Homeward Bound

NOTE- Our internet is really very spotty here so this blog was written several days before this date and just now posted. We are still in Corfu now waiting for a new propeller to arrive on Tuesday. Seems the mooring line we caught in the prop in Kithera did damage to the hub and cant be repaired, so brand new prop is in order. Meantime, after 5 years it was time to replace the toilet system with all of its ancillary hoses etc. When you only have one head you can’t afford to ignore its needs!
Where to begin? Last blog we were either in Argostoli, Kefalonia or headed there. In any case in Argostoli we planned to get our passports stamped out of Greece and head across to Italy, thus granting us another 90 day visa. We went to the Police to accomplish this little feat and low and behold our 1970’s pre European Union ideas and “knowledge” was blown completely away when we were told that one needn’t check in and out of EU countries with a passport. Oh no, now days if you entered one EU country and were stamped in you could travel the entire EU without any additional passport fuss. So your visa isn’t just for the country you enter but rather for the entire EU. Why you might ask is this tidbit of information significant enough to merit space in the blog? I’ll tell you why. This is August and we had entered Greece on 1 June, if you do your math you discover we had been here for 86 days and our visa was only good for 90 days. Oh, oh! We had figured if we left Greece and entered Italy we would have another 90 days…wrong answer. So what to do? The only viable answer was to fuel up and leave Kefalonia and head north some 100 + miles to Corfu where we hoped we could take a ferry out of Greece and go to Albania ( the nearest non EU country ) instead of heading west to Italy. Slight detour what.
So we left Kefalonia at 2:00PM and after 22 hours straight sailing we arrived in Corfu checked into the Gouvnia Marina and immediately after tying up went to the travel agent to book a ferry. On Monday, our 90th day we stamped out of Greece (Whew!) and went across to Albania. It was quite nice though some of the buildings were clearly Communist era and style, a hotel Suite, not just a room for 35 euro a night. Dinner of salad, wild vegetables (really tasted more like spinach), a half a liter of wine, bread, fried calamari, and a flounder for each of us was a whopping 20 euro. Amazing. In Greece that dinner in a lousy restaurant would cost you at least 120+ euros. So Albania is a bargain spot if anyone is interested in a vacation. Greece on the other hand is a rip off, just about everywhere you go someone is running a game either on the tourist or the government. For example a taxi from the Marina to the port down in Corfu City is fixed at 17 euros. I caught a cab just outside the Marina and he used the meter to the same destination, it was 8 euro 30 cents. So, it seems the cabbies have to pay the Marina to come in and pick you up, and take you downtown. Heck, the ferry to Albania was only 19 euro!
Anyway, we had an enjoyable time for one night and part of a day in a day in Albania, people were very friendly helpful and most spoke at least some English, and now we’re back onboard with new visas good for another 90 days. Since our schedule has slipped and we likely will not make it to Barcelona after all, we will get the works done on the boat here instead. So we will be here a few more days. Meeting the ARC requirements is almost like outfitting a new boat! Much of it seems to be overkill but they have a reputation to protect and I suppose if they didn’t require every possible piece of safety gear they could be open to criticism if something happened where it might have made a difference.
The picture for this entry is of the three ferries that were parked at the quay in Albania, turns out all three were headed back to Corfu. Can you guess which one was ours? If you guessed the little red rusty looking one you were right, the rest of you are just optimists.