Friday 9th September
We woke up nicely moored at the village quay of Vola/Sivota to the quiet of a no-rain day after days of rain pelting on Clio’s decks. As we now have enjoyed Sivota for a couple of days, it is time to move on and so we motored across to Korfu in the hope of finding a good anchorage.
Skipper has not been too happy with Korfu city as the charts don’t show much anchorage options, or even quay space. The reports on the internet are mostly five or more years old, so pretty useless. There is a municipal quay but our trusted pilot has not many good words to say about it. The only two alternatives are the Gouvia marina, which turns out to be more than €75 per night excluding electricity, and Mandraki, the little yacht harbor of the Corfu Yacht Club glued to the North side of the fort. We have to stay for 4 nights to drop off Crew 3, Rhonda, Chris’ sister, and to pick up Crew 4, Nemyra and Lansing, so Gouvia marina is not a very attractive option. Unfortunately Mandraki is completely full, probably because there is an ‘old boats’ convention held in Korfu.
As so often, the problem more or less disappears when we get close to Korfu and we pulled into Garitsa Bay, a very nice bay on the south side of the old fort, albeit very exposed to the East from where a swell rolls in even in light East-winds. It is not ideal as we have to get a fair bit of luggage from and to the airport, but it will have to do for now.
After anchoring in 7m of water and good holding, Clio is turned into a Chinese laundry after hanging Rhonda's washing in her rigging. With the household chores out of the way, Francis took Chris and Rhonda ashore to explore the tourist Mecca of Korfu. They wandered along the coastline up past the old fort.

Korfu (or Corfu or Kerkyra as the Greeks call it) is the second-largest island in the Ionian (after Kefallonia). As Korfu Island oversees the Northern entrance to the Ionian Sea, it has been a very strategic location for those who wished to control the movement of ships in the region and its lowlands make it a very productive agricultural area too. Quite a price!
Korfu’s written history begins around 1300 BC and even centuries BC changed hands on a regular basis, interleaved with periods of independence and failed sieges. Around 220 BC it fell into Roman hands, who ruled it as part of the Eastern Roman empire (Byzantine Empire) after 395 AD. In medieval times around the turn of the Sicilian Normans (yes, indeed) ruled Korfu for a couple of hundreds of years first century AD) and had the honour to be ‘liberated’ from privateers by the Venetians who lost it to Greek despots who handed it over as a dowry to a Sicilian king (Manfred) in 1259, and was passed on to the house of Anjou, a complicated mixture of French and Naples royalty. More importantly: Korfu was used by the European states as a defence against the Ottoman Turks and ruled by Venice, the main trading city-state in the Eastern meds at that time and kept in Venetian hands for 300 years from 1401 until the end of the 18th century and was never occupied by the Ottoman Turks. It was not for not trying, they unsuccessfully laid siege 4 times to the castle of Korfu after completely pillaging the unprotected part of the island. The French took it in 1797 and it was handed over to the French, who were kicked out two years later by a Russian/Ottoman force, and handed back to the French in 1807 and besieged two years later by the Brits. In 1864 it became part of newly formed (1830) Greece. Pffff, what a mess, but it does explain the strange mix of Venetian architecture all over the island and the unmistakably British influence and amount of tourism on the island.

Back to the fort (top-left photo) that now should have more meaning as it played such an important role in Korfu’s history, especially at avoiding Ottoman rule. And the Venetian St Mark’s symbol (winged lion holding a Bible) on the walls of the fort (top-right photo) should make some sense too after reading its history.

Chris and Rhonda’s reconnaissance walk also lead them through the beautiful green shaded Durrell memorial garden. This garden is a tribute to the Durrell brothers: naturalist Gerard, author of ‘My Family And Other Animals’ and many others, and his brother Larry, a writer of repute in his own right.

Then on into the maze of shops in Korfu old town. The old town of Korfu is geared towards tourism with its endless amounts of souvenir shops and restaurants and terraces. But in a strange way it creates a nice atmosphere in an environment of the many very old buildings, some with remembrance plaques of more or less famous people who once lived there. The old town has also many open space: parks and many squares of different sizes. A really nice and relaxed place to stroll.
After a first round of scouting, Chris and Rhonda are ferried back to Clio and we spent the night rolling around a bit on the swell pushed into the bay by very light East winds.

Saturday 10th September
To get away from the swell, skipper decides to take Clio on a reconnaissance trip of her own to see if there is a more protected mooring/anchorage somewhere else. So we moved around to the north side of the fort and found a berth in an Eastern extension of the old port. A smelly but well-protected place. After getting Clio secured we noticed a couple of signs saying "No berthing or mooring allowed". As there were several yachts tied up we figured we would do like the Greeks do and ignore rules, especially the ones written in red bold CAPITAL letters. On checking with one of our neighbours, he told us that the port police may come around at about 9.00 p.m. to evict us, so just make sure you are not on board. We can do that.

Today Rhonda and Chris head off to the golf course on the other side of the island, so that Rhonda can fulfil her wish to play golf in Greece. It was due to winning a golfing tournament back home and being awarded a travel voucher that Rhonda was able to join us on Clio (bottom-left two photos). With a great deal of coaching, Chris managed to occasionally hit the ball along the fairways and even putt them into the little holes. It was great fun and we managed to only lose 4 balls into the rough and water traps.

In the meantime, skipper was still trying to figure out why the engine computer complained about the starter battery not being charged. There were a couple of things that could be causing the problem. One of the candidate-causes were the brushes (little carbon rods) in the alternator. But to inspect them, the alternator must be pretty much taken off the engine and as always, there was a very recalcitrant nut that needed to be convinced to relax and let go. Unfortunately, none of the tools on board was able to persuade the nutter and it was getting close to two on a Saturday, closing time for the weekend. So at forced-march speed to the local hardware shop to get the tools, one of which was a long handle to create enough torque to get the bl… thing to yield. Just in time, the shopkeeper had just locked his store but recognized the potential profit jumping up and down before his store door and sold him the required tools. The tools did get the job done, unfortunately the brushes were in excellent shape, so they were not the problem. The search continues. Two more things on skipper’s agenda for that day: getting spare keys made (we left a full set behind in Marmaris) and to go and have a look at the Mandraki marina. After getting lost a lot in the maze of streets in the old town, the keys procreated. Off to the Mandraki yacht harbor. You have to go through the fort to get to the entrance of the harbor and when entering it you can easily mistake the place for an old and long established yacht club in the English countryside, mainly frequented by members of the privileged classes. It was hard to suppress a chuckle. The harbor master was absent, but his business card allowed contact at a later, and more appropriate (it WAS before 5 in the afternoon) time. After 5 pm skipper was able to get a spot for Monday, when some of the old boats would have left.

Chris and Rhonda getting back to Clio after 6.00 p.m. It was time to head back into Old town in search of a pizza restaurant for dinner we made sure we did not return to Clio until well after 9.00, and managed to sleep through the night without being evicted, be it at an unpleasantly smelly but very cheap berth.

Sunday 11th September
Rhonda set off this morning to do her 10,000 steps for Steptember, while Chris and Francis headed to the airport to pick up Nemyra and Lansing, our new crew for the next 11 days.
After they settled into their cabin we ran through our standard tour around Clio by hostess Chris, followed by the safety briefing. Rhonda returned after several hours of walking. She managed double her quota of steps today after taking a wrong turn and walking the very long way around to get back to us. She did see some very nice places outside the town. Time to break the bubbles out for the welcome drink at last!

We must go out for dinner again tonight so the port police don't find us at home. We wandered back through the garden to show Lansing and Nemyra the sights and sat on a great terrace by the big park in the old town for a drink, and watched with interest as preparations were under way for a cricket match. The English have had a heavy influence here. Corfu like many places here has a fascinating history (see previous blog).

We found a small Greek restaurant away from the front and enjoyed traditional dishes at a very reasonable price. We got through another night staying in the old and smelly harbor without a police ‘move on’ summons. Off to Mandraki yacht harbor!