Fai Tira heads for the Corinth Town Marina via the famous Corinth Canal. 37:56.51N 22:56.15E

02^nd July 2011

We woke up at 6am to start our journey to the Corinth Canal.  After preparing the boat for departure we attempted to pull up anchor but unfortunately someone had laid their anchor across ours.  I used a technique of slipping a rope over the anchor and releasing it back into the sea.  It took a few only a few minutes but woke the skipper of the offending ‘gin palace’ as we did it but sorted it out and off we set.  Again no wind so I put Judy on watch and we motored to the Corinth Canal. 

The canal is as straight as a dye as we approached. The chart plotter shows this well.

We were advised to moor port side to a pontoon, from which we could complete all necessary paperwork and pay the fee, which we later found to be 226 euros.  The Corinth Canal is the most expensive 2.3miles in the world but saved a lot of time and fuel, not to mention stress.  It was also a great experience for both of us. 

We went through in a convoy heading west.  We were asked to follow a large tanker and we were followed by another yacht and gin palace.

It was a gentle motor along a turquoise coloured channel.  When we came out of the canal we turned left towards Corinth into strong winds.

There was a massive cargo ferry in the port waiting to be loaded.  The yacht harbour was very small - 4 guys offered to assist us and managed to moor us side-to in a tiny spot.  I reassured Judy that the wind should reduce early in the morning (keeping my fingers crossed) and we would be able to extract ourselves easily. 

We walked around the hot town.  Concrete jungle.  Tried to top up mobile phone at kiosk and lovely guys tried to help.  The good news is that we did find Vodafone so have 10 days of internet on the dongle.   We stopped at a restaurant for a drink and found ourselves ordering a late lunch.  I had the best beef casserole ever and Judy had a pretty good moussaka.  The beer and rose was good too.  Snooze time on the boat then water refill, seeing that the water was free I also sprayed down the decks on Fai Tira.  We met a Frenchman who said that he had been sailing in the Ionian with another Fai Tira.  Hopefully we will meet up.