Sea Change

Apologies for being so slow updating our blog, its just that we've been having too much fun (as well as being rather busy). But here we are, tied up safely in Montenegro, with time for a newsy catch up written in bits by both of us. We were concerned to see the reports of more earthquakes in Wellington this morning , hope you are all okay and managing to take it easy.

Have you found the various folders of photos we have on this blog? Lots more, and you can click on them and make them bigger! Look at the list on the right.

Ionian July 2013


We spent just under a week with Maddy and Clive Waters and their children Daisy and Oliver, going to a couple of our favourite spots in the Ionian. Oliver and Daisy enjoyed the kayaks and quickly found friends on a next door charter yacht in Abelike. Oliver loved driving the dinghy. Daisy had her 10th birthday party on board and had a birthday lunch with balloons, chips and gummy snakes with a side of salami sandwiches at the Onassis island.




Ali, Robyn and Karen S ( Karen Moses's workmate from Fiji) then joined us for two weeks so we had time to explore further. After acclimatising in Abelike again we went off to Kastos. The store there is run in the summer by a Wellington- Greek couple, the man was born on Kastos. Robyn was initially told the bread had sold out until she mentioned the Wellington connection and bread miraculously appeared. Watching others anchor or tie up is the main entertainment over evening drinks, when we are an all women crew, quite a rarity, we sometimes feel we are representing all womenkind. We watched a French family spend literally two and a half hours trying to anchor and tie back with much shouting and argument, teenage mutiny, and marital discord which made us feel quite smug with our comparatively smooth operation. At Kastos Ange and I had lunch at a hilltop restaurant with a great view of the gulf. At the village there was a sign saying 50 metres to Chef Johns and every 20 metres for the next 200 metres almost vertical climb there was a sign that indicated it was just around the corner. The woman who ran Chef John's (John had died a year earlier) had cousins running a fish and chip shop in Wellington - was nice to discover that link, it's a great island.



From Kastos we revisited Kioni on Ithaka. A very lovely Greek village although tourists arrive on ferries by their hundreds like an incoming tide for a couple of hours, mornings and from late afternoons they are gone and the town is calm. Purchases were made from our boat at the local jeweller where Ange got her lovely silver bracelet last year (Bangela Merkell).



After a couple of nights in Abelike (where Ali showed most excellent diving form), we headed up through the Lefkada canal and off to Paxis, an island just south of Corfu. It was exactly a year since we'd last been in Paxis, that time arriving from Italy. Was great to know our way around the town of Gaius, and to purchase what seemed at the time rather too much of the good olive oil (the can is woefully low now). We were tied up to what has since become known as "rat island". Fortunately we'd secured the boat and closed the windows, and managed to send the rat off the boat with the snap of trap and a mouthful of poison. We then stayed in Lakka - a lovely open bay we were told about by a couple of boaties in Kioni (they were so appreciative when we gave them a bucket of ice for their evening drink). Had an excellent meal at a family restaurant that roasted meat on the spit - we often order together as a group, as the portions are huge. We overheard a New Zealand accent in the restaurant, and found a group who had just sailed down from Albania. Bit unnerving to hear they had some bullets fly across their bow when they anchored (foolishly) at an off-limits military island at 2am, but sobering.



Into the last nights with Ali, Robyn and Karen, we anchored off Corfu old town, with the amazing view of the old fort, near an impressive line-up of superyachts. The largest superyacht (the size of the Cook Island ferry), was hosting a birthday party - we saw balloons on the back, and saw the crew taking a large pink cake aboard. A singer crooned lounge music, accompanied by a pianist on a grand piano. After singing happy birthday to Natalia (Russians!), there was the most enormous fireworks display, equal to Wellington's. A cruise ship stealthed by, with its lights off, and for a moment we wondered if that was Natalia's birthday present, but no. We googled the boat, and found you could rent it for yourself and up to 11 guests for NZ$1million dollars per week plus expenses. Extraordinary.



We dropped Ali and Robyn at a bay to the north in Corfu, and Karen in Gouvia, and had a couple of days in port, before our next guests arrived. We had an electrician to look at the water maker fault which turned out to be a generator fault so it was lifted out of the boat by four burly lads. They worked through the weekend to get that and the alternator repaired so we could leave on Sunday minutes after they had stepped off the boat. The people we met like the electrician and shopkeepers were disheartened about the economic situation in Greece, asking is it the same in New Zealand. No-one has ever mentioned the fact that it is a total cash economy and nobody pays tax as a possible reason.