Welcome to Crew 3: : Sister Rhonda!
30 August 2016 | Atoko Island
Chris and Francis

Want to know where we are: http://sailingclio.org/Map.html
Sunday 21st August to Tuesday 23rd August
We're anchored in Andisamos Bay, around the corner from Sami on Kefalonia and waiting for our next crew, Chris' sister Rhonda, to come on board. We do the odd jobs left over from more busy times such as cleaning the underwater hull and starting to polish and wax parts of the deck and stainless steel. And of course have some R&R after the hectic travel down to Zakynthos and back. Some of the critters found in the Painter Cave on Zakynthos (see previous blog) still must be identified and added to the photo collection. Especially the two colonies of moss animal (bryozoan) species. Francis is still not happy that he was unable to get some photos of the tiny polyps of the bryozoan colonies.
Tuesday we headed back into Sami to finish cleaning Clio. In the afternoon the wind picked up considerably and we spent the afternoon watching latecomers struggle to find spots in an already full harbour in heavy wind. There was some chaos as one yacht caught another anchor line and eventually with the assistance of a few other yachties, were able to raft onto another yacht.
Wednesday 24 August
Time for Crew 3 (Rhonda) to arrive. That night we got word that her flight out of Melbourne has been delayed by three hours, and subsequently she missed her connecting flight out of Dubai to Athens. Chris had already booked flights to meet her in Athens and to fly back to Kefalonia tonight and we spent an anxious couple of hours waiting to find out if she was getting out of Dubai today. At last Chris got a message that Rhonda would arrive in Athens at 7.10 that night. Too late for their flights back to Kefalonia, and Chris had to change them to the first morning flight on Thursday. We then set off to collect our hire car from Karavomylos car rentals only to discover that the agent had failed to tell us that their days are from morning to night, not 24 hours like every other company we have used over 40 years everywhere around the world. And as we were collecting it at 1:00 in the afternoon, she wanted to charge us a whole day. By not accepting that we forfeited our €20 deposit but had the satisfaction of letting her know what we thought of her 'business'. We decided to enforce our long standing 'policy' not to support cheats and walked out of her shop. But now we didn't have a car and Chris had to catch her flight from the airport in Argostoli (about 25 km of very 'scenic' roads) to Athens to pick up sis Rhonda. We walked the length of the village to find another car, but no such luck. As we walked past a motorbike hire place, Francis decided this mode of transport will do the trick. So a few minutes later with donned helmets we were buzzing our way on a 120cc scooter, with Chris clinging on VERY tightly, over the steep and windy road for the next long one hour. But we managed to find the airport with time to spare thanks to the help of a couple of friendly Greeks. When we arrived at the airport Chris managed to stumble from the bike with jellied legs which took a couple of minutes to return to normal.
Chris lined up to board her flight to Athens and Francis zoomed back direction Sami on the scooter. On the way to the airport Chis spotted a chandlery-like building and he wanted to check it out, we did not see many chandleries in the last couple of weeks and still needed to get fuel and oil filters for our steel horse. It turned out to be 'Aqua Mare', well known from yachty-blogs for the very helpful guy called Andreas. And all the reports are true, he is very helpful and tried to get our stuff in time. We had a great chinwag about the world and Greece. But as we were on a tight schedule, this time it didn't work. We're sure to get his help the next time. And so the all-important Greek network grows.
Back to Chris: after hanging around for a couple of hours in the Athens airport it was, at last, time for Rhonda's flight to arrive from Doha on Qatar airline. As all the passengers came out into the arrivals area, Chris waited and waited. As the area was almost cleared she became concerned that maybe Rhonda was not on the flight after all. Then as the doors slid open one more time she spotted her inside only to be greeted with a wave and "can't find my bag". It turned out that all the Australian passengers from Melbourne had arrived but their luggage was still in Dubai. They assured Rhonda that it would arrive tonight or tomorrow.
At last she was through the doors and we headed upstairs to the departures area to spend the rest of the night waiting for our flight at 5.15 in the morning.
Thursday 25 August
Francis arrived at the Kefalonia airport at 6.15 a.m. in a taxi, much to the delight of Chris (no more scooters please). And one hour later a very tired pair of girls were delivered onto Clio and went straight to bed. Later in the day after some recovery time, Chris and Francis did the shopping and after a couple of phone calls it was established that Rhonda's bag had arrived in Athens and would be in Kefalonia tonight. At midnight Francis was the only one still awake to receive at last the wayward luggage. He had a vested interest because the replacement solar controller (the one that died 2 days after installation) was in the bag!
Friday 26th August
The next morning the jet-lagged Rhonda, having had some sleep, was able to unpack and install herself on Clio. The solar controller had arrived in one piece and was quickly installed, we're really hoping it will last a bit longer than the previous one, but 'thank you' Jaycar for the replacement.
After an interesting morning of untangling anchor chains of boats leaving the harbour with boats staying behind, others and then ours, we negotiated a price with a taxi driver to take us to the two underground caves on the island. The first was an underground lake, Lake Melissani or Cave of the Nymphs, of which the roof had caved in and so the sunlight shows the beautiful blue colour of the water inside the cave. We had to queue up to board a small rowing boat and were rowed around by a very charming young Greek man who not only informed us of the history of the cave but also serenaded us in this beautiful, and cool!! Place (bottom-right two photos). Dye experiments in 1959 showed the underground connection of the water in the cave with Katavothres, where the seawater flows inland and enters sinkholes and apparently (part of) the seawater arrives in the Melissani cave, 25 km away). It has to mix with some fresh water as the water in the cave is brackish.
The second was a dry cave, the Drogarati Cave, where we walked through inspecting stalactites and stalagmites. It was a medium-size cave and slightly run-down by many years of tourist's feet and hands. Due to the abundance of artificial lights a fair bit of the cave is covered in a coat of slimy algae or moulds (?) and in some places even mosses and ferns.
On our return to Clio and we did a couple of rounds of last minute shopping before we hauled up the anchor and took Rhonda on her maiden voyage around the corner to Andisamos, for her first night at anchor.
Saturday 27 August
This morning Francis delivered Chris and Rhonda ashore to go for a walk up the hill through the bush, and then back to the beach for a game of beach tennis. Francis went off to the cove where we had attempted to anchor a few nights before, to snorkel the caves once more to get some macro-photos of the illusive bryozoan polyps. As there has been, and still was, a fair bit of wind blowing into the Bay. Trying to take macro (very close-up) photos in a very small cave with waves rolling in is like trying to thread a needle while sitting on a bucking bull. So after a couple of run-ins with the pointy bits of an eroded limestone cave, he gave up. He got away with some photos of a sizable Triton's trumpet snail (Charonia lampas, bottom-left), but still no polyps!
Time for Rhonda's 'grand tour' of Clio and her safety briefing (top-left photo), with a glass of welcome-bubbles to round it off (top-mid).
After we all got back to Clio and with the Crew ceremonies out of the way, we agreed to leave Kefalonia Island and its many wasps behind and motored to Ithaca where we anchored in a small bay, Pigadhi Bay, on the south east corner.
After tying and re-tying the stern line to shore, Chris had had her swim for the afternoon. Francis found a small cave with a very interesting sponge (Petrosia ficiformis or stone sponge, centre photo) We enjoyed leftovers for dinner and an early night as Rhonda was still battling leftover jet-laggedness..
Sunday 28 August
This is such a lovely spot with crystal clear water, so of course, we must snorkel. Rhonda struggled a little at first with the snorkel, but soon got the hang of it and enjoyed viewing the underwater delights. Chris was very excited to spot three beautiful red starfish of varying sizes and even picked up a small one to give to Rhonda to hold. The rest of the day is spent relaxing and many more snorkels.
Monday 29 August
Today we motored into Vathi on Ithaca for Rhonda and Chris to do some shopping and on our return to a slightly deconstructed Clio, Skipper advised that there is a problem with starting Clio. After some investigation he learnt that it was the battery isolator that we had purchased in Turkey at the end of last year that had died and did not charge the starter battery. That in turn induced the engine electronics to refuse to start the engine for some reason (there was enough charge left in the battery. Luckily we still had the old isolator, so out with the new and back in with the old and we are back in business.
By 2.00 in the afternoon the wind was picking up so we left Vathi in the hope of getting the sails out and head for the small island of Atoko.
Once we left the harbour where the wind was blowing from the west we had a very pleasant sail, for about ½ an hour. The wind dropped back to 5 knots, but we could see other boats getting lots of wind, be it from wind coming from 180 degrees different direction. So we decided to reef fore and main sail in anticipation of a stronger wind and after some time the wind did shift 180 degrees and went from 5 to around 20 knots within a minute or so. We were cruising along happily in up to 25 knots gusts from abeam.
When arriving on Atoko Island we pulled into a stunningly beautiful bay, aptly named 'One house bay'. One of the cliffs that borders the bay shows in great detail the limestone layers and how they were bent and faulted (mid-right photo) over the millions of years. It was as moving to look at as any other good man-made piece of art.
As the mountains around the anchorage were quite high, we had to sit through another katabatic-windy night, so after a quick dip we all hid inside until it settled. Rhonda made us delicious stuffed peppers for dinner, thanks Rhonda!
Tuesday 30 August
Chris and Rhonda rowed ashore in Cloe this morning to explore the bay and to do some exercises. They discovered a small chapel and the one deserted house before another beach tennis match, outdoing themselves today by keeping the ball alive for a whole ten hits. Then a lovely cool swim before paddling Cloe back out again. Meanwhile Francis had set off with his snorkel to explore the amazing limestone cliff under the water and found a (to him) new fish species and took photos of spherical silicate inclusions in the limestone. Maybe they are the core of the many big pebbles on the beach. We have to ask our geologist-friend Jon.
It was then time to move on and once we were clear of the island we hoisted the head sail and gently made our way to the island of Kastos. On reaching the bay of Pothoni we dropped anchor for another snorkel. What a find, so much to explore underwater here. Chris found the spider crabs again for Francis to film amongst all sorts of other delights (top-right photo). It is called 'sea urchin crab (Percnon gibbesi), but 'huntsman' crab would be much more appropriate, as it moves and hides just like an Australian huntsman spider. It is a fairly recent addition to the Mediterranean region from the Atlantic. As most of the species in the Mediterranean come from the period when the dried-out Meds (+/- 6 million yrs ago) was filled up with Atlantic Ocean waters and creatures through the Strait of Gibraltar (+/- 5.3 milion yrs ago), it is a bit hard to call it an invasive species.
Back on board we had lunch and then motored for 20 minutes to the Port of Kastos. After anchoring it was nap time and then we went ashore for Rhonda to partake of her first meal of Greek food. After walking around the very small village we discovered a windmill cocktail bar on the point where we enjoyed the view and a drink or two. Then on to dinner at a small traditional Greek taverna and stuffing ourselves with zucchini balls, cheese croquettes, Aubergine salad, wild green vegetable salad, pork souvlaki and spaghetti. Cloe was sitting much lower in the water on our return trip to Clio. Great day!