We lifted anchor and motored from Varkho bay, Greek mainland south through the Islands and down the east coast of Levkas to Rouda bay, Island of Levkas.

The bay is deep and so we anchored in 22m in the ‘shallows’ with 65m of chain out, not our usual 5 times as our turning circle would have been huge for the two other small Italian yachts in the bay, one at anchor the other fixed with ropes stern to the rocks.

Any Northern European sailors who sail in the Ionian Islands begin speculating at the beginning of July…………when will the Italians arrive?

The close proximity of Italy to Corfu 50-60 miles is a short hop into the Ionian. In May and June the early ‘seafaring’ Italians arrive, skilled, calm, carefully mooring and anchoring their yachts.

We have Italian sailing friends who are always professional, whom have sailed the Atlantic and are very skilled.

However, at the beginning of August the switch goes, perhaps the heat goes up, who knows?....but the ‘hot-blooded’ Italians arrive zooming into the bays and anchorages.

It is true….. they invented Ferrari and perhaps making hand-brake turns into the bay is part of the spirit.  Once into the bay, the Italians love to moor or anchor close to the other yachts. The anchor goes down, a kind of amount of chain which ‘feels’ ok, the skipper turns off the engine, leaves the helm….. goes to the bow roller, looks at the chain……’mmmh, yes it’s still there??’ , lights a cigarette……his crew are already swimming in the sea.

I am contemplating asking our Italian friend how to politely say in Italian…..’Please don’t moor so close, a little more space please or sir you are dragging your anchor is not holding’….. and the ultimate… ‘it is not possible to squeeze that 6m beam yacht into a 2 m space, even if you lift my fenders and take yours off’!!!! 

Don’t you just love them????  Lorenzo, forgive us, we know there are good seafaring Italians…… and so the remainder of the story……. Continues.

And so today in Rouda bay, one of the seafaring Italians on a 28ft yacht was moored stern to the rocks with plenty of anchor chain out onto deep water. All securely tied up.

A Brit boat comes rushing into the bay, through the anchored yachts at speed, does a hand brake turn and yes decides to drop his very short amount of anchor chain right over the Italians chain.

With very little chain out and deep water and a light breeze the Brit yacht starts to drag sidewards across the bay.

The solo Italian gentleman walks to the bow of his yacht and gestures, with an out stretched arm, where his chain lies and direction…… and says the words….’very long’.

By this time the Brits had turned off their engine, the skipper had walked to the bow roller and looked into the sea…..’yes it’s still there?’ The skipper doesn’t light a cigarette and the crew are not yet in the water enjoying themselves………the English are a little slower in pace.

The poor Italian gentleman gestures his best gestures, as Italians do……. and from a distance we are able to translate…. the one arm swings to the right, the other swings to the left, as in, the whole of the bay is FREE….his arms then drop disapprovingly to his sides. Then the ultimate Italian gesture……with arms cupped together and hands in a praying position….. and then the praying hands rock back and forth…… as in ,’please don’t pull out my anchor, please move somewhere else’.

The British boat eventually gets the message, lifts the few metres of chain he has down across the Italians and heads out across the bay.

The story continues…….

An hour later the same thing happens again with a Greek yacht. The poor Italian gestures again. Finally by lunchtime, around 20 charter yachts from different British companies all decided to anchor for lunch at close quarters around us, dragging in the 20m depth and generally a frenzied atmosphere of too many yachts squeezing into the space. We finally concede defeat after a yacht anchored ahead of us and began unconsciously dragging towards us. We asked them to motor forward whilst we lifted our 60 plus metres of chain and we moved across the totally empty bay to re-anchor…. away from the madness.

The Italian gentleman was left sitting on his bow, shaking his head and gesturing to the Brits who were doing hand brake turns, near misses and settling almost touching together. The poor Italian finally gave up trying to repel the ‘hot-blooded’ Brits and decided to lie down in his cockpit for a siesta !!

We blasted out Italian opera music across the bay in solidarity……VIVO ITALIANOS !!!! Shortly later we noticed that he had been beaten…… the leaving boats had ripped out his anchor and he had rotated onto the shoreline….. thankfully still deep enough for him. He decided to sleep through it.

Photos of……….

The Italian yacht stern to the rocks

The Brit yacht anchors across his chain and he gestures to them

The charter yachts spend an hour anchoring, 45 mins swim and lunch and leave….. dragging and un setting the Italians anchor.

The Italian yacht drags sidewards onto the shore, still afloat in deep water, he had a siesta.

Love to all

T and T  x x