Friday 14^th August – Órmos Abelike, Meganisi

38:40.212N 20:47.369E

Last night Charlie and Anna from StarDance popped over after dinner for a chat; I had promised that I would stop singing.  It was quite late when we finished.

At lunchtime Sarah, David, Bethany and Bryn arrived on Cape; they had some friends with them, Johan and Christine, and Cape is now moored alongside us in the bay.  Cape have had quite an eventful time since leaving Cagliari (for more details see their blog).

We spent the afternoon reading, swimming and snorkelling.

During the afternoon, two flotillas arrived for evening BBQs on the beach.  To fit all the boats in the bay they had to raft the boats together; one raft kedged off the beach nose to tail and the other raft went in a corner; the overflow boats had to go up on the point just beyond us.  Some of the manoeuvring required was quite advanced and fortunately the guys from their lead boats were out in their ribs to offer advice and push the boats into place when needed (or to keep the boats away from other anchored boats).  Nevertheless it was quite a spectator sport at times.

At dinner time, there was a late arrival which managed to squeeze between us and the Australian boat next door.  OK, we would have been happier if they had already had their fenders ready as they were blown down towards us and if they had taken their long lines out of the locker ready to take ashore before they started – however, we’ve seen all that before; what really surprised us was that the chap taking the lines ashore was just standing around at the stern posing, having his picture taken when he really needed to be in the water swimming.  Still they made it.

After dinner everyone on Cape, and Anna and Charlie on Star Dance, came over to Pyxis for drinks.

Johan knows the area very well and was a fount of knowledge – he went through the pilot book for this area with us and marked up some anchorages for us to try, ones not so well known.

To say it was late when we finished would be an understatement, there was a lot to catch up on.