Well, we have now left Sami on Kefalonia and are now heading east towards
the gulf of Patras and the unfinished marina at Missolonghi. It's 35 degrees
again with zero wind so that will be another 30 Euros worth of fuel burnt
then!!!
So that is us leaving the Ionian. We have mixed feelings about the place.
There are some great anchorages and town quays to go on - and we have almost
had a month with no berthing fees (except for 4 nights at Argostoli at 7
Euro /night because of an over enthusiastic Port policeman). The big problem
though is the people. Just too many boats. People are agressive. Two
examples. Firstly we were waiting for a yacht to leave the fuel berth in
Vathi and a big Italian gas guzzler jumped in ahead of us when we were
clearly in the queue ahead of him. A shrug of the shoulders was all we got
and another 30 mins delay while he filled up. The second was while I was
hosing the boat down in Sami with the water connected to the manhole
immeadiately behind the boat. Some plonker (Italian again by the way) came
up and disconnect my hose and then started to put his on. I came ashore
thinking he was repairing our hose but it soon became apparant he was taking
ours off. I calmly disconnected his and told him to bugger off! He was
rather annoyed and asked how long I would be. "At least an hour I replied -
why dont you use the tap there" (about 2 metres away - in the direction of
his boat!). What a pratt!!!!
It's not just the boats though. The local Greeks resent the tourists and
really showed it. In Sami it was very bad (worse than most other places). I
got a real mouthfull from an old guy in a supermarket for daring to buy 4
bottles of frozen water from his shop after shopping for other things in the
supermarket next door - despite having bought 40 Euros of beer there the two
consecutive days before. "Oh Realios" I said and walked out. It really put
us off spending money in Sami so it's good to get away. The problem is that
there is too much passing trade so the locals can be as rude as they like.
It will come back and bite them someday!!! Having said all that, the
attitude of the tourists to the to the locals is just as bad. All in all
then Sami gets a 1/10 although the Faros restaurant is a solid 9/10 with a
large Mythos at only 2 Euros.
It's a lot quieter on the boat now Liz and Ju have left and we will
certainly miss the wit and banter. The plan is to meet up with Arwen and
Piper in Missolonghi (Arwen left for there yesterday 'cause the noise in
Sami was too much) and then head for the Corinth canal in a week or so. We
spoke to Trevor on Kishorn yesterday and he is through the canal so had lots
of info for us.
As I write, Big Jimmy is in the water having a swim. Now for those of you
who haven't been keeping up with the story - Big Jimmy is the mega expensive
tuna lure we were assurred would catch fish by the guy in the swindlery in
Fiskardo - "Oh Really" .Liz dragged it round most of the Ionian so what hope
have I got? I'll keep you posted but don't hold you breath. Woolly mammoths
and all that.
Wasp trap development has come on leaps and bounds.There are 1,000,000 times
more wasps than boats on Kefalonia so that is a lot then. They are however a
lot less agressive than the people on the boats but it is still good to try
and keep them out of the cockpit - the wasps I mean not the people - but we
don't like them in the cockpit either. Where was I? .....Water bottles with
various sized holes and suggary contents were the basis of the inital trap
design. We are now on version 1.5. Oh, another one has just flown in! I will
try and post some pics if we get a good connection. Mind you, I have been
saying that for the last 4 months and we have failed so far. We are now
about an hour out of Missolonghi so hopefully we can successfully negotiate
the what looks like very narrow channel into the place and for the first
time in months go alongside a pontoon rather than stern to mooring which we
have now found so easy. I'll be back tomorrow to let you know if we get in -
in one piece.
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