| Well we have now been here in Greece for a total week, and we still haven’t found rude people, we have even enjoyed the food. And what’s more we haven’t even seen any wind since we have recovered from our big blow. The marina at Gouvia was splendid, the first day we just chilled, had a beautiful moussaka and red wine for lunch, and watched the people go by It was only the second day we discovered it had a pool, which was most welcome in the days ahead. Wednesday was a public holiday so we had some reprieve from the dreaded customs thing, but Thursday rolled around and we caught a taxi into the new port, he had no idea where to drop us, so it was a bit of a fossick really. Without too much trouble we found the customs, the first port of call, and apart from a little surliness this was a quick, efficient and trouble free experience. In the same building we were directed to the Port Police where, again, smiles were not in abundance, but it was lightning quick efficiency and we were out of there to find the pink building where the Port Authority was, trouble was, all the buildings were pink. We tripped upon the right one, and there we received a friendly smile with efficiency. So all round it was much easier than Italy, and we were soon on our way. We walked to the old city, it was time to dine and take stock. After we walked around the corner to find the Esplanade area, a long walking street with café areas lining it, and a cricket ground on the other side. This is the happening place. It is flanked by the old fortress, and on the other side of the old town is the new fortress, which looks pretty old to me. Back at the marina we took advantage of a dip, not many people about. The next day was the start of charter change over, and the pool was packed out, Joe managed to read but there was far too much for me to watch to concentrate on the written word. Little children, brave and not so brave, families, teenagers, all shapes and sizes of course, pretty much everything. Then we decided to take the roads of Greece on. In one of the guide books states ‘the general rules for most part of drivers are don’t give way to anything, don’t overtake unless it’s a blind bend, and don’t take any notice of any road sign. The road networks are not good, so be careful if you think of driving a car.’ So it was with some apprehension that we took the step to hiring a vehicle. We ended up with “special Jimmy”, it was a jeep type thing and actually called a Jimmy. I set out for the passenger’s side, but of course this was actually the driver’s side, so it was me to drive first. Lid down and off we went. After travelling at a snail pace on a yacht for so long, at a gentle 50 km, I felt like we were flying and my co pilot requested a little slower please. In the day we travelled 140 km, on little back roads through very organised looking olive orchards, in fact at one spot we saw a tractor and sprayer ready to start work, though it was so hilly it horrified us. The water around the island was spectacular, the views from our table for lunch at the very top of the island, looking out to the channel we had tackled in Force 7, now without a ripple, and the cliffs with their interesting earthly formations were breathtaking. After lunch we found ourselves on quite a main road continuing around the top of the island, and tripped upon the signpost down to Stephanos, the bay we seeked refuge in after our notorious crossing, again we found it just beautiful, swam and enjoyed that a while before returning with our special Jimmy, rather sad to return him, just getting the hang of this driving thing, on the wrong side and all. At 10.30 Jeremy, my nephew arrived, after a bit of a mix up, it is a bit of a confusing marina, where they put us anyway, we found him, had a few drinks and catching up and found our way to bed in the small hours. So now it was time to meander south, we had a night in Moretos, our first stern line anchoring for the year went without a hitch, snugly in between some Austrians, and a mystery boat unmanned. We were lucky to bump into a New Zealander who is the leader for a “Sailing Holidays’ flotilla, and he kindly gave us one of the guide books they give out to their charter people, and it contained some very interesting tit bits, and it is good to pick the brains of someone like him, also the fact that people on these flotillas have often had no experience so they go to fool proof places. I think it is now more than six weeks on the boat, and we have yet to experience any rain, and there have only been 2 days when we have woken to cloudiness, which has burnt off over the day. We motored into the wind, as one would expect, to our next port of call, Lakka on Paxos. The water colour here is stunning emerald, a wonderful bay which fits copious numbers of boats in. We went in to dine at the recommended restaurant in the Sailing Holidays book, met up with Ewen again, and enjoyed the best Lamb on the spit, so good in fact that we will have a second day here and do it again. We went with Ewen to the cocktail bar, Joe had some flaming thing, after we had one, we decided that was enough and back to the boat we skittled. We were fairly well out, so we upped anchor and moved in further where we think we won’t experience the little bit of swell we did at times last night. So there we are to now, we drop Jeremy off on Friday, he doesn’t know it yet, we have bought him a ticket on the Sea Plane, so he will have a nice trip back to Corfu. Until next time, no, I haven’t managed very well with the Greek language yet, so Bye Bye is all I can manage yet. |
