Gouvia Marina and Vidho Bay
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Wed 11 Sep 2013 12:25
Gouvia Marina Tuesday 10th September
Having had a very peaceful night on anchor in Vroulias bay we left following Jacky’s morning swim and headed south through the narrow channel between Corfu and Albania. En route we hugged the coast so we could take a good look at the various lovely bays which offer anchorages in calm conditions. The ones we particularly wanted to see were Kouloura and Agni as they had been recommended to us. They both looked lovely but unfortunately the wind was not in the right direction for us to stop safely at either overnight. So we proceeded to the marina where we were able to secure a berth easily. At 53 Euros per night including water and electricity it wasn’t too expensive and they did give us a CA discount of 6%! We had several items to collect from Boatworld the chandlers just outside the marina and in addition we needed to sort out our Greek communications. There is a good laundry service here too which we also made use of. Jacky went into Corfu town and visited the Cosmote shop where after a couple of hours and a visit to another shop she was able to sort out both the local phone and a wifi connection. We also took a taxi from the marina to the Lidl supermarket where we re-stocked the booze locker and of course bought some of their delicious smoked salmon and a readymade lasagne among other fresh things!
In the morning we washed the boat down, topped up with water, collected the laundry and purchased some fresh bread from the small marina shop before departing to anchor off before 1400 or we would have been charged another day’s fees! Our intention had been to anchor to the north east of the marina in a bay called Kammeno but the wind was blowing straight into this anchorage and so we decided to look elsewhere. We ended up anchoring off the west side of a tiny island that sits in the bay of Corfu town called Vidho – about 1 mile to the north east of the Cruise ship terminal! It proved to be very satisfactory offering excellent shelter in reasonable depths of water. Beautifully clear and clean for swimming too! When we arrived there were 6 other yachts here and several very small motor boats at anchor very close in to the beach. However by nightfall we were the only ones remaining! It is obviously a lunch time stop and certainly did offer good protection from the south winds and a nice beach with some picnic facilities and changing huts. We were interested to watch the emergence of several rabbits and a pair of pheasants after all the beach visitors had left! At night there were street lights up the unmade road leading into the trees which gave us some useful transits in the dark!
The weather forecast for Thursday and Friday was not good so having consulted with our friends Tony and Margaret we decided to head for a bay near to the mainland port if Iguomenitsa some 14 miles to the south east.