39:38.96N 19:51.25E

Tuesday 23rd September

A quiet night at anchor was followed by an almost windless day for our trip up to Gouvia (Corfu Island).

We left at sunrise and motored gently up the East coast of Corfu, past Corfu Town and approached the entrance to Gouvia Bay which we last saw 29 years ago when we running a flotilla from here! At this point a seaplane dropped out of the sky in front of us and taxied into the marina ahead of us.

Pretty staggered by what we saw as we entered the bay. Of all the changes we have seen this had to be the most dramatic with a huge fully fledged marina filling the bay. We fuelled up at the fuel bay and were then met by a marinero in a speedboat who welcomed us to Gouvia and led us to our berth, which was very close to the seaplane dock. (Just cannot get away from the things!)

Went to the marina office to do the paperwork and discovered that Ellen Mae (Steve & Bunty) was here and due to be craned out for the winter tomorrow, so we hunted them down in the marina and agreed to meet later for a drink and a meal out.

Went for a walk into the village to see what we could recognise and firstly found the thriving tourist town of Gouvia where before there had been absolutely nothing. The village of Kondokali had obviously also expanded but we were able to identify bits and pieces, although in fairness, Sarah recognised a lot more than I did.

Met up with Steve and Bunty in the evening and walked into Gouvia town and ate at a very good Italian restaurant and then afterwards they suggested a quick drink at a bar that they had been to the night before. BIG mistake.

Great bar, packed with people and just as we arrived the Elvis impersonator was starting his live act. Actually he was great fun and really quite good although there was more than a hint of a Greek accent throughout. He got more attention from the audience once he worked out that the men were all watching the evening UK football scores on Sky Sports News on a big screen to one side of him and turned it off! The catch was that this bar specialised in cocktails with a very talented and extroverted barman who I am told was also excellent 'eye candy'. So in addition to the standard drinks that we ordered, Bunty kept ordering shots for the four of us plus the two barmen. Strangely we ended up as the only people left in the bar around midnight but still managed a sprightly walk back to the marina.

Wednesday 24th September

Well the forecasters were right on the money when they warned of rain from midday today. Mostly drizzle but it kept it up for most of the afternoon and by all accounts there were some strong winds on the West side of the island so we were very happy to sit it out and get work done in the boat.

Gouvia is really a little bit of England with the majority of the boaters being Brits, lots of the cars parked around the place having UK number plates, a croquet club and a full cricket pitch behind the marina office. Even most of the papers on sale are English although we have so far avoided reading any for quite a while now.

Have seen only a very few Najad yachts since we set off from the UK in June, but today we discovered that one of our neighbours here is a Dutch owned Najad 460 (same make and model as ours) and even more remarkable is the fact that it is number 48 and we are 47. Ours are the last two 460's to be built as the company has now introduced new designs, to mixed reviews. He is having quite serious problems with some of his equipment, but because he has to deal via the Dutch agent he is not getting the same level of service as we enjoyed. It is something of a fact of life that the basic yachts are rarely a problem, but we complicate things by adding so many bits of electronic and similar equipment that inevitably things will go wrong and problems occur. For the most part they are minor irritations and you deal with them as you go along. We have made quite a thing about some of our setbacks in this blog, but that mainly is because I need something to write about from time to time, which I know has caused some people to wonder if we got a duff boat, but nothing could be further from the truth and we are still thrilled with her.

Sarah tells me that I forgot to mention the dolphins that swam along with us briefly on the trip up from Lefkas the other day. We have seen more dolphins in the past couple of weeks than we saw in the whole of the two years we worked here. Nothing like as lively and fun as the Atlantic ones but it still excites us whenever they surface around us.

At 11.15pm we got a call from Sarah’s friend Jo to say she was in the taxi on her way to the marina from the airport and would be with us in 10 minutes, which was the cue for the heavens to open and we had the heaviest rain of the day to welcome her in. The good news is that the forecast is for this to improve tomorrow midday, so we still hope to sail down to Mourtos on the mainland, South of Corfu.