Month: August 2017

How quiet you ask? Well, I’ve done my only reading of 2017, a book about the Greek sovereign debt crisis. THAT’S how quiet. If you’re keen to be enlightened/disheartened about the state of European economic policy, then this will do the trick:

The week has also been quiet enough that I’m doing some sanding and varnishing. Ugh.

My steady neighbours for the week have been this unusual classic,

and this sleek baby blue catamaran named “Slim”, which has a pretty cute terrier puppy on board.

Also a small school of young needlefish seem to have taken up residence in Coral’s shadow. Perhaps my dubious hunting skills are common knowledge by now in the fish world.

My crew arrives in just a few days! Time to get these treads shined up and back on the swim ladder…

Well, it’s just me and Coral for a week until Kathy and the Moms arrive. This morning I  drove in solo to the Gouvia marina to visit the helpful guys at Keriacoulis Sailing, and in the calm conditions parked Coral without a problem. Lovin’ that bow thruster. The Keriacoulis lads resolved the problem I’d been having with one of Coral’s septic tanks. An important fix, as you can imagine. I’ll spare you the details, but €250 was money very well spent.

And with that expense paid, I hightailed it back out to the anchorage (10 minutes away) to avoid paying €70 a night. With our speedy dinghy, there’s really no sacrifice, as the marina cafes, pool, cricket and croquet ground, and grocery store are minutes away. Well, they were, until a small forest fire smoked me out of the anchorage! Tiny Corfiot waterbombers seem to have it almost out now, but I’ve moved a couple of miles upwind for the night and will enjoy a little change of scene. That means a different skiboat pulling a different set of laughing kids on bouncy tubes.

But just til sundown, and then the bay will be serene. Unless I practice the harmonica.

And breaking news… a big bomber is now working the fire, and the afternoon breeze is thankfully easing. Hope that bodes well for beautiful Corfu.

 

Yup, borders are being crossed in a flurry of international travel. Kathy travelled many thousands of miles and is back in Canada to celebrate her folks’ 50 wedding anniversary. I travelled 15 miles to Albania to refresh Coral’s customs exemption within the EU by spending one afternoon in a non-EU country. Ahh, sweet bureaucracy!

But to backtrack a smidge, as Kath left from Lefkas (fittingly) several days ago, and I’ve been assisted by Coral’s gracious owners who have helped me sail to Corfu and navigate this whole Albania caper. We’ve been sailing Coral and her big sister, Dulcinea, side by side, which has been great fun. We anchored outside the busy and charming town of Gaios, Paxos, and then begged a spot at the dock of the Corfu Sailing Club in the lee of the incredible Corfu fortress.

A bit surreal, as I’ve known the word “Corfu” since childhood, but only learned where it actually is just last year. Part of Greece, you say? Huh. And quite a gem it is, as attested to by all the cruise ships. Through the crowds the town is still a charming maze of cafe and icecream dotted streets and squares, with palaces and fortresses hinting at past glories.

And soon Dulcinea will retire to a cradle til next season, my helpers will return to Canada, and I  will await Kathy’s return in a week or so.

And. She’s. Bringing. Our. Moms.

We left for Zakynthos bright and early last Saturday (Mike motored over while I slept). My wakeup call was “We’ll be at the Blue Grotto in twenty minutes” “What’s the Blue Grotto?” “You’ll see”.  Of course it was a magical intro to Zakynthos’s crazy, rugged coastline.

 

We continued around the north shore and ducked into a small bay to check things out.  This photo may appear to be just some rocks on the bottom of the sea, but in fact it is a photo of giant boulders 60 feet under the surface of crystal clear water.  Magical!

Continuing around the northwest corner we visited the spot that was the impetus for our trip to the island: Navagio Beach or Shipwreck Beach.  I saw it on some Buzzfeed list (probably) a few months ago and it has been on my radar ever since.  It is a popular basejumping spot, but we didn’t see any nutbars jumping off the cliff taking selfies.  The beach is stunning, but absolutely lousy with people, and since you can’t get there by car, the tour boats are constantly bombing in and out, honking their horns to warn swimmers that they are about to be run over as the boats all back right up to the beach.  The crazy tourists are climbing all over the giant, rusty shipwreck, hope they’ve had a recent tetanus shot. Mike and I showed up at around 10am.  We anchored off the beach, had some breakfast, went for a couple swims, took some photos and then at around noon, once we had seen the sun light up a chunk of the beach, we continued south.

We had sort of planned to return to Shipwreck Beach for the night when it would be empty and super cool, but alas as we brought up the anchor the windlass misbehaved.  Again.  I shouldn’t complain, we’ve had two months of reliable service from it.  Mike’s diagnosis is that the up button got stuck, which ultimately caused the main breaker in the boat to blow and stink up the joint.  Luckily we had a spare fuse, but we have been unable to replace our spare so far, or the windlass button for that matter. And so we delicately tread on the windlass button with a safety system in place that consists of a winch handle and a giant mallet.  Don’t ask.

The whole west coastline of Zakynthos consists of crazy cliffs and caves, it was a pretty special day.

   

We stopped for the night in Ormos Keri on the south coast of the island.  Most of this bay is protected breeding ground for loggerhead turtles, but the beaches are full of hotels and drunk tourists (or “lager louts” as the cruising guide refers to them), so I fear the turtles may be losing that battle. Also not good for the turtles, we woke up to find a mini rusty oil slick surrounding Coral.  Yuck.

The next morning we started our journey north again with plans to meet Dulcinea the next day. We anchored just off the coast south of Poros, Kefalonia.  We aren’t used to braving a night without a bay protecting us on most sides, but it was a very quiet night and the unorthodox anchor spot meant we had only one neighbour.  Next stop, Kioni, Ithaca!

We arrived in Kioni shortly after Dulcinea and snuggled right in next to her for the night, both of us tied back to the shore right next to an adorable local swimming hole.

Hmmm, let’s zoom in on Mike…

I am tickled to announce that Ducinea’s guests were interested in my ukulele progress, so we had a little singalong!  Some Johnny Cash, George Jones, Elvis Costello, Kenny Rogers and more!  I have never been that person who breaks out the guitar at a party, mostly because I can’t play the guitar, but it was fun to be the uke girl, albeit with my handdrawn chord chart and my phone showing me what to play for each song.  All in good time…  God love Judith, she was quite offended that the other boats didn’t applaud us when we were done.

The next day Mike went on a little hike with Robert and Judith and then stretched it out with CM.

 

The next day we didn’t stray too far, popping down the coast for a return to Vathi.  Mike has a hockey buddy, Bow, who was doing a cycling/cruising trip on this kind-of pirate ship with his family and after studying their itinerary we decided to surprise them in Vathi.  Apparently we can’t read itineraries because the boat never showed up.  But you know who did show up?  Dulcinea!  Also this guy, spewing fumes…

We collected some other friends of David and CM’s from a neighbouring boat, Lars and Lena from Sweden, and all headed over for before dinner drinks which lasted until 9pm.  Very Greek timing, but I felt bad for the starving Canadians who had to wait for us to leave to get their dinner.  We didn’t feel bad enough to leave before 9, clearly. Mike and I went to shore and had some pretty darn good pizza.  Not Italian style, a Canadian style pepperoni pizza.

The next day we joined Dulcie in a bay just south of Vathi, Ormos Filiatro, for a nice swim in clear water. (Vathi bay was pretty murky.  I did not indulge this visit).  She was anchored and it was a quiet day so we just tied up to her.

 

After lunch we hit the water again and not five minutes after leaving the bay spotted… a pirate ship in the distance!  Mike radioed the captain and asked him to alert Bow, and sure enough when we passed by there was the whole family and then some out to greet us!  Two ships passing in the afternoon.

We rendezvoused with Dulcinea again on the dock in Sami for a final night of town debauchery together.  Calamari, Greek salad and pizza were ordered from local restaurants and Tom and Julia delivered it all–we need some boat kids for Coral! Then we all went out for ice cream. Good times.

The next day we all headed back to Ormos Filiatro for the night.  We tied back next to a giant motor yacht which was subsequently joined by two others.  A couple of tenders delivered multiple families for a rousing afternoon on water toys of all shapes and sizes.  Happily, all the boats left for the night, though we did enjoy the music for the afternoon. We joined Dulcinea on the other side of the bay for a drink with the new guests, Heather, Malcolm and Megan, and then retired to Coral.  The next day while I went for a snorkel (spotted a lone jellyfish and a lone starfish), Mike and Megan took Tom out wakeboarding.  The kid is a natural!

Next stop, Port Leone, Kalamos, a town that was deserted when their water supply became compromised.  It’s a lovely spot and we tied back next to a boat full of beautiful Italian party boys–no complaints here! We swam to shore to explore a bit.  There is a church that is still maintained, but that’s about it.  There appears to be a taverna, but it was closed.  If you’re not open on a Friday night in August, when are you open?  No worries, a giant luxury yacht backed in across the bay and kept us entertained until the wee hours with VERY loud music.  They also managed to break one of the rocks they tied back to, the sound of which gave both me and Mike a near panic attack.

In the morning we continued on to Sivota, Lefkas for a possible final night with Dulcinea, but the forecast was for screaming wind and the harbour was pretty full, so we continued north for a return to Vlikho.  From what David relayed the next day we did the right thing–lots of dragging anchors and screaming yachties.  Vlikho was pretty populated, but the bay is so big that no one got too close.  Except the jellyfish!  They seem to have tripled in size and density since our last visit!  Clearly they don’t sting, there were kids waterskiing, but oh man I would never get in that water.

We pacified ourselves with a lunch at Seaside where I ordered the exact same thing as last time, chicken risotto.

That brings us to today!  We had a very windy, splashy motor up the canal to Lefkas Town and managed to get onto the town dock, albeit a little askew.  I blame the wind.  Tomorrow I head home for Ma and Pa’s 50th wedding anniversary and Mike will be left on his own to pine.  I’m sure that’s how he’ll spend most of his time.   I look forward to following the blog from afar!

(For those of you wondering about the status of the backgammon tournament, after 232 games Kathy leads by two but is still very cranky that she has been backgammoned but has only gammoned Mike.  I will play another ten thousand games if that’s what it takes!)

Scooter day with Dirk and Annie!  First stop was Melissani Cave.  Part of the roof of this cave fell in over fifty years ago, revealing an underground lake.  We lined up for the boat tour with all the other rubes, and it was certainly worth it.

We hopped back on the bikes and headed up, waaaay up.  Mount Ainos is home to a national park and is the tallest mountain on the Greek islands.  It smells like home as it is covered in fir trees.  Greece is quite barren in general, but Kefalonia is a verdant wonderland.

 

We tooled around for a bit more, stopped for a tasty lunch and then Dirk and Annie continued the scooter tour while Mike and I headed back to Eufimia to make sure Coral made it through the late afternoon influx of boats safely.

The next day we decided to test Annie’s sealegs and motored over to Ithaca with a little jib action for flair.  We tied back in a beautiful bay, Ormos Sarakinko, just over the hill from Vathi.  Dirk and Annie hiked over the hill to check out the town, but Mike and I spent a lazy afternoon.  Well I did, anyway.  Swim, nap, swim.  Good times. At around 7:30pm a swell started to creep into the bay, which made for a rolling night.  Imagine sleeping in a giant water bed. Oops, not very good hospitable planning on our part.

We decided to keep it simple for Dirk and Annie’s final night and headed back to the dock in Sami, Kefalonia.  We had gyros and ice cream for lunch and then they took us out for a wonderful dinner at a tasty taverna.  So good!

The next morning we rented a car to take them to the airport.  After hugs and besos, they were en route back to Spain.  They must have had a good time because Dirk emailed to say that Annie made Greek salad for dinner last night!

Mike and I took advantage of the rental car to explore a bit more. First stop was Argostoli, the capital of Kefalonia.  It’s a large town with very very narrow streets, or at least they felt that way to me, I’m not used to being in a car these days. We stopped near Koutavos Lagoon, a haven for Loggerhead turtles.  This guy was more than accommodating to the tourists, swimming in circles, taking adorable gulps of air and posing for photos.

Close by is the recently restored Drepano Bridge.  Full disclosure, it was too hot to walk all the way across.

We hopped back into the car and headed north, stopping at a lookout to admire the view of Kriaki Beach.

A little further north we took a winding road down from the hilltop to Myrtos Beach.  It is a beautiful spot and the water was seriously as warm as any bath I would take.  Weird.  Mike snorkeled over to the cave while I floated in place.  Did I mention that I don’t have to do anything to float in the Mediterranean?  No joke, I can be vertical in the water, perfectly still, and I float.  Please spare me your comments on my BMI, I think floating is a good thing.  I am now fairly confident that if I fall overboard I will not die immediately!  Yay salinity!

We had lunch in Myrtos and then continued north to Assos, but it was crazy busy with no parking, so we resolved to visit in the boat someday soon.

Returning to Sami we stopped for this nice view of Euphimia.

The next morning we headed south and anchored on the SE coast of Kefalonia in Ormos Katelias.  Mike entertained the idea of trying to launch his kite from the boat, but as Ruth would say, I offered it up and went to shore to launch him.  He had a pretty good run as the only kiter in the bay, and I once again crushed some serious candy.

 

Next stop, Zakynthos!