38:37.46N 20:47E

Tuesday 16th September

Good night's sleep and woke up to find a much better day had dawned.

Prized the anchor out of the bed of the bay when it had buried itself during the heavy weather and set off to Sivota, which was another of our watering holes and hope to meet up with Barry Neilson who is the owner of 'Sailing Holidays', a flotilla holiday company with 12 fleets of yachts (each fleet has 10-12 boats in it).

Barry has come out for the Ionian Regatta which appears to be an annual event involving over 100 yachts and takes place on Thursday and is something of a major social occasion at which we are likely to meet up with a lot of ld friends.

Arrived in Sivota and got a really good berth on a pontoon which offered us excellent protection from the strong winds which were forecast for Wednesday.

Soon found Barry who was busy stripping out a UFO 27 yacht in preparation for the race. This little cruiser has had a very hard life ever since it was first dropped by a crane onto a concrete platform! I set about helping Barry and his mate Alan who had come out from UK with him just for the regatta. (Alan is a rigger and has done a lot of racing as well!) By the end of the day the only thing left in this boat was the toilet. Not a toilet compartment, just a toilet sitting in the middle of the boat! No anchor, no engine, nothing but the sails. However he did discover some vital beams had got rot, so tomorrow will be spent replacing them.

In the evening we all went out for a meal where Barry spent most of the time either introducing us to his staff ("This is what old flotilla crew look like" is one favourite line of his) or reintroducing us to the taverna owners etc. As it happens one of them is a very old friend anyway and he was delighted that we all chose to eat at his restaurant that night.

Wednesday 17th September

Spent the day helping Barry with his boat and meeting people and generally getting involved in things as more and more boats began to arrive for the big race. In addition there were several flotillas in so the place was packed. A stage was built at one end of the village for all the fun and presentations on Thursday night and by the evening the place was heaving. Whilst drinking in the early evening with Barry and Alan, we met up with the two couples who owned a small motor boat that was moored near us. They come from Ludlow and indeed one of them seems to own a substantial part of Shropshire!

Thursday 18th September

Race day. Our plan was to stay on our mooring today as it might prove very hard to get back in later with all the regatta boats coming in. As it happened, Barry came over to us around 10 to ask if we would like to join him and Alan on the UFO 'Pocket Rocket' for the race. We both agreed and had little idea what was in store for us.

The flotilla lead crews were also entering the race with their boats which they were now busy stripping of all equipment and there was a lot of banter between them all and their boss Barry as to who was going to beat whom. We had to set out several hours before everyone else because we had no engine and had to sail out to the start line which was several miles away, but just as we were about to leave, Barry decided to invite the Shropshire landowner (Tovie) to join us for the trip out to the start line where he could then be picked up by his friends and wife on the motor boat. It seems that Tovie is a Lord and Barry had never been sailing with a Lord and he thought that he should! So we cast off and sailed off up the Meganissi channel to the start line. Once Tovie had left us it was just the four of us to crew the 'Pocket Rocket' and it was at this point, looking around us that Sarah and I got the first real inkling of the size of this event. 120 yachts of all sizes, ranging from 60ft down to us at 27ft where milling around waiting for the start signal. Barry and Alan had hatched a cunning plan for the start, but with minutes only to the gun the Genoa furling gear got jammed and so we slid along the line with Alan hanging upside down at the bow with a knife and screwdriver trying to free the line. In the event he succeeded just 10 seconds from the start gun and so we unfurled the genoa and turned to make what was the best start of all 100 boats! We quickly opened up a 30 metre lead over everyone in what was still very light airs and although at one stage several boats caught up with us, Barry and Alan's longstanding knowledge of the area and conditions allowed us to pick up and read the conditions better than most and in no time we were half a mile clear of the entire field excepting three others who were very fast boats that had now got away ahead of us.

The wind started to rise and we shot along, but could see the bigger faster boats behind us gaining gradually. It was at this point that our starboard spreader broke partially away leaving us with the very real risk of the mast snapping in half. Barry opted to carry on and so Alan rigged a jury repair to try to relieve some of the strain, but in truth it was all a matter of time only before it would fail.

The race route including around the island of Arcudi and whilst in the lee of the island the first of the big yachts (54ft) caught and passed us, but we hung and as we came out of the lee of the island the wind had risen to a good force 6 with a quite heavy sea. Well it seemed heavy to us as we were sitting along the side of the UFO using our body weight to help to keep it upright and getting thoroughly soaked as the wave broke over us and the boat! The big decision now was when to make the tack that would take us past the end of the island and then the 6 miles close hauled to the finish line, knowing that almost certainly it would be our very last tack before the spreader would finally break away. Alan made the call and was spot on as just a few minutes later the spreader crashed to the deck which was sort of OK for now as the rest of the race should be on a port tack which means there is no strain on the missing rigging. We ploughed on but had already reefed earlier to reduce the strain on the mast, so we were not going as fast as might. Slowly but surely a few faster boats caught up with us and by the time we crossed the line there were 7 boats ahead of us and just 92 behind. However this was the next tricky bit as we could not let any strain at all come onto the mast from the starboard side, so as we crossed the line we dropped the main and the genoa onto the deck and stuffed them into the cabin. We then flagged a rescue boat to drag us off the finishing line as without an engine we were stuck in the path of all the yachts flying up behind us. Finally, one of Barry's lead boats (they all finished behind us) towed us into Sivota where the celebrating started.

Pretty wild night, but us 'oldies' took things steady and retired to bed around midnight and got to sleep despite the live rock band that was still belting out the music until the early hours on a large outdoor stage.