37:54.25N   20:42.63E     Ay Nikolaos, Zakynthos.

Monday, 6^th August, 2012.

Tricia and Clive left Sami this morning to make their way back to Preveza over the next couple of weeks to go home.  It has been great having them sailing with us and enjoying their company. We decided we would like to see Zakynthos hoping to see the turtles that lay their eggs on the beach at Lagana in the south of the island.

We motored 9.6 miles to Poros and started to pick up the afternoon breeze as we left Cephalonia behind.  We covered the 25 miles with Ariel tramping along with half a genny out on an average of 10.4 knots.  We are anchored in the bay of Nikolaos at present with wind from very slightly north of west and it is blowing 25 knots which we hope will drop when the sun sets in about 4 hours time!

The wind dropped around 11 p.m. and we had a very quiet night on anchor.  As it had been such a wonderful night and the scenery is beautiful we decided to stay another night so we swam, read our books and explored the quay area.

Around 5 p.m. the afternoon breeze came in and the swimmers who swim from the beach out to the island opposite us started to find it very difficult.  Jim spotted a Greek hat with a person under it clinging to the buoy near the island.  We launched the dinghy and Jim went off to give assistance as by this time the hat and person was being swept out to sea with the current.  The gentleman was very adamant he did not need help but did hang on to the board of the dinghy until he was back on the beach side.  The gentleman turned out to be around 85 years old and was swimming with his arms only under this very wet floppy hat.  When he got back to the beach he cuddled a little girl in the water before he managed to get out which took him several minutes.  Expect he realised he was very lucky to have reached the beach and seen the little girl again.