Grand Slam

Tuesday 6th October – Messolonghi

After six nights of eating spit roasted suckling pig and other Greek delights (including the now almost obligatory pork chop topped with two fried eggs) it was time to leave Kioni and head back to our winter berth in Messolonghi. The forecast for Tuesday (29^th Sept) looked fine – apart from a severe lack of wind – although the upside was that it was not blowing against us! We got up at the ungodly hour of 8am and upped anchor at 9am after lots of hugs and kisses with Tony and Margaret. ...that is with Margaret ...not Tony ....except Pam gave Tony hugs and kisses ...oh I give up.

Yes, we left around 9ish with the anchor coming up no problem. It had been playing up a bit over the past six weeks – the dog clutch not engaging properly I think – me being an expert on windlasses you see! It will have to be stripped down this winter – then I will be an expert.

The sail motor over to Messolonghi was uneventful with the wind virtually non-existent until we got within a few miles of our destination and then it picked up to 15 knots in time to park the boat as usual. We managed to squeeze into a small spot on the pontoon that we had asked for a berth on (just by the office building).

So that was our sailing over for this year. We are now safely tucked up in Messolonghi marina to enjoy another winter on the boat.  Now those of you who have been following the plot for the last few months will know that Messolonghi is not a real marina .....yet! It is in the process of evolving and it is great to be here at the start. It looks like there will be between 10-20 liveaboard boats here and the parties have started already.

Last Sunday was our first ad hoc BBQ orgainised by Jean and Bill on Soleil sans fin. Almost 50 people turned up for a great afternoon. We are getting to know the new neighbours – that’s Bryn on the bike intent on knocking everyone down on his new bike. Shore power has not yet quite reached our pontoon but at least the power company have all the bits installed. Dave on Cape (Bryn’s father who we bumped into in Villasimius on Sardinia earlier in the year and hails from Wales) has kindly let us hook into his generator to keep us topped up.  There is water on each pontoon now and the toilets and showers are functioning well. Once the power is up and running the plan is to take over the office block as our clubhouse. Poor Yannis and Jo (the owners) won’t know what has hit them. We've started a vhf net 3 times a week on channel 09.

We had one deep depression pass through last weekend which brought wind and rain. It was blowing a good F7 overnight Friday from the south east yet the boat hardly moved at all with excellent protection this end of the marina. Other than that the weather has been great with daytime temps in the high 20’s and dropping to around 20 C overnight. It is still T shirt and shorts most of the time.

Steve and June on Piper are due back on Thursday so it will be good to see them again.

Although we are here now for the winter, I will try and summarise our trip this year in the next few days and announce the winners of the various competitions I havent told you about but have secretly been working on. Who will win the "oh really marina of the year award"? You will have to wait until next time.

Monday 28th September - Kioni ....still!!

Now if you have been keeping up with the plot, you will have realised that these posts are a good week behind where we actually are - and I'm not going to tell you where that is as it would give the game away. Nothing like a bit of suspense then!

Well last Monday we were still stuck in Kioni. We arrived about 5 days before with the wind picking up from the east and driving some swell into the harbour. It felt fine when we arrived but by Thursday  night the wind cranked itself up to a good F7 making Kioni a rather bumpy place to be.

The picture above is Kioni on a calm day! This is a bit of a cheat as it was taken first time we were in in August when Liz and Ju were on board. Note the large saltire - that's us!! This trip however went from bad to worse. By Friday not only did the wind keep up it's easterly blow, it clouded over and the heavens opened. It rained hard for 36 hours - time to dig out the long sleved shirts and long trousers for the first time in 3 months!! We were parked on the main key - pretty much where we were in the picture so out of the really choppy stuff. The boats on this side did not do so well. By Saturday, the place was rather empty. All in all it was weather equivalent to a good summer in Scotland.

Most of the tavernas were still open so we spent each evening trying out different ones although I think we managed to eat in the one that does the spit roasted sucking pig 3 times. Once again if you don't know the place this will be meaningless - you will just have to try and get over here. The downsides of Kioni are that it is a bit isolated between big hills so no signal on my Greek vodaphone PAYG phone and only a very slow internet connection in one of the bars. There was also no hole in the wall to extract money from so we almost ran out of cash.

Given the wind direction, we gave up on our plans to head the 6 mile south to Vathi which although better protected than Kioni meant us going out into the waves. We have given up doing that so we just had to sample more of the spit roasted sucking pig.

By Sunday the rain stopped and by Monday the wind had both dropped and turned northerly so again the place returned to it's normall busy self with the hoards of charter boats returning. Once again the temperatures were back up to 25 deg C + and the sun shinning. It had been a pretty awful week weather wise and there must have been some pretty depressed holiday makers out for just a weeks sailing.

Our plan was to head back to Messolonghi on Tuesday as there was some northerly wind forecast and tie up for the winter and say goodbye to Tony and Margaret on China Blue who were heading back up to Preveza to have the boat lifted. More in a day or so.

Wednesday 23rd September - Kioni

....now where were we? Oh yes, Sivota. Moored up stern too outside Yannis' taverna. Remember it was the one we hadn't eaten in 'cause he didn't take our ropes, his supermarket was expensive and he kept having flottilas in filling his taverna in the evenings.

Anyway we had a lazy day on Monday and another nice meal in the taverna that boasts it is the only one without a roof terrace. This was probably the best of the tavernas in Sivota. On Tuesday we decided to go out for a day sail - ie get the sails up! In the end, only Tony came out with Pam and I with Margaret stopping on China Blue. We had a great sail for a couple of hours with 15knts of wind before it died and we motored back in.

....and then all hell broke loose! While we were out, Yannis who runs the taverna that we were parked outside had taken the opportunity with Tony not on his boat, of parking another charter boat across the front of China Blue and blocking him in with a lazy line(?). Margaret had asked him to move it but he ignored her. Obviously he was very upset with all these boats parking in front of his taverna without using the facilities - well bad luck Yannis - that's what you get when you dont welcome boats in and take their lines and then offer a piss-poor service.

When we got back in Tony asked him politely to move the boat and then got a real tirade of abuse from Yannis - who ended up screaming at the top of his voice up and down the keyside and threatening Tony. Would you go to a Taverna run by a guy like that? We heard later that he had had a go at someone on another boat earlier that day. Rather than move, we decided to stay for another day to annoy Yannis even more. Tony later told us that Yannis taverna is one of the oldest in Sivota and for many years was the one to go to. He is now not best positioned with all the other Tavernas situated in the best bit and his business is suffering. Rather than find out why, he resorts to shouting. Great way to get punters back! Way to go Yannis! We won't eat in your place when we go back next year. At least half a dozen boats said "well done" to Tony after the event - and even a couple of days later when we got to Kioni (there - I've given away were we went to next!!!!!)  so we are not the only ones with a poor view of the man prat.

With all the excitment over, we ate in yet another different Taverna and had yet another good meal. 5 days was enough though and the wind was due to go easterly so we headed off on Wednesday morning to head for Kioni. Plan was to stay there for a couple of days and then head to Vathi before making our way back to Messolonghi.

We tried to sail the 15 miles to Ithaca but the wind did not oblige so on with the engine - yet again. The wind got up just as we arrived outside Vathi and we saw Mike and Sue on Kingfisher leaving the harbour just as we arrived. They were bouncing up and down as they got out of the bay - maybe we should have paid attention as the waves only got worse over the next week!!

We moored up ok in Kioni ("stern to" as the quay was low down - and it would have been a struggle getting over the bow). China Blue arrived an hour later and moored up next to us. By 5pm the place was full and we settled down to another lazy afternoon and evening in glorious sunshine with yet another cold beer in hand. It wasn't going to last ..... but you will have to wait until tomorrow to find out why.......

Monday 21st September - Sivota

You are probably wondering why the dates of the title don't match the date posted. But then again maybe your not. I'll tell you anyway. We've been stuck somewhere in the Ionian in a storm with no access to phone or internet so hence no posts. I will not spoil the story with where we actually are now and instead drip feed you with the exploits of the last two weeks eating at least 3 spit roasted pigs, surviving head splitting impacts and consuming the usual small amounts of Mythos and the odd Ouzo.

 ...so back to the story. Last time I wrote, we were on a small "catwalk" for the Karnayio taverna in Little Vathi. It turned out to be not a bad place. The food was very pleasant, the water good enough to swim in (ie clear enough) and they had lecky for 5 Euro a night. The plus side was there were no rats - as we had been told it was overrun with them. I really doubt this as they had a large number of cats around the taverna so I cant see many rats surviving.

We left Karnayio on Sunday morning to head down to Sivota with about 10-15knts of wind coming from the south. For the first time in god knows how long, we sailed all the way (apart from the getting in an out bit). We actually beat all the way including short tacking down the Meganisi channel. We won all the races we had. The first was against China Blue who managed to hold on (just) until the short tacking started and then they gave up and motored on the pretext that they had to furl the headsail to tack. The second race was a little longer because the two sunsail boats were half a mile ahead. It was no contest really and in half an hour we were well past them. They did have 3 big disadvantages. Firstly they were Bavarias so couldn't point too well. Secondly I was helming (obvious really). Thirdly, they were only 32 foot!

We got into Sivota just before 1pm so it was reasonably empty - apart from the masses of Sailing Holidays boats on their weekend turnaround. We eyed up a slot on the key in front of Yannis taverna (almost the last one on the south west side of the bay. Now usually, someone from the taverna comes out and takes your lines and says "welcome to my taverna, here are the showers, my supermarket etc etc" which is code for you must come and eat here. This time however - zip. No one. No one the slightest bit interested that Grand Slam (two up) needed someone to take our ropes. We went round and round half a dozen times and still no one came - despite Yannis himself sitting at the front of the Taverna. Oh Really I thought.

Spying two passers by, we motored in stern first and threw them the ropes. No problem. Ten minutes later Tony and Margaret came in with China Blue and we tied up for a few nights. Yannis supermarket was expensive and given the lack of help we decided not to eat there. More of this in the next post.

Highlight of the day was Tony who decided to clean out his rear locker as some oil had leaked. Now being a big boat, it has big lockers with big lids and big hinges. Tony managed to clonk himself on one of them and needed a few running repairs.

It is amazing how a small cut on the head could produce so much blood!! Cue a nice bandage and a lot of sympathy.

That night we ate in the taverna with the funny guy (with a bit of a stoop) with the great patter. It is just past the one that claims to be the only one with no roof terrace. Now I realise this won't mean a lot to most of you back home, but if anyone is actually following in our footsteps, it may mean something. It was a good meal and it was a nice setting overlooking the now very crowded bay. There were at least another 6 or 7 tavernas to try but that will have to be left for another day. Tony's head was feeling a little better so we finished the night off with a couple of Ouzo's - the first of many.

Sunday 30th August, Kalamos

Despite a couple of recommendations to go to Petalas, we weren’t convinced. The day we got there, the wind started blowing 20-30 knots about 2pm and finally gave up around 10pm. The second day it decided to start at 11am and didn’t finish until 10pm again. So much for a nice relaxing afternoon then.

The entertainment factor was high though. Have a look at the plonker below drying out his spinnaker – without tying on the bottom.

 

It flew like a flag for a good 3 hours before he finally let enough halyard out to recover it using his dinghy. There was also a priceless piece of anchoring by a German charter boat. He dropped around 50 metres of chain in a pile and then proceeded to drive away from it – bow first!!!! – at 5 knots and waited for it to bite. I wouldn’t lie to you but he ended up around 800 metres away before he stopped, wound it back in and then came back for a 2^nd try. That has to be the “Plonker of the year” award victim. Duhhhhh!!! Once the wind died down and the sea calmed down it was very pleasant sitting in the cockpit but by then it was nearly time for sleep!

Having spent two nights at anchor in Petalas, we decided to head north and aim for Kalamos, one of the islands just to the south east of Levkas. We left at 8 ish to make the 16mile journey before the crowds descend. Another 16 miles of motoring then. The wind hardly made an appearance. Kalamos harbour was pretty much deserted when we arrived with only a couple of yachts in so we had plenty of space to go stern to. The place filled up later in the afternoon but there were still spaces even by 5pm – maybe the crowds are dispersing somewhat.

The wasp trap certainly got a good work out as soon as we arrived. You can see the Mark VII version below:

 

Passers by are now intrigued at the creative design (the top of one bottle stuffed in the side of another ) invented by ........I haven’t a clue .....I copied it off another boat...... but it does seem to work. The wasps can get in but they have a heck of a problem getting out. The more that go in the more it seems to attract others.

Kalamos seems a nice place at first sight. A nice taverna with a washing machine and frozen bottles of water.  There must be a downside to the place! If we don’t find one we may stay a few nights. And there is a good internet 3G connection on my dongle, which can’t be bad. I will try and write something tommorrow!

Saturday 29th August - Petalas

Well we finally managed to get away from Missolonghi. About 25 miles up the coast in fact! We had a great two weeks in Messolonghi (alternative spelling - of which there are many - not sure which one is correct) so it was a bit of a hard decision to leave. We have however a good month of nice weather ahead of us and a lot more places to see now the Italians are going back to work (hopefully). We will be back in Messolonghi for the beginning of October to start our winter there.

June and Steve also managed to leave and headed east towards the Corinth canal. We can vouch for that as on Wednesday when they left, we caught a bus to Patras - the third largest city in Greece - and saw Piper as we crossed the new Rio suspension bridge. They were motoring east with just their mizzen out into a force 5 - right on the nose - not good! We had a good day in Patras. Great lunch and Pam found an M&S shop. Not too big but ok if you like that sort of thing which Pam does. Typically all the winter stock was in and here we are just surviving in 32 degress (not dropping below 25 at night). Did I say it was hot?

It was only 7 Euros return for the 90 mins bus ride so not bad value but we did need to get a taxi back from the bus station to the Marina for 5 Euros when we got back to Messolonghi - it was too hot, but I've said that already haven't I?

Thursday we found a great restaurant for lunch. It was the one that Yiannes (the marina manager) had recommended. That will mean nothing to most of the readers (the two of you) but it may mean something to Piper and Arwen if you are reading this. Almost Petisco sized portions at a similar price. All in all we are finding the restaurants very cheap here and the drink even cheaper than Portugal (apart from Lazy Jacks happy hour prices).

So Friday morning early - we actually got up at 7.30am, we put the engine on and motored down the channel and turned right to head back into the Ionian. Five hours later we had rounded the island on the corner and headed north to this anchorage at Petalas. It's a big bay, protected from the prevailing north westerlies and is all around 4 metres deep with good holding. The place itself is not much to write about with a pretty boring coastline (not worth blowing the dinghy up then) and the water about as clear Port Edgar (although it is blue).

We arrived. I set up the anchor to drop and click - whirr whirr whirr but no chain going down. Kicked the windlass a few times but not a lot of improvement in fact I would go as far as saying no improvement. As the wind was blowing a good 3 knots, it wasnt too difficult to drop the anchor by hand and then sit and puzzle what was wrong. Given the heat I decided Saturday would be a good day to fix it as we were going to stop here two nights. By the way, it wasn't all bad news, the windlass did wind up the chain ok and the beer in the fridge was cold.

Saturday I had a good look at the windlass. Now my knowledge of the windlass was pretty low as I had not serviced it for 4 years from new. (You may now be suspecting what the problem was). That isn't as bad as it sounds as for the first 3 years we hardly used the anchor and have used it more in the last month than we did in the first 4 years. It's still pretty bad though. So I started taking it to bits. The main problem was that the gypsy had welded itself to the two cluch cones - which accounts for why I havent been able to drop the chain on the clutch for the last 3 months! After a bit of coaxing with a bottle of water, a large screwdriver and a small hammer, the bits came apart. A good wash out and oil - it's back to working like new - I hope!!! It now goes up and down. The bottle of water??? To wash the salt out of the gypsy/clutch silly!

We also decided to renovate our UK flag which is getting rather ragged and holy.....or is that holey (it doesn't go to church). Pam cut off 6 inches of flag and re-hemmed it so it now looks as good as new apart from being much shorter than it should be and if you ignore the 4 years of fading from the sun. In fact it looks far from new. Nearly time for a new one methinks.

Wasp trap development has come on leaps and bounds with the Mark VII now in use. I will post a pic when we get back into decent wi-fi contact (I can get onto the internet here but only very slow speed using the new dongle - maybe it will better on the next stop). We almost filled up the new trap in an afternoon. Luckily there aren't many in this anchorage. Wasps that is, not traps. Keep up! So tomorrow an early start to get up to Kalamos and try and get into the harbour before the mid day rush. It's almost September so I am hoping the crowds will be reducing. One can hope! We will then be back in tourist land. Oh no!!!

Saturday August 22nd - Missolonghi

Well, we are now on Plan Z. After changing our minds umpteen times, we have decided to overwinter here in Missolonghi!!!! It turns out it is a "must see" place after all....... and that explains why we haven't posted anything for the last 5 days. As per my last blog, it is totally devoid of tourists so no charter boats or Italians.

The marina is being redeveloped and has "just opened". They are offering good deals - about a third of the price of Levkas and Gouvia - for a full year stop. We have taken out a contract for 7 months including lift in and out for just over 1300 Euro (12M boat). We'll leave the lift in and out until the end of the winter. There has been lots of activity with various boats signing up for the winter (quite a few British Boats) so there will be probably 15-20 boats occupied over the winter. All they need to do now is sort out the Lecky!!!

The photo above shows the pretty substantial pontoons in place from 10 years ago. These will be replaced with new ones over the winter but as the marina is at the end of narrow channel, it is very well protected. There only electric in one area of the marina but it is due to be installed "soon". Water is available on this pontoon but only just. It should all be working by October we are told.

Notice the brightly coloured building at the end. This is the cafe - just built and being used temporarily as the marina office. It was painted on Wednesday to be ready for the marina blessing. A priest came down and spent half an hour chanting and tossing holy water over us all before we tucked into the kebabs and beer. All the temporary residents turned up and a great time was had by all. This event did trigger a lot more contracts being signed. There are great plans for this place and it will be as bill as Gouvia when finished but in the meantime it will be a bit of a building site. Jannis who runs the marina is overjoyed that he has sold 70 contracts in a couple of months!!

Here is another view of the marina - mostly alongside berthing at the moment but we will all be on lazy lines by October. The marina is a good walk into town - about a mile - but it is easy to get a taxi back with all of the shopping. It is a pretty big town with lots of shops which we are starting to find our way around.

We also now have a good internet connection. Because it is a university town, they must have free wi-fi for the students. We can just get it on the boat with the antenna half way up the mast - but we are the only ones who can. Lots of people have now ordered the one we have. We also have taken out a vodaphone contract for mobile broadband for 30Euro a month which is a very fast connection - hence we can now upload photos.

Getting the vodaphone contract was a bit of a hassle! We know people have succeeded by just giving a greek address (the marina) but now they are demanding a tax number. With the help of Jannis (the marina manager) I got a letter to take to the tax office (just by the port police office) and it only took 30mins before I emerged clutching a bit of paper with my number on it. The trick was to convince them that you are going to LIVE in Greece for the year. We are now live on Vodaphone so I should be able to live stream all the Liverpool games on the internet!!!

Our plan is to stop here for a short while and then go off sailing and end up back up near Levkas to meet up with Tony and Margaret on China Blue - who have at last made it to Greece. We plan to sail for another 6 weeks and see some of the Ionian without all the crowds who should go home by the end of August. We plan to get back here by the beginning of October to moor up for the winter.