Agia Marina

We’ve had two meals at a lovely little restaurant called Paradise in Agia Marina, partly because the food is good, but mostly so we don’t feel guilty about using their WiFi–we can get a spotty connection from where we are anchored in the harbour.  Internet is now a luxury item.  This constitutes roughing it in my book, and this is what we look like when we dine in restaurants now:

Rewind a couple of days to Thursday at the Planaco boatyard. Very exciting to finally get all our crap on the boat and prepare to set off.  We were given a 2pm departure time (which became 3pm, but who’s counting).  It was easy enough to keep busy unpacking and cleaning and whatnot.  When the time came, buddy backed up to the boat, they removed the supports, painted a couple spots on the bottom that the supports had been blocking, and headed for the water.  I guess the paint dries fast?

And as my Dad would say, we were off like a terd of hurtles!  No sails available, so we kept it simple and motored.  No sooner were we out of Planaco than Mike gave me the wheel with a warning to watch for ferries and disappeared below.  Two minutes later I saw a ferry at least a km away and had a mini panic attack!   I’ll get more comfortable, I swear.  I screamed until he popped his head out and calmly throttled down.  Right.  We continued around the northwest point of Aegina with a slim hope of getting a berth at the dock in Aegina Town.  Hopes were soon dashed, the Easter weekend crowd had descended, but I confess I wasn’t too distressed that there wouldn’t be a hundred witnesses to my first attempt to help Mike lay anchor.  We anchored just south of the marina and had a rocking and rolling first night.

Since we didn’t do much exploring while staying at the hotel in Aegina Town, we decided to head for the east side of the island to check out their #1 attraction, the Temple of Aphaia.  Thankfully it was an uneventful motor (no ferries in sight, still no sails installed).

Upon our arrival in Agia Marina we were greeted by lots of jellyfish in the water.  Pretty, but creepy.  I was mildly concerned, but we’ve been here two days now and I haven’t seen one since.   We anchored for our second night and had an even rockier and rollier night.  A cruise ship must have gone by in the wee hours because there was one point where we were knocked about enough that I tried to get up and quiet a rolling bottle in a cupboard only to give my head a good crack on the next roll.  Yes, hilarious.   Mike was unimpressed enough with our anchorage to roust me out of bed at 7am to move the boat closer to the beach.  You can imagine my mood for the next few hours, but it did give me more anchoring practice, I guess.

Our task for the day was to install the mainsail, but that turned into installing the jib when we realized we had the wrong sail unfolded.  We headed into town for a late lunch and were surprised to see that what we assumed was a little town with not much on the go was actually a tourist mecca coming out of hibernation.

The aforementioned Paradise restaurant had just open for the season that day, but they had it all under control as the WiFi was operational and I had a damn tasty spaghetti carbonara.  Mmmm, cream sauce and pig.   Bellies full, we started our trek up to the temple.  No joke, I walked up this freaking hill!  Of course we got there at 3:05pm and the site had just closed at 3pm because it was Easter Saturday, but we got the picture.

A quick visit to the grocery store and back to Coral for dinner and backgammon.

We spent all day today fighting to get the mainsail installed and furling straight and then rewarded ourselves with another visit to Paradise so that we could have a well-deserved drink (or two, in my case–Mike wants to keep his wits about him while we’re at anchor) and dinner.  When we got there we asked the waitress if there was an outlet I could use to charge my laptop (alternator issues, I’ll leave that to Mike to discuss or not).  She thought for a second and then unplugged the outside cooler.  God love her, an Easter miracle for Kathy.

No Mass for these heathens, but we did hear lots of church floating over the water, along with lots of little explosions–the Greeks sure seem to enjoy their firecrackers or guns or whatever the hell they’re blowing up.  I hope that’s just a holiday weekend thing–there are so many dogs here it seems cruel!  Daisy always hated loud noises…