stores and poor selection, it is a delight to find a large, bright, and well stocked supermarket. Many of the clerks even speak English -- communicating in Greece has been much easier than in other parts of the Mediterranean. We stock up on many goods, including Greek feta cheese and beautiful black and green olives. I really enjoy shopping and cooking with local ingredients that we find along the way.

Watching Movies

The kids don't want to do much in the afternoon so they get out our special speakers and put on a movie. We invested in a new computer with DVD capabilities and external speakers before we left Canada. It has been a great investment that has given us many, many hours of pleasure. While the kids watch the movie, Karalee and I have an afternoon nap. Later in the day we leave Dragonsinger and explore a little bit more of the town. Lavrion barely gets a mention in the guide books, but it has been a great base of operation for us in the last couple of weeks.