West around Paxos to Mongonissi.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 29 Sep 2008 14:39

39:10.96N 20:12.26E

 

Sunday 28th September

 

Woke to find a reasonable breeze blowing from the South, so we decided to sail down to Mongonissi Island which is at the Southern end of Paxos, by way of the West coast. This is an enjoyable trip to do in fair weather, especially if you can get close to the coast to see the cliffs and caves. In a flat calm, you can launch a dinghy and row/motor into some of the caves which are truly spectacular, but sadly today was not still enough, so we continued to sail down the coast and then through the gap between Paxos and the small island of Anti Paxos.

 

Finally we headed a little way up the east coast to the entrance to Mongonissi Bay and dropped the sails and motored in around 2.00pm.

 

Went ashore for some of Theo's bean soup which was almost as good as we remembered from all those years ago and were joined for a few drinks by the man himself who was keen to talk to us at length about all manner of issues that were playing on his mind! He told us all about their plans for developing things further onsite. He told us about his problems with the flotillas not being as friendly and co-operative as before and he told us more about his family and his and Pan's childhood. In fact we have never ever seen him so voluble!

 

In the evening we left it until 8.00pm to go ashore and eat at Theo's taverna on the beach and were slightly surprised to find that we were the only people there. There were only a handful of yachts in the bay and they were presumably eating on board, so we had the staff's undivided attention. The  slight problem with us being the only customers was that they felt the need to serve us huge portions and so Jo, who ordered the roast lamb got a joint of lamb suitable for a Sunday lunch for a full family! Theo sat with us and continued his conversation from earlier and we also chatted about building them a website during the winter. We became aware as the time slipped by that the entire staff were sitting at the next table patiently waiting for us to leave, but with Theo in full flight, this was not going to be easy. Every time we suggested that we should go and let them all have an early night, Theo brushed the suggestion aside saying that we should stay and they were all fine! (oh yes, and more drinks was also his idea...) Finally we managed to say goodnight to them all, with Theo and his brother Spiros refusing all attempts by us to pay anything.

 

Wind got up for a while during the night and it rained for around 10 minutes, but we were in a very secure spot and had a good night's sleep.