Antiquities, gulfs, politics and poltergeists

Over the last month we have continued to explore the Ionian islands and have ventured into the Gulf of Amvrakia and the Gulf of Patros, both of which have yielded some interesting and unexpected experiences and contributed to our neglected cultural education.  

We crossed from Port Zakinthos on Zante to Katakolon on the mainland, the nearest point to moor up if you want to visit Olympia, the origins of the Olympic games.   From there you need a taxi, hire car or pubic transport. There is a little train, but it only runs once a day at 08:30 unless there is a cruise ship scheduled.  By the time we realised this…. yes you’ve guessed…. is was well after 08:30 and it was a not a cruise ship day… so the bus it was, breaking our journey at Pirgos famous only for its unprepossessing bus station! 

Being a no-cruise ship day however has some significant advantages; we had Olympia virtually to ourselves and really enjoyed wondering around undisturbed and soaking up the atmosphere!

Statue of Zeus in the Olympia Museum

The Temple of Zeus at Olympia

The entrance to the Olympic Stadium 

The Olympic Arch

They say you have to kiss a few frogs before you get to true beauty and we certainly kissed a frog in Killini where we stopped overnight on our journey into the beautiful Gulf of Patros.  What a dump, don’t go there if you can avoid it!

This summed up Killini....

We hadn’t really heard much about the Gulf of Patros apart from we knew of the Corinth canal at the southern end of it where you have to pay a King’s ransom to go through into the Aegean Sea. This year we were exploring the northern and central area, first crossing under the Rion bridge which at 2,880 metres long is the longest fully suspended bridge in the world. You have to radio ahead on the VHF when you are 5 miles away to get permission to sail under it and again when you are 1 mile away when they tell you which arch to go through.

Rion Bridge

After the bridge we headed for Nafpraxtos.  It is an old walled Venetian harbour and the pilot book said it was a pretty but very small - only suitable for boats under 12metres.  It turned out to be one of the loveliest places we have visited. It is very small – there is only room for about 6 yachts and on the first night we had to moor outside but managed to get inside the next morning,... swooping as another yacht left!  We then climbed up to the castle which was a good walk.

Outside the gates of Nafpraxtos Castle

Inside Nafpraxtos Castle

It was so lovely we were delighted to stay an extra night when we were joined by our friend Simon Thomas sailing with his friend Rog on Rog’s catamaran Polo.   It's a magical place especially in the evening when the lights come on.

Nafpraxtos at night

Moored in the Venetian Harbour at Nafpraxtos

Viridian waiting outside Nafpraxtos

Since the harbour was so small it was very difficult not to foul another boats anchor when mooring, as our neighbours discovered to their cost when they tried to leave.....

From Nafpraxtos we sailed further south to another gorgeous place called Galixidi.  The town reminded us of an old French town with faded paintwork and shutters in tasteful subtle hues and all of the shops untouched by time with regard to their internal fittings. We were joined by Rog’s Greek friend Petros in Galaxidi where we had dinner on the quay side and then the next day we shared a hire car on which Petros managed to negotiate a good price so we could all travel to Delphi. 

Moored up in Galaxidi

We absolutely loved Delphi although it was much busier than Olympus. It was certainly worth the trip and amazing that so much still survives.  I don’t think we had fully appreciated how much this area has been devastated by earthquakes over the centuries though. So many places have had to be rebuilt and so much history destroyed.  

The treasury at Delphi

Views over the Temple of Diana

The running track at Delphi 

One of the amazingly well-preserved exhibits in the museum at Delphi

We next headed north stopping off at Messalonghi to anchor overnight which is a safe stopover and where Lord Byron died.

Fishermen's huts on stilts near Messalonghi

We then entered the Gulf of Amvrakia which feels like an inland sea. We anchored in a lovely quiet spot off Vonitsa on the first night and then moved onto the Vonitsa town quay for a second night and climbed up to the castle.

Viridian anchored off Vonitsa...

We met some people who told us they had been there a month but hadn’t managed to get to the castle yet.  We can't imagine what they had been doing for a month because there is not a lot to do in Vonitsa except visit the castle and that isn’t very exciting – not a sign or information board in sight throughout the visit!

The view from Vonitsa Castle

At the top of the castle

Vonitsa Castle from the sea

Now on a roll in the antiquities department, we stopped off at Preveza and then cycled 20kms to the ancient remains of the Roman Citadel of Nikopolis   Once again we were virtually the only people visiting.  We felt a bit sorry for the chap in the ticket hut as it was clearly a very slow day, he had obviously abandoned all pretence of working as he couldn’t even be bothered to charge us and carried on playing candy crush! 

The amphitheatre at Nikopolis 

Inside Nikopolis

Now feeling sated with ruins and the dead, we were in need of spending a bit more time with the living, so we headed to Meganissi, Lefkas and then Paxos – our favourite island where we met Maggie and Richard again in lovely Port Gaios and amazingly we coincided with Katja Quist (on her second holiday to Greece in 6 weeks!) when we met her lovely friend Tash and family Nick and Nikki in beautiful Lakka. It’s amazing how many people you meet and the new friends you can make following this lifestyle; most people we meet are friendly, interesting and interested.

Port Gaios

At anchor off Port Gaios

Lakka

So, we are now back on Corfu. The weather is changing, it’s a bit cooler and pretty windy.  Some parts of Greece and the southern Med have got huge storms ....we believe the term Medicane has been invented!  We have therefore holed up for a few days until our next guests arrive and decided to do some forays without the boat.  

Firstly, we hired a car and drove around Corfu for a day.  It’s a beautiful island.  We spent several hours following high altitude hairpin bends and cart tracks in search of an elusive restaurant that Greg had read about in the mountain town of Old Peritha.  Sadly, we became far too ‘hangry’ before we found it and realised we had been following signs for Perithia which when reading Greek words looked very similar but unfortunately isn’t the same place at all!!!  We finally ate in Cassiopi on the north coast which is always nice if not as special as was hoped for. 

Whilst driving around we were able to see the reality of some of the local political news we have been reading about.  Apparently, the rubbish tip in Corfu is full and the site of the second tip has been banned by the EU, so there is nowhere to put the rubbish.  The Corfu council is trying to ignore the EU and take the rubbish to tip 2 but now there are protesters trying to stop it and police in riot gear keeping the peace.  We were diverted round them near Lefkimi.  The rubbish issue is now becoming critical and seems to be at stalemate.

The rubbish is piling up!!!

The next day we took the ferry to Albania and visited Saranda.  We had learned the value of doing a recce when we checked out Tangier by ferry and found the marina was closed.  When we got to Saranda we discovered that there is nowhere to moor for a yacht of our size so the only option would be anchoring off the beach.  Having spent the day in Saranda though, we were a bit underwhelmed.

I think we expected it to be more exotic or culturally different but it felt a bit like a Greek version of Marbella.  Lots of people cleaning the beachfront area, numerous high end designer shops presumably catering for cruise ship clientele, wall to wall apartments and hotels all a bit high rise which reminded us more of Spain than Greece.  We probably should have taken the tourist tour to the ancient sites…maybe next time.

Saranda is not a pretty town.....

The beachfront at Saranda

Not known for our language acquisition skills apart from how to order beer and wine I found that I quickly learned and have not yet forgotten the word for ‘For Sale’ in Albanian.

Finally we think we may have a boat poltergeist.  We have ‘mislaid’ quite a few things but these are the creepiest.  If you can explain away these oddities we would like to hear from you…..

1. The wheel and instrument console cover for the boat has disappeared.  Its huge. We’ve ransacked the boat several times in search of it.  

2. I got two matching mooring lines out of the locker as we came to moor alongside in Ormos Nikolaos on Zante.  I took the bow line and attached it, leaving the stern line on the deck.  Went to collect the stern line to attach that and the line had gone.  We have never seen it since.  No, it’s not still in the locker.  Yes, we definitely had it on board. No, it wasn’t in rough seas, it was flat calm.  It was creepy!

The disappearing rope.....

3. This hat just appeared in the cockpit when we were on anchor off Gaios.  It definitely doesn’t belong to us.  Nothing was disturbed on the boat or stolen.  

The appearing cap........

Answers on a postcard…….

Our next blog will entail tales of our trek down to Tunisia for the colder months which we are very excited about. 

Beautiful turtle sighting!!!!

Well last time we updated the blog we had been on a bit of a trek from Greece to Croatia and back via Montenegro.  We had next planned to go through the Corinth canal into the Aegean and then to race down to the Canaries in Autumn ready to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean. We also had several trips back to the UK to sort out including Greg’s duties as best man for Phil Kay and Phil and Jules’ wedding itself.

Greg and Phil before the ceremony

So,....we gave ourselves a good talking to and both agreed that it was time to calm down, slow down and take a reality check. In the meantime, Miranda came to visit and we met up with the lovely Quist family in Corfu.

   

So, for those of you who are still thinking you might like to come sailing with us in the Med, we are going to be in the Aegean next summer and then going across to the Caribbean. 

For any of you who might like to cross the Atlantic with us in December 2019, we will be looking for crew well in advance.  So, please do get in touch now to discuss what would be involved.

If you are thinking a Caribbean cruise might be nice – 2020 will be when we are there, following the race calendar to visit the islands and join in the fun when they are having their regattas.  

Caribbean Race Schedule 

As we are travelling we always have half an eye on the property market in the places we really love, with a view to thinking once we are sailed out or too decrepit …..where would we most like to live? So far, our top three places are Valencia, Elvissa and Corfu in that order – always assuming the UK isn’t likely to have hot summers for ever more.

We have loved Greece and the Ionian islands so far.  They are very beautiful and for sailing there are a lot of islands with easy hop journeys from one anchorage to another.  Most of all it has given us a chance to draw breath from our excessive spending of the previous twelve months because its virtually free to moor up alongside on the quay and absolutely free and easy to anchor.  

Kioni

Vathi

We are however tiring of the cuisine – its fine if you are here for two weeks but beyond that there are only so many Greek salads and souvlaki that you can eat and most of the fish is frozen and imported – these are not rich fishing grounds.  It was great to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary in Kionio and we have also been seeking out the very occasional restaurant that dares to be different. Salto in Corfu, Thymari in Lefkas and then with Mags and Steve Dewsnap in restaurant No Menu in Nydri where there is no menu, but you say how much you want to spend and they bring what they think you will like.  

Not souvlaki!.....

Not Greek salad!......

Steve and Mags at NoMenu

Having said there is a lack of fish, we have seen an endangered Monk seal off Ithika and our son Ed arrived today and within half an hour we were visited by an amazing sea turtle whilst on anchorage in Argostoli on Kefalonia.  Check out this video of the beautiful turtle.

Over the past few weeks we have continued to have endless minor maintenance issues, the details of which we won’t bore you with and Greg has been getting down and dirty trying to fix things with some coaching from Steve Dewsnap who is sailing with his wife Mags on their Moody 42 -  Silver Fox, and Kevin Armstrong who was very patient and helpful on the last day of his sailing holiday. I am pleased to report that after this tuition Greg has cracked fixing the water pump!!!!  😊 

Greg trying to mend the pump.......

Other important news is that Greg has very reluctantly sold his paramotor. Sadly, its just too difficult to find safe and suitable places to take off and land so I tried to sympathise whilst secretly feeling pleased that we were releasing a bit of storage space. 

People ask us if we have arguments given that we are together 24/7/365. The answer is of course we do but I have to say that the most arguments we have are about what we are storing on the boat and what is taking up too much space. So, I have moaned endlessly about the paramotor and Greg moans endlessly about the bags of bedding that I keep just in case it gets cold and for when we have visitors.  My recent solution has been to buy bags that you can vacuum suction to remove the air and reduce their size by 80% -  Ed has just brought them with him so I will let you know if I am out of the dog house in the next blog.  Greg definitely isn’t……...he’s bought an inflatable paddle board which I naively assumed would be deflated when not in use.  Annoyingly, even deflated it’s still about the size of the paramotor and quite often it gets put down below and isn’t deflated…its bloody enormous.  

Generous Greece, Costly Croatia and Magnificent Montenegro.....

It’s been a few weeks since we last updated the blog and the main reasons for our lack of activity have been that we have been very engaged in our travels, meeting up with friends and hosting visitors; as a result we now have a lot of news and have had to edit hard to prevent it becoming tedious.

When we last posted we were feeling a bit disillusioned with attitudes in southern Italy whilst recognising its beauty in terms of interesting places to visit…. but when we arrived in Greece it was hard to know why we had lingered in Italy at all!

Restaurants in many little bays are very welcoming with their own dinghy docks for  boats on anchor

Early morning walk round the bay in Port Kioni

Greece was a revelation.  The Ionian islands are beautiful and even more delightful for their plentiful and free crystal-clear anchorages and generous rates to moor on the town quay.  How does 50 cents a metre including water and electricity sound to you?  It’s a no brainer.  We even moored up in one harbour and plugged into electricity and water for free!  Maybe Greece does need to catch on a tad to offset its debt!

Our biggest concern was that we would find the food a bit dull because last time we were here, which was about 20 years ago, we did find the food very mediocre.  So, we were delighted to discover things have improved substantially.

We spent some time in Corfu, Paxos and Ithaca. Meeting up with our friends Simon and Liz in Kefalonia and Ithica,  Graham and Anne Marie in Preveza, hosting our daughter Miranda in Corfu; meeting up and spending time with Maggie and Richard from Hejira in Paxos and again in Corfu. 

Liz and Simon in Fiskardo

Dinner in Mljet with Lesley and Ian

Dinner with Richard and Maggie in Lake

Greg and Miranda in Corfu 

All in all the start of June was very sociable, with beautiful weather and great sailing.  The watermaker was fixed and it was looking like a month to claw back on some of our previous repair bills. Greg bought himself a fishing rod and was trying to supplement our budget by catching supper when we were on anchor - he was singing a happy little song.  

Sunset over Gouvia Marina

Greg's first fish - but a bit too small for supper.......

We then went north to a place called Obrevic in Croatia, north of Dubrovnik to meet our friends Lesley and Ian who were joining us to cruise around for a week. 

We cut an amazing swathe up the middle of the Adriatic on an overnight sail whilst electrifying storms raged on either side of us. Strangely we had clear sky above us all the way whilst Italy to our west and Albania to our East were covered in thunderheads and received the wrath of God! So, we were extremely pleased to arrive safely in Dubrovnik.  

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was lovely

but Dubrovnik is a victim of its own success - too many tourists.....

Lots of people have warned us of the hiked costs in Croatia but having been there several times before we couldn’t quite believe it could be as bad as all that.

It was.  

It was worse!  

Charges have been increased by 400% in the past 12 months.  The average marina charge we paid was equivalent of 175 Euro.  Anchoring is half of the mooring charge in many areas.  There is a sojourn tax to even enter and sail in Croatia; for 14 days ours was equivalent of 240 Euros.  Reserving a place in a marina incurs an additional 20% charge.  If you don’t reserve a place they are full, but if you book and pay the extra 20% amazingly they aren’t!  

Some restaurants have their own free pontoons if you eat with them.  Apparently, the law will change to prevent that option shortly, which is such a pity as we had an amazing dock and dine experience on Mljet, berthed at Konoba Ankora.

The view from the castle in Hvar

Jan chilling out in Carpe Diem, Hvar

A quiet anchorage in Brna, Croatia

The reason for this massive hike is apparently because charter companies such as Sunsail have abandoned Turkey and moved to Croatia and they are worried that there are too many charter boats there now.  That may be the case, but the charter business will probably survive, whereas liveaboards and people keeping their own yachts in Croatia are now voting with their feet.  The restaurants may find that problematic particularly in the shoulder season when many of us continue to sail and visit these lovely places. 

Luckily, we were sailing with very generous friends who paid more than their share of the charges and helped us through the pain and we really enjoyed the beauty of many of the places we visited, from Hvar and its chi-chi shops and restaurants to cycling round the lakes in the national park on Mljet. 

Moored at Konoba Ankora in Mjlet National Park

Exploring the National Park with Lesley and Ian

Croatia remains beautiful.  We had a fabulous time but sadly checked out after only 8 days to the lack of surprise of the port authority, who seemed very resigned and unhappy when we said we were going to Montenegro   

To our delight, Montenegro is a magnificent country and offers such a welcoming and much more affordable experience.  The scenery is breath-taking, people are friendly, towns are interesting, and the waters are so clear.  Checking in was pretty painless and similar to checking into Greece or Croatia. 

We arrived in darkness in strong winds at Porto Montenegro and woke to stunningly huge mountains and equally stunningly huge yachts moored alongside us! Porto Montenegro is a superyacht port and has all the facilities.

Every super yacht should have one!

We are having problems with our generator so having been stood up by an engineer in both Croatia and again in Porto Montenegro (probably more gainfully employed on a superyacht) we moved round to Kotor.  What a beautiful trip that was and how fabulous the city.  

Bay of Kotor Montenegro

It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1979 and has been rebuilt.  Kevin McCloud must have been advising on maintaining the integrity of the original buildings as it is clear what is new and what was salvaged. Nevertheless, the result is amazing and really worth a visit.

From our mooring we could see the precipitous wall to the mountain fortress and so we decided to climb it, pretending to be part of the cast of Game of Thrones.

The start of the climb

Halfway up......

The view from the top!

We can highly recommend Montenegro and we may well revisit. Now we have just arrived back in Greece in preparation for some pre-booked flights back for Phil and Jules's wedding.