A NEW YEAY 2011
31 March 2011
Andraes on guitar & Vinny on bouzouki playing at our favourite Taverna called Filoxenos
A NEW YEAR 2011
2010 has now gone and 2011 has arrived, we have settled into the marina life here at Messolonghi and keeping ourselves very busy with our winter jobs and socialising. We are finding it very different from last year, although we have less winter jobs to do this year we still seem to be kept busy, mostly by social events in or out of the marina. Messolonghi is a lovely place and we love the town as it is very traditional and not touristy, we have also made some good friends here especially with a certain family who run one of the Tavernas in town called Filoxenos, the only downside is that we have not taken Ashby Girl out since our arrival here in mid October and now we both feel ready for a sail. One of the reasons we have not been out sailing is due to the fact that there are no nice anchorages close by for a short day sail, also it would take us about an hour just to get out the buoyed channel into the open sea.
Messolonghi marina is still being developed and there should be a few shops here by the summer which will be quite handy, but the more developed it becomes this could also put the mooring prices up. The staff here are very friendly but not well organised and its quite entertaining watching the boats being hauled out. We have made friends with many cruisers here and regularly join them for some of there many get togethers that they have here in Messolonghi which includes the weekly BBQ, the get together on a Tuesday night at a local Greek Taverna where a few of the cruisers will take their guitars along and a good old sing-along is had by all. We visit this Taverna quite regularly and have not managed to leave before about 2am and some days it’s a lot later. Friday night is Greek music night, also there is a coffee morning on Saturday after the market and there are also various other activities going on here in the marina throughout the week, so overall quite busy. We had a really great time here at Christmas. We all got together for drinks and nibbles on Christmas day at lunch time and on New Years Eve celebrated at our local Taverna where we experienced a Greek New Year, very different. We have had such a great time here and everyone has been so friendly, we could go on and on about the generosity we have experienced from everyone and also the great times we have had.
A bit of new for this summer, we will both be working; yes working I’m afraid; we will be doing a summer season in Turkey as a lead crew on Flotilla for Sunsail. We will be based at Orhaniye in Turkey and it is meant to be a really nice area, so we are quite looking forward to it, mind you there be one other on board with us so we wont quite have the freedom that we are used to, but we are sure things will be good. We will be leaving Ashby Girl on the hard here at Messolonghi until we return next winter, so no posts for a while until we are back and then we will give you an update on our working summer season.