Saturday 7^th May – Itéa – Epidavros (via Corinth Canal)

37:38.296N 23:09.625E

We were up at 6am, first light, and left Itéa in calm conditions.  Once again the weather was due to be light conditions so were decided having another go at travelling east.

This time the weather stayed quiet and we motored along, arriving at the Corinth Canal at around 12.40pm.  We were pleasantly surprised to be allowed straight through the canal without waiting – it is customary for yachts to have to wait for up to three hours for transit as they usually are asked to follow large vessels through.

We had a small fishing boat ahead of us and so we motored through to the other side happily, thankful at finally making it.  Although only short, the canal remains a stunning place to pass through.  For more details see our entry for when we transited last year.

Just after we entered the canal, we heard another yacht we knew calling the Canal to ask for transit, having just left Corinth Yacht Harbour, they too were allowed promptly into the canal.  We tied up at the Control Centre at the other end of the canal and paid our dues and then said hello to the other yacht, who arrived whilst we were there (I caught their lines whilst Richard paying our fees).  By 2pm, we were on our way again.

As we were through quite early we decided to go straight to Epidavros rather than call at Korfus which we had done last time.  When we arrived at Epidavros, we found the entire Nielson delivery flotilla had filled the harbour wall and even started anchoring, with more on the way.  We decided to go and look at Neo Epidavros about 2 miles away to see if that was a better solution but the harbour was tiny, shallow, and inconsistent with the pilot book so we decided, as we were tired and didn’t fancy the challenge of plumbing the depths, to go and join the party at Epidavros.

We were soon back and at anchor with the 25 Nielson boats – quite busy we thought.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, another flotilla arrived – about 30 yachts – a German racing flotilla, who proceeded to anchor all over the place, even rafting against each other at anchor to squeeze in; they were very considerate and left us live-aboards plenty of space.  I’ve never seen so many anchored in such a small area.  We were shattered after a long day and so we went to bed early and left them to it.