...erm ...erm ermioni. Ermioni!!!!
Now the less navigationally challenged amongst you may realise (if you have been paying attention that is) that the way to get to Turkey (as per plan 14x Rev2) is to turn left at Poros and head east. Ermioni is a hard right after Poros and totally in the wrong direction. So here we are in Poros turning hard right!!! Looks like plan 15a then!
Yes, after a lot of hard thought we have decided to give Turkey a miss, at least for this year. You see we have received so good news and some good news. Firstly the good news. We have a contract signed to sell our house in Scotland. Secondly the other good news, we have been told we will have the planning consent on the new house next week. This all means it will be full speed ahead in early July so we have to get the boat tied up somewhere safe by end of June latest. We thought Messolonghi would be the best bet as we can then drive out later in the year if we can get a break from the house building. ......and it's cheap.
The advantage of this plan is that we spend the next 5 weeks just pottering around this part of Greece without the need to make any passages and get lots more practise in for our "watching the world go by" gold medal. So next stop is Ermioni, 20 miles down the Peloponese coast.
Our last night in Poros (Thursday) was a bit blowy, so much so that we didn't get back up to the snail restaurant - but we will be back. It turned out the wind died around 10 ish so no problem. Next time I think we will try and get on the north quay rather than the pontoon. Overall an 8/10 for Poros. I liked it.
Friday we left for a 20 mile motor down to Ermioni and arrived around 2 ish. No wind to speak off unfortunately. We parked next to Pyxis who had spent the previous night in Hydra with tale of woe. Ermioni is a tight squeeze to get in but very solid once you are on the west side of the quay. Nice town. Not too expensive but not cheap either. No contenders for the best pub in the world here then! Or the mankiest moggy in the world although there were the odd one who might have ended up in the top 10.
We had heard various stories of Hydra - an island just south of Ermioni. It' s claim to fame is that it has no cars. Just Ponies. Nothing motorised in fact. No motorbikes, scooters, 4WDs, zip! A couple of boats had said don't even think about going in there. Pyxis had, and had had a very stressful night. Instead we chose to take the hydrofoil over from Ermioni at a cost of 40€ for the two of us and went over on Saturday. Now maybe a holiday weekend Saturday was not the best choice of day to go - it was mobbed. There is not much space for yachts and what there is is a bit dodgy. Ballast coming out from the wall. Big chains littering the bottom. A northerly wind sending a dangerous swell in and on top of that boats double and triple parking stern to. No way. I think we made the best choice.
Hydra was really worth making the effort to see though. Very touristy but if you got off the sea front area it was a real gem walking round the old town. Tourist prices but worth doing.
Sunday we had a day of rest and didn't do a lot as it was the holiday weekend and there really isnt a lot to do in Ermioni. I will give the place a 6/10 - there's nothing there. We did meet up with Jane and Steve on Castaway. They were from Aberdeen and we got talking in one of the restaurants. The following day we helped them sort out the spinnaker on their boat - they had just bought the boat but were still finding bits a pieces all the time.
Monday morning we left to head round the corner to head up towards Navpilo but decided to stop to anchor for the night on the way. Accordingly we left later than normal to wait for some wind which started around noon ish. We actually managed to sail for 3 hrs in a total journey of 5 hours. I'll let you know where we got to in the next post.
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