Andy's on strike today so Liz has picked up the reigns........
Ju and I arrived at Corfu Airport on 23rd July, and leapt into a taxi with two fellow-members of the Cruising Association who were also heading for Gouvia Marina. Andy and Pam were there to meet us, and we recovered from the amazing hike in temperature from Portugal to Greece by drinking a frappe, iced coffee! We settled our stuff into our cabin on the boat, and spent a quiet afternoon, only leaving the boat to go to the local supermarket for supplies. Later we went to Zorba's for dinner. No dancing, no broken plates, alas! The next morning we set off south, pausing only at the fuel pontoon to pick up diesel. We anchored overnight in a bay called Lakka, on the island of Paxos, and pressed on south the following day to Levkas, a huge marina where a lot of boats overwinter, apparently. Our journey was only marred by a large gas guzzler which headed straight for us at over 20 knots, and made indignant gestures when we made our displeasure at his bad maritime manners obvious. Levkas town was small but interesting, and the varieties of waterborne life around the place were fascinating. On our pontoon were a number of German charter boats all getting ready to go flotilla-ing for a week. We are learning how to berth stern-to, usually assisted by a chappie on the pierside. I learned the hard way how to grab the lazyline from the bloke on the pier and run quickly towards the bow, hauling on the far end of the rope so as to stabilise the bow. Yes folks, I was pulling on the wrong end..... just as well the wind was blowing us on to a large boat beside us, so no harm done, and lesson learnt!
We left Levkas marina on 26 July, and motored down the Levkas canal, then out into the open water of the Ionian, where we were able to sail on headsail only for two hours. We went into Nidri, and anchored in Tranquil Bay, opposite the town. In the evening we went over to the town in the dinghy and had a meal with Tom, a friend of Andy and Pam's from Port Edgar, who now works as a flotilla leader for a charter company here.
Our next trip took us to the island of Meganisi, where we anchored in a small bay called Kapari and took a line ashore from the stern and tied it to a tree. The hallowed Rod Heikell had said we should, in the Greek Pilot book. Gosh that was fun! We had two goes at it, then it worked. There were lots of boats in there when we arrived, but gradually all but one of them left, so we decided as the wind had got up, as usual in the afternoon, and was abeam of us, that we would just let go the line ashore. That worked fine. But the wasps on Meganisi are awful - there are lots of them, and they invade the boat, crowd the humans and demand food. My fishing attempts finally bore fruit and I caught one little fish which I went on to use for bait. At one point I had it in a little dish on the bench at the stern, and noticed that it was acting as a wasp magnet, thus leaving us in peace! So if you go there, take a dead fish and the wasps won't bother you!
Still on Meganisi we went to the village of Spartachori, and tied up stern to on a pontoon belonging to a taverna. The boss guy, Mr Yellow Tshirt as we dubbed him, insisted that the price of the pontoon berth and water and electricity was that we should all eat in the taverna in the evening. So we did. It wasn't wonderful, but I chose red snapper and it was incredibly expensive. In the afternoon we walked up to the village which was perched on top of the cliff above the taverna, and found a small bar with shade for a refreshing beer!
On 29 July we headed for the island of Ithaka. We went to Kioni, a beautiful little town in an enclosed harbour, and met our old Lagos friends Jacky and Rob on Arwen of Bosham. The quayside was really crowded, so we snuck in bows-to between Arwen and a tiny boat. Rob took our stern anchor out in his dinghy, and dropped it for us, which was very helpful, as this was the first time we had parked bows-to. We couldn't quite reach the quay, so we used Arwen's passerelle to get ashore. It was such a lovely place we decided to stay for another day, and sat during the afternoon with our radio on, listening with amusement to the flotilla boats being nursed into their various berths, in a fairly strong cross-wind, by the incredibly patient flotilla staff. Best of the bunch was the lady who announced that their boat was ready to come into the harbour, and 'was there anything she needed to do to prepare for coming in?'
On 31 July we sailed in company with Arwen to One House Bay on the island of Atoko, near Ithaka. It was a lovely place, very calm and peaceful, so Ju and I got into bathers and went swimming off the boat. Suddenly the afternoon wind started, mercifully when we were both back aboard. Yachts were leaving, and soon there were only about four left. Then we noticed we were dragging, and we jumped to it, got the engine started and tried to reanchor, not easy in gusts of up to 30 knots. After a while we decided it was not on, so both boats headed back to Ithaka, and after a couple of attempts found a pleasant anchorage in Vathi.
On 1 August we said goodbye to Arwen and headed down south to Cephalonia and Argostoli, a long motor as it turned out, and found Piper and Steve and June waiting for us on the quay. There was 0.3 metres under the keel when we moored, but that was just fine. We had a great meal aboard Piper and a long blether into the evening. We are going to stay here for a few days. Town looks really interesting!