Paxos
27 July 2017
Leaving Maganisi was kinda sad it is a very relaxing place with crystal clear water perfect for swimming.
Woohoo now we start our trip north. I think we collected our lines and lifted anchor around 7:30 am and headed towards the Cleopatra canal and the floating bridge at Lefkas. The bridge opens for a few minutes every hour and we were aiming for the 9am opening. The canal is interesting so peaceful no development along it just some fishermen in their little boats tending to their nets, some sunken boats and the floating ones like us transiting either north or south. Lefkas is at the north end of the canal just to the south of the bridge
it is a fairly large harbour and home to several charter bases so there's always a boat or three going south. We made it to the bridge with about 10 minutes to spare which is good. The canal is narrow and it can be difficult trying to stay in the middle while waiting. There were 6 boats waiting with us everyone staking out their little piece of water ICEBEAR having two engines had no trouble keeping nicely centered. Once the bridge opened we waited to see if there were any boats entering the canal as they have the right away. Its backwards to the normal rules of the water but I guess something must have happened for them to make it that way. Once out into the Ionian Sea we headed towards Anti Paxos it was going to be a 5 hour run a perfect chance to dig out the fishing gear and try to catch something.... hehehe when we were in Italy a crusty guy in a fishing shop sold me a 90 meter length of line on a piece of dense green foam with a white lure on the end he said for every knot you are running set out 10 meters of line behind the boat. He was right in Italy so who was I to think he would be wrong this time. We sent out about 65 -70 meters of line wrapped it around a winch
played with it for a few minutes to see how it felt then we settled in for the trip. When the watch shift changed how to keep an eye on the line was also part of the briefing after all that much line dragging behind the boat could catch all manner of things styrofoam, seaweed all things far more likely then a fish.
with no real wave and the humm of the engine its very easy to get all nappy but there's nothing like hey hey we are dragging something to get your attention.
Sure enough we were dragging something i grabbed the line to start pulling it in. I realized it was to heavy to just have nekid hands fortunately this had been thought of when the line was first let out and with some help the gloves were on. As the line was pulled in we could see that the thing dragging was a fish a really pretty yellow fish woohoo a dorado/mahi mahi/ dolphin fish wow it has a few names. Get the net was the next call. Where do i find the net
was the answer. Oohh crap we dont have a net now what? Take pictures lots of them so if we lose it we have proof. ( pictures or it didnt happen) The fish was well hooked and i was able to lift it
over the life lines into the boat now what? The last fish we caught we clubbed with a winch handle and the mess was amazing so that wasn't the preferred option this time yes alcohol. We had a bottle of ouzo. Into the gills,. it worked no flopping around nothing it didn't take much either. I guess we need some vodka on board
The fun part ppft I admit i'm very out of practice filleting a fish and never actually having seen a Dorado before made it even more challenging I know I could have got more meat off of the bone. We figure the fish was around 7-8 kilo and by the time it was filleted, de boned and cleaned we had at least 3 kilo of beautiful white meat which as it turns out is good for three meals for three people. 30 minutes later the first meal was a basic fried fish and rice omg soo good. Shortly after lunch we arrived in Anti Paxos for an afternoon swim the water was amazing warm 25c and clear but the holding for the anchor wasn't great which was ok because Paxos was just a 30 min motor away. Paxos is really cute you motor into a really skinny channel the town side has the quay and it is busy. As we slowly checked out the situation a person in a dingy yelled at me to see what we were going to do they said they had been trying to get a hold of the wharfenger for almost and hour but with no luck.
He asked what we were going to do I said we were going to do what we always have done and that's find a spot drop the anchor, back up really fast and tie if someone didn't like it they would say something. The look on the guys face was priceless. It wasn't long after we tied that I saw him on the dock looking for a place to put garbage so I suspect he did the same thing. Paxos has it all shops, restaurants, bakeries one of which had the best orange cake we have tried so far on this trip and the people watching was exceptional so said the single guy on board. There had to be more then ten big day tripper boats that came into the town I don't know where there were coming from but they were loaded. Its amazing how many people think once they are in a boat somehow the people from shore cant see them no walls on the water are the same as no walls on land I really didn't need to see the number of body parts as I saw the two days we were there.
Day two at Paxos started slow a little boat tidy a walk to the garbage then the most amazing fish burrito things ever, some more people watching then a nap. That evening we did more people watching then went shopping and out for dinner
We even saw a super yacht that appeared to be anchored in the bay using a laser beam. I'm sure it was just a really bright light shining down the chain but the optical illusion was really kewl
we left Paxos at about 8:30am the water was so clear we could see all the anchors and chain sitting on the bottom of the waterway. We were lucky and had nothing near our anchor but we did see one chain that had 11 other chains either draped over or
lying under it. Its never a good thing when your anchor chain runs a different direction then everyone else's in a very compact harbour. Depending on the order boats leave the harbour the chaos that could be cause would have been worth staying for.