Capt Correlli & Mainland Greece
Gillyb
Fri 30 Jul 2010 16:00
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Position: 38:31.91N 021:04.94E
After Lyn & Steve's visit we spent one night in
vligho bay where we have been several times before but this time we were sitting
in the cockpit and a loggerhead turtle put its head up beside us! It was
quite large and old looking and we saw it surface twice then no more sightings..
I wonder where it was when we were swimming?
Next day was my birthday and astonishingly I had
about seven cards and several texts which was lovely. We set off
motoring south and had a wonderful sail in the Meganisi Channel and then reached
top of Cephalonia and with sails down went into Fiskardo. Very pretty
little harbour with Italianate houses all around it. However, it was
full of charter/flotilla boats so we carried on down looking into tiny
bays until we found one which was empty!
We named this "goat bay" as in the evening some
goats arrived to drink at the fresh water pool just near the beach.
They were completely free range but one big brown one had a proper goat bell on
it and came jangling down the very steep rocky slopes in true mountain goat
style. We stayed here two nights and enjoyed the peace and quiet though
there were visitors to the beach during the day (and the goats in the
evening/morning)
On Wednesday we motored a little further south on
Cephalonia and arrived in Ay Efumia. A bigger harbour with occasional
ferries. See photo - shows large red ferry nearly losing its nose in high
winds, and almost squashing nice motor boat behind but with
lots of greek shouting some of the crew and male passengers managed to
get a line from front of ferry and pull her nose round... it was like a tug of
war team and luckily they won!
We knew that Captain Correlli was filmed on
Cephalonia somewhere but never found him or his mandolin but we did see where he
obviously spent some time.... see photo!
After Cephalonia we progressed on to
Ithaca, We had had a few windy days and knew it was going to get
blowy again at the weekend so we opted to go into Vathi - Ithaca. A
lovely port which looks quite protected. We anchored in the bay and had a
look ashore then Sunday it really blew and we stayed all day on the boat with
gusts of 30 - 37 knots blasting across us. Very wearing! On
Monday we went ashore again and this time had a really good walk
around. Byron was here before us and we took a photo of some real
estate ripe for development!
We had lunch ashore and also found a large
supermarket to stock up our galley.
Tuesday still a bit windy but we up anchored and
went to tie up for water and diesel. Then well stocked up we set off for
yet another island this one called Atoko. Small and rocky with amazing
caves and only 2 bays to anchor in. We anchored in a stunning
place called 'one house bay'. It was a real zoo! Boats everywhere
trying to find space to anchor. We did very well anchoring bravely
right in the middle with room to swing - until the italians arrived - two motor
boats and they rafted up together regardless of who was around. Luckily we
were not too close to them very often but the Bavaria behind got
shoved! The evening was better as all the day boats and flot
boats left and just 7 or 8 of us had the bay to ourselves. Sadly the
swell arrived and we did not have a very peaceful night! Unlike the
canoeists on the beach who slept in their little igloo tents and left the next
morning.
We did too and sailed over to mainland Greece where
we found Astakos.. A very greek sort of town with no concession to
tourists and lots of interesting shops selling things like goat
bells!!! (Yes - We couldn't resist buying one!) Its a
real one - but I don't have the goat to go with it - or what did we have on the
BBQ last night??
We have now decided that we will slow down a bit
and will probably make our way back up towards Meganisi and Levkas where its not
so windy and we can find some quiet bays.
Bye for now, Gilly
B
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