Clio's Adventures

The wonder world of a cave wall

20 August 2016 | Sami on Kefalonia
Francis and Chris
Friday 12th August
Just hanging around in Ag Sofia bay on Kefallonia, doing a lot of nothing today.

Saturday 13th August
Chris's birthday today and Francis had made a few decorations to celebrate the start of a new year of wonders for Chris (top left and right photos). We went ashore to have a look around. Chris explored the land on foot while Francis snorkelled the underwater world. The wasps are back so we soon headed back to Clio. After a shower we decided to try out the taverna for a late lunch. It was a minimal menu but Chris enjoyed the oven baked (older) lamb while Francis savoured the oven baked sardines in tomato sauce.

Sunday 14th August
We headed down to Sami where we tied up side-to to the outer jetty to filled up with water (TDS 495, so of reasonable quality). Chris ran into town to stock up on a few essentials such as yoghurt and wine.

Then we moved a little further south to Andisamos bay which was a bit like landing in the riviera. The beach is completely covered with umbrellas and bronz-ed/ing bodies. The amount of money invested in swimsuits on that beach would be buying a house, we guessed. We went in our inflatable Cloe in search of blue water caves but were unable to find any so we ventured ashore and after walking the length of the beach we opted to return to the peace and quiet of Clio and our own private swimming area from the back deck.

Monday 15th August
We then headed down to Poros where we thought we would spend the night on the quay. After we had dropped anchor and tied Clio's stern to the quay a very excited Italian couple on a yacht much further down the quay were yelling and waving arms about furiously, protesting to the harbour master, who had just helped tie us up, that our anchor chain was across theirs. We did not agree, but the harbour master decided to appease them and asked us to re-anchor. As we did not want to be neighbours with the crazy pair or pay money to that harbourmaster we decided to give Poros a miss altogether and motored out.

Once we had cleared Kefalonia island the wind picked up considerably from the southwest so our best option for a safe anchorage was on the East coast of Zakynthos. After a couple of hours we arrived in Ay Nicolaus a very busy little harbour which is teeming with day tripper boats taking tourists to shipwreck beach and the blue caves. Our first attempt at anchoring did not work as after a short while we were dragging out of the bay. As we were raising the anchor to try again the port police came by yelling, "no parking here". So we moved to the side of the bay as directed and got the anchor to dig in while we had about 25 knots blowing on the nose. We then watched as more yachts came in and were yelled and whistled at to not park there. Not long after we discovered the reason why as a large ferry steamed in at full speed blasting the horn making a left-over Italian skipper move his boat very rapidly. An English couple were not really in the way of the ferry, but were yelled at by the ferry crew and decided to move. They tried a couple of times to anchor, but the space was just too small and they decided to move out of the harbour. So in the end Clio and another Italian boat were the only boats anchored in the harbour along with all the day tripper boats, all others had found a place at the quay or moved out of the harbour.
We were right as long as the wind would not shift to the South during the night, so not much sleep for skipper tonight in this windy and crowded anchorage.

Tuesday 16th August
Chris was on lookout this morning watching for a yacht to exit from the quay so that we could move in as soon as there was a vacancy. We did not wait long and soon we had Clio securely attached to the quay. We have decided to stay for a couple of nights as Chris is enjoying the wasp free zone.

Wednesday 17th August
We joined the tourist hordes today and went on a day tripper to shipwreck beach and the blue caves. As we were not sure of what was there in the way of anchorages and access for Clio we decided this was a good way to check out the terrain and let someone else do the driving for €12 each. After a 40 minute ride in the glass bottom boat, whose bottom has not been cleaned in a long time, we reached the Shipwreck beach (two photos on the left) after passing spectacular cliffs and caves along the way. What an amazing experience, the beach is crawling with people, and boats are coming and going constantly picking up and depositing their customers, often nearly missing swimmers. Some boats drop off about 150-200 tourists on a 180m beach.
The water is the most beautiful colour of light blue and the beach is encased by massive limestone cliffs. After spending some time in the water and exploring some of the caves, we waited on the beach for our boat to return for us. On the trip back we stopped at one of the small grottos for a very quick, 10 minutes, swim, we think the skipper was in a hurry to get back to Ay Nicolaus to get in at least one more load of passengers for the day. We decided that we had to come back in Clio to do some more exploring.

Thursday 18th August
After enjoying a breakfast ashore we took Clio along the coastline to explore the caves at our leisure. Donning flippers and masks we happily swam in and out of the nooks and crannies finding all sorts of marvellous creatures and visual wonders. The cave wall was a wonder world for anyone interested in underwater life. Chris' impression was of a child splashing colours on the wall. Francis stayed a couple of hours in one cave alone, taking many pictures and video footage (for the marine biology mini-lecture) and a couple of samples to identify under the microscope. The bottom-right photo gives a bit of an impression of a small part of the wall, approx. 1m by 1m. The purple patches are encrusting red seaweeds, the green blobs are green seaweeds, the red and yellow blobs are mainly various sponges.
At last we found colonies of moss animals (Bryozoans, inside the yellow circle) to show in the on-board mini-babbles 'Marine Biology 101'. The three pictures marked A-C above show (A) a small sample of the Myriapora truncate colony that we collected for identification, (B) an image of the colony under the microscope and (C) the polyps extending to feed. Photo C was taken from the internet: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/origins-evolution-and-futures/bryozoan-skeletal-mineralogy.html. We found a second Bryozoan species, Pentapora fascialis, but we've run out of photo space and probably our reader's interest. We'll try to post more photos on the Gallery but didn't work very well in the past.

Thousands of people visit these caves every day but only see what is above the water. They are missing out on so much.

After we had had our fill of the caves and as the tripper boats were increasing in numbers we thought it best to say farewell to Zante (Zakynthos), for now, and make our way back to Kefalonia the island of the wasps, where we will be collecting Chris' sister Rhonda on the 24th. We set the sails and had a lovely cruise for the next few hours, it was so nice to not have to motor all the way for a change. Once we reached Kefalonia, the wind died and we motored into the bay of Andisamos with the riviera look alike beach, where we will anchor for a day or two or three.

Friday 19th August
Skipper has a change of plan. So we up anchor and headed into Sami today to start cleaning Clio in preparation for Rhonda's arrival. We tied up stern to in this busy little harbour with the help of our English neighbour, who had lived in Australia for a few years, and his daughter was born there. After dropping off the laundry we enjoyed a very nice lunch sitting on the quay watching the very expensive motor cruisers come in to drop off and collect their wealthy guests. We were also on a mission to find oil filters for our Volvo engine, but sadly none to be found on the island, they will have to wait until we reach Lefkas.

Saturday 20th August
Once we had finished some of the cleaning work and collected our laundry we decided to get back around the corner into Andisamos to anchor for another couple of days. Late yesterday we had Italians move in on our port side and they had dropped their anchor over the top of our chain. Thankfully there was no wind so Francis was able to eventually free our line and drop their anchor. Unfortunately there was no one on board the Italian yacht at the time, so we asked the audience to please let them know that we had displaced their anchor.

On arriving in Andisamos we tried anchoring in a small cove where there were a couple of small caves. Time again for Chris to swim the stern line ashore, and after two attempts the line was secured to a rock. We did some snorkelling and while the cave we looked at today was not as large as the grotto on Zakynthos, it still had lots to offer.

After some time we realised that the anchor was not holding very well in the afternoon winds so time to move again. When the anchor came up it was obvious why it was not holding well, it was completely encased in seagrass, which took a bit of shaking to remove. Back to the riviera beach to the tried and true good holding anchorage for the night.

After dinner Francis showed Chris the 'light in the sea', most likely small dinoflagellates (single-celled organisms, part of the plankton) that emit a small amount of light (bioluminescence) when touched. Sitting on the swim deck with feet in the water as you move small creatures set off a tiny light like fireflies but in the water. A beautiful night spent stargazing and water gazing. Mmm why do we do this, I wonder?
Comments
Vessel Name: Clio
Vessel Make/Model: Bavaria 47 Cruiser
Hailing Port: Brisbane, Australia
Crew: Christine and Francis
About: Happy laid-offs, with Greek and Turkish privileges
Extra: Also have a look at http://sailingclio.org/ Map of our 2016 journey anchorages: http://sailingclio.org/Map.html
Home Page: http://sailingclio.org/index.html
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