Spartakhori, Meganisi -> Skorpios -> Vlikho Bay, Levkas

Wanderingdragon
Stephen & Anne
Thu 1 Aug 2013 12:47

38.41.080N 20.41.974E

 

After a leisurely morning it was time to leave the Taverna so the Lunch crowd could moor up. We motored a short distance to Skorpios Island where we anchored in crystal clear waters and went for a swim.

 

Skorpios Island was owned by Aristotle Onassis and was where he and Jackie Kennedy got married. Since his death the island was owned by his granddaughter Athina, she recently sold the Islands to the daughter of a Russian billionaire. However the sale is now being disputed by the Greek government as Onassis will allegedly stated that the Island should stay in the family and if they could not afford the upkeep they should be donated to the state.

 

After a lovely swim, lunch and a relaxing afternoon we were ready to move on. We set off to Tranquil bay. This bay was named a while ago and is anything but Tranquil now as it is opposite the town of Nidri and therefore very popular. We needed to get someone to look at our outboard engine as it had lost power and was not sounding well at all. We anchored in Tranquil bay and Stephen went to the outboard repair shop. He had to leave the engine with them and row back across the channel. It can get rather busy, but he got lucky and crossed while it was quiet.

 

We then carried on to Vlikho bay. We decided we would try and anchor close to the shore so we didn’t have too far to row. Luckily we found a good spot.

 

Friday was declared laundry day. The Vlikho Yacht club does laundry so we rowed ashore with our dirty laundry, then later in the day rowed back with it all nice and clean (albeit wet – it didn’t take long to get it dry once it was hung out round the boat). When we took the washing off the line it was so hot it felt like it had just come out of a tumble dryer!

 

We then had a farewell drink with Richard and Karen – they are heading off down south while we want to wait for our outboard to be fixed. We may manage to meet up again – but just in case we don’t we said our farewells. We have really enjoyed their company and the wealth of their experience of the area.

 

Saturday we went up to Nidri. We could have walked but it was not a pleasant walk as it is along a main road so we got the bus. We went to check how the outboard was doing – it’s almost ready so hopefully we can pick that up in the next day or two. We then found the supermarket to stock up again. As it was rather warm we had a stop for a cold coffee. Stephen had espresso with Ice cream and Anne had Iced espresso with ice cream and baileys – yum!!

 

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Coffee stop in Nidri

 

We then had the problem of trying to find a way back to Vlikh; with heavy shopping we didn’t want to walk, we had a feeling we may have just missed the bus and there were no Taxi’s anywhere. Just after we asked a kind shopkeeper if he could ring for a taxi we found one – but got a bit of a surprise when we realised he already had a passenger. Anyway he encouraged us to get in the Taxi, drove a short distance to drop off his passenger (which was on our way) then carried on to drop us off. We thanked the lady passenger profusely for letting us share her ride.

 

Once back at Wanda we had lunch, then we heard a boat anchoring – looked out to see Mike, Tracy, Justin and Josie on Ria Luna anchoring a short distance away. Josie and Justin then swam over to us to say hello. It’s really good to see them again. We all rowed over to the yacht club Saturday evening for a few drinks and to catch up on what we had been doing since leaving Marina di Ragusa.

 

After a quiet weekend we motored the short distance back to Tranquil bay to get the outboard engine back. While we were there we checked to see if we could moor up on the pontoon in front of the Iris hotel. We were lucky and got a space. Ria Luna came and moored up next to us. We had a few days here enjoying the use of the hotel pool. We had to move off on Thursday as a flotilla was due in.

 

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View to our right from the Hotel Iris pontoon. They were getting ready to launch a boat – unfortunately we failed to get a picture of the actual launch.

 

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View to our left from the Hotel Iris pontoon.