Frikes, Ithaca

As we could not settle in Fiskado - but we would definitely go there again in calmer winds - we decided to go across the bay to Frikes. Jon has been in here and we thought it would be a good alternative. If not then we still had the opportunity to go on to Vathi where there certainly is a deep water harbour tucked neatly behind an island.

Frikes is a pretty village with trees coming down to the water front so it is very green. The prevailing winds do gust in here however.

We arrived, dropped the anchor against a very neat, tidy and new looking harbour wall and took three lines to the rings ashore; two at the stern and one to the mid ships cleat. All was well and calm. It is not very touristy and only has a couple of tavernas and bars to choose from. But as we had not yet had lunch we heated up some spinach soup, opened some tins of sardines, had some nice fresh bread, salad and tucked into a late lunch.

This was rather lucky as the calm turned rather quickly into an untenable situation. We had a 3m swell rocking in from the bay and it made our harbour wall effectively a lee shore. So after a daring ride in the dinghy to the harbour wall by Jon he managed to untie our
mid ships line from the ring on the wall, we brought up the anchor and moved on towards Vathi. We left at 19.00 and were due to make Vathi just after sunset (20.02) at 20.30.

We had the best (sailing) wind of the whole journey to date and were running along at an average of 7 knots.

As we approached Vathi close to sunset there was the most amazing aroma of wild sage from the hillside sage bushes. It was so enticing that the dish of slow spit roasted suckling pig from one of the best restaurants we have been to in Vonista came to mind! So we arrived hungry!

We arrived on schedule in Vathi and had a choice of anchoring in the secure harbour or against the harbour wall. We choose the latter and a local restaurant owner helped us with our lines to come in stern to with the bow anchor out.

I didn't even manage to get a photo in Frikes.

This photo is against the harbour wall in Vathi just infront of the cafe which supplied us with an excellent full English breakfast the next morning.