Ak Katastari, Zakinthos -> Porto Keli, Zakinthos

Wanderingdragon
Stephen & Anne
Sun 4 Sep 2016 12:49

37.41.054N 20.50.369E

 

We were keen to move on -  Turtle Bay was our objective.

 

We motored down the east coast of Zakinthos. Just after 09:30 we saw an armada of boats heading our way. The day tripper boats were leaving Zakinthos town. Luckily they spread out so they didn’t cause us a problem.

 

In the distance we could see ferries arriving and leaving Zakinthos town. We were hopeful after seeing a few ferries that they had all arrived/left. Not the case. As we drew closer to the approach to Zakinthos town we picked up a ferry on our AIS. We would miss each other, but only 0.2 of a mile. A bit too close for a very large ferry. We decided to change heading to ensure a larger distance between us. To add to the excitement another large motor boat was leaving and heading to us on our new course. We stood our ground and the motorboat changed course.

 

After that excitement when we got to the South east end of the island we hit holiday bay and stupid paraglider boats. One decided that it would be fun to bring his clients right across our bow. We had visions of two people and a parasail wrapped around our mast. We were not happy. Nothing happened, so I’m sure that guy will continue that maneuver with other boats.

 

We arrived at the edge of Lagana bay. Lagana bay is a National marine park and has restrictions in place from early May until the end of October to protect the turtles that breed here. We decided to head along the outer edge of the marine park to be sure we did not infringe any rules. Hmph, we need not have worried. There is supposed to be a 6 knot speed limit in the areas you can sail through. The little day tripper boats were zooming all over the place, most of them faster than 6 knots. Poor turtles.

 

In Ormos Keri we found a spot to anchor, that looked sandy. After swimming to check Rocky we would describe it as “some sand over rock but we want more sand”. We were sort of held on the anchor, but not as well as we would have liked. This meant we were not comfortable leaving Wanda for too long. The bay of Lagana is very large. Our options for exploring further were to find fuel for our dinghy or hire a small motor boat. As we were not happy leaving Wanda anchored as she was we decided not to explore.

 

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Porto Keri – it really can be quite hard to get the sea line level when taking photos from a boat.

 

We dinghied ashore to have a look round Porto Keri. There was not much there, tourist shops,  motor boat rental shops,  day boat trip stalls and Tavernas.

 

We did spot one or two turtles in the distance and a few “there’s a turtle …….. no wait …. It’s someone swimming”. On reading up about turtles we had actually missed the breeding season, so there we not as many turtles around as there maybe would have been in June and July. We must try and read up about these things before we get to places.