It's not all sunshine! We've holed up in Nisis Trizonia an island in the Gulf of Patras. Hmmm- unpredicted headwinds, then big wind on the beam :) then rain?
Not slowing us down too much - we are making our way toward the Cornith Canal - the shortcut to Athens.
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Last week we joyfully left the boatyard and continued cruising the Ionian islands. Our first stop was in Tranquil Bay, Lefkada which happily lived up to it's name. We enjoyed wildflower filled hikes and we all slept soundly in the floating boat. Next we sailed to the island of Ithaca, home of Odysseus (from Homer's epic story The Odyssey made into an excellent movie too.) RJ studied this in history and we attempted to find the archeological sites on the island. Although marked on the map, it seems that the 300 BC built fortresses are in a shambles. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the journey in the car checking out the island and the tiny museums had interesting artifacts striving to prove Ithaca was truly Odysseus' homeland. The Ionian islands are gorgeous w/ green hillsides covered with olive and citrus trees. One could easily spend a season exploring these northern islands, but the clock is ticking on our remaining three months so we're moving on through the Cornith canal to visit the southern islands.
Photos Here
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Seeing the boat get lifted out of the water is nerve racking. We could only hope that the straps were positioned properly. We stopped holding our breath when the boat was successfully lifted and moved onto land. The boatyard is concrete surrounded by dirt fields -filled w/ other boats out of the water. Although it seems an unnatural thing to have the boat out of water, it's necessary so that we can clean and paint the bottom. We need to sand, scrape and apply special paint so that barnacles and what not don't grow on the boat. While we're here, we're doing a number of other projects too, like a new thru-hull for the holding tank (holds the you know what.) All fun stuff.
We have lots of dirt, dust and wind . We trudge up and down ladders to get in and out of the boat and to go to the bathroom. Then there's the missing workers that are supposed to help us. We're living in a parking lot for boats. A few more days to go. I got the boatyard blues.
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Just south of Corfu are a couple of small islands. We went to Paxos - a tiny, quaint island. It's not high season yet and weekend ferries to Corfu weren't running, so thankfully not many people were around. It was a perfect place to rent scooters and ride around the island and a good opportunity for me learn how to drive one! Towards the end of our driving around, Leo - my passenger - said "Mommy, let go of your fears and go fast" - when I sped up on the straightaway - he was whooping it up and I almost let go of my fear!
On Paxos we were tied up to the town quay in Gaios. While there, we med moored, which is a bit tricky b/c you put out an anchor, back up and tie two lines to the wharf w/out hitting the concrete quay. It's always exciting - RJ drops the anchor, Rodney backs up the boat and Leo and I tie off the stern lines. There is potential for disaster, but this was our second time and we did well. That evening, we were prepared for the wind to change to the south and we went to the recommended northern location. However, the wind was strong, pushing us into the quay so Rodney and I were up at 3:30 am fending the boat off the dock (the kids sleep through everything.) Prior to that a 50 foot motor yacht moored next to us, got a line tied around it's prop and we had to tie them to our boat which added even more pressure. We finagled things around, put out more fenders and eventually went back to bed. No harm done. But these changing strong winds have had us up more than a few times. The next day, we provided scuba gear so the powerboaters could get their line off the prop - and disconnect from us- then off they went!
We're moving on to the boat yard in Preveza to haul the boat out of the water and get our bottom painted - the boat bottom that is.
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04/27/2011
RJ reports:
We woke up the day before Easter in high spirits, for we were on the island of Corfu, Greece, where every Easter is preceded by a very strange ceremony. In the past, the Venetians threw their useless junk out their windows on new years day, to get rid of the old and bring in the new. Following the Venetian tradition, the Pagans threw old pots out of their windows to get rid of evil spirits. The Christians threw old pots on Easter, saying it marked a new beginning. Because of all these traditions, the Easter pot throwing ceremony was born, where, on the day before Easter the people of Corfu throw ceramic pots out of their windows, smashing them on the pavement below. This festivity is entirely unique to the island of Corfu. Thousands come to watch. While most of these go to the capitol, called Corfu town, the celebrations are everywhere on the island.
We happened to be in this capitol the day before Easter, and at 10 o'clock we made our way to the town square. The crowd covered the entire area and the surrounding streets. Finally, we found a spot to settle down, and as the already massive crowd grew, it was all I could do to stop people pushing their way into my front-row place. The mass got so big that people had to stand just a foot away from where the pots would fall. Now, we could see people appearing in the balconies with their ceramics, ranging from 6 inches to 4 feet tall. At 11o'clock we heard smashing in the distance and the people on the balconies fired. The small pots came down first in a continuous shower of breaking clay. After a few minutes, someone brought out a 4-foot pot and the low babble of talk rose into a roar.
The people close to the fall zone cowered as the mass of clay fell with an ear-splitting crash. A few people kept on bringing out similarly large pots, all of them painted different shades of red and blue. This kept everyone entertained for another 20 minutes or so, until no one had any more pots to throw. The throng of people started to move, and everyone grabbed shards of the pots as souvenirs. Shop workers appeared to sweep the huge mounds of clay away from their stores and large piles of them were commonly seen along the side of the road. As we walked through the town, these piles became smaller and smaller until we finally reached our marina. Three days later, you could still spot orange colored dust, the last mark of the Easter pot throwing ceremony.
-RJ
Click for Photos here
Video
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Sailing holiday anyone? Although you wouldn't want to spend your entire vacation here at the marina, we loved our productive two days: repaired dinghy cover, sail cover and trampoline , purchased four new lovely batteries, hired electrician to confirm generator issue, laundered big bag of clothes, and accomplished a few other little things. Whew.
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