| Well we did indeed have a second night in Lakka, but the crew voted my chicken curry ahead of the lamb meal out, so who was I to debate it. We bought a lilo which Jeremy spent the rest of the day learning how to control, and generally relaxed. We then travelled down Paxos island stopping at Longos for a swim, and then through Gaio, a longish town area, with an island outside, so we meander around a kind of canal. Jeremy said it felt a bit like Venice, it was quite a pretty little drive. Then on to Mongonisi where we anchored and tied stern to. This also was a beautiful part, and we were very lucky this night was not a franticly noisy and musical night, some English folk next door told us of the loud noise last night. We ate out on oven lamb and a cocktail to finish. It was an early start to get around to Gaio to the sea plane, not sure if it was the early morning start we are not used to, or the cocktails from the previous night, but we successfully put out the anchor, and I gently motored back and I leave it gently in reverse to try and keep us straight, and payed out the line for Joe to swim ashore with, when he suddenly alerted me to the face that I was not watching what I was doing, and I was paying too much, the excess was being drawn into the prop. Actually it might be debated that he wasn’t swimming fast enough. Anyway, off with the kit, and on with the goggles, and actually I found it just settled gently over the prop, and not wound around. I was a bit lucky all round. We took Jeremy to the seaplane, a bit of a surprise on his face as he expected to get onto the big ferry in port, and felt a bit flat when he flew off. So a bit of a discovery of the village, and just lots of swimming. The only saving factor is being able to just throw off all clothing and plunge into the cool water, which by the way is 33 degrees, at a whim. It horrifies me to think of those soldiers in Irag Joe talks about enduring heat of 45 degrees and having to drink 100 litres a day to stay alive and to be wearing all that soldiers kit. I feel over-clothed when I have on the emperor’s pajamas in 37 degrees. The next day however, we were slightly unhinged with the discovery in the early hours of the morning of a nibbled nectarine and the possibility of an unpaying and unwanted passenger. We felt the strong likelihood it might be still with us, so we thought the port police might be able to give us some pointers, a rat on a yacht is a grim situation, and we thought it might start nibbling at the wiring. We actually saw a big fat one on the land in the morning hip hopping along, might have been the same one. The port police couldn’t me less helpful, and laughed themselves silly. We decided to make a run for it to Preveeza, a bigger place, and asked them for a forecast, pretty sketchy one, they didn’t seem to know if they were talking in Beaufort or knots for the strength of wind. Actually in the end they must have been talking in knots, we motored all the way. We were fortunate to encounter an friendly antipodeans neighbour from Australia working on charter, who dropped off his rat trap, and meanwhile I befriended a supermarket manager, Spiero, who did not have any rat glue, but found some and drove me all the way to the other supermarket to get it. He refused to be photographed with the rat glue, but agreed to be photographed by his van. I think he thought there was some question as to my psychiatrical state. So all traps activated we slept awaiting some sort of action, and finding none established that the larder was not to its satisfaction, and it left as soon as it arrived. It has been a bit of a lesson, we are now forewarned and forearmed. So now with the rat situation under control we had a night at Vonista, a nice bay which we could have walked over the pretty bridge and 1 km to the village, it was pretty windy and we decided to stay put. Back in Preveeza before heading further south we have made contact with the yard where we are going to leave Wrighteau on the hard stand, and found that we can certainly “lock up” the boat for 6 months meaning that will come off the time we are allowed to keep it in Greece before having to register it as an EU boat, which will give us the option to have another full year here next year if we like. Mind you, in the town today it is said to be over 40 degrees, so there won’t be much town quay time spent in this heat. Preveeza is said not to be touristy, and granted not many people speak English, but I don’t know who will fill all the hundreds of bars along the esplanade if some tourists don’t come along to help. It is not madly attractive, but has everything we need. My helpful supermarket man alerted me to all the fires on the Peloponese, last night at anchor we thought we might have seen some of the smoke coming from there. Next stop Lefkas and the inland sea, looks pretty good and looking forward to it. Bye bye all |
