The miracle on Psará

38° 32′ 33.0396” N 25° 33′ 48.996” E
October 16th 2021
Where is Manoli?

On the Greek island of Psará, it is agreed that the retired sailor, Manoli, will be the best at solving our engine problem. The message spreads faster than a Facebook post, word of mouth, from neighbor to neighbor, among the island’s 400 inhabitants: Find Manoli!
The island of Psara is described as the most remote island in Greece. It takes between six and nine hours to get to and from the island with a daily ferry depending on how many stops the ferry makes along the way. One-day tourists do not exist. We are two foreign sailboats in the harbor.

After a day of ten hours sailing in high waves and wind directly against us, we have had engine problems. During the last two hours of sailing, the engine loses speed again and again, and only with the help of sails at the closest possible angle do we reach port. Skipper’s wife’s heart beats so high, we can barely concentrate on holding the course.

There is no mechanic on the island. So we start the morning by asking a couple of fishermen and some local people at the harbor café: “Do you know anyone who can help us with an engine problem?” And then things moves fast. During the day, we constantly bump into people who say, “Well, it’s you with the filter problem. You must find Manoli. ”

The next morning, Manoli is standing on the dock with his younger friend Andrea, and they throw themselves over the engine, open fuel filters, turn off fuel pipes to see if there is free flow, listen to the engine at various revs, discuss loudly in Greek and ask questions to us about the quality of our diesel, about the height of the diesel in the tank, and whether we have been out in raw weather.

After two hours, they make the diagnosis: Some filth has settled on a small filter in the booster, because we have been sailing in raw weather with low level in the diesel tank. Some dirt at the bottom of the tank has swirled up and is now sitting in the booster filter.

Fill up the tank, sail to the larger island, Chios, have a mechanic disassemble the booster and insert a new filter. We nod and ask how much we owe. “Nothing,” they both say. “We did not solve your problem”.

Maybe they did anyway. As we next day sail the 40 nautical miles to Chios town in high seas, we have no problems with the engine.