deva in paradise

Sailing across from Messalonghi to the Island of Kefallonia, a distance of about 30 miles,was easy enough in a building Meltemi wind and under a sunny sky. Not until we neared Ithaca, the smaller island next to Kefallonia, did we experience some whitecaps and stronger winds... Deva was in her favorite element with staysail, main and genny all pulling her along at 7 knots...

The Green side of Greece

The islands on the West side of Mainland Greece are greener than those on the Aegean side. This is due to a lightly higher rainfall. They are quite mountainous, with snow capping the larger islands during the Winter months. We pulled into the quaint little harbor of Agia Efimia in the mid afternoon, snuggled up Med-style between two other yachts along the quay, such as we have gotten used to in this part of the world... Efimia is like a lot of other Greek harbors in its abundance of Tavernas and coffee shops along the waterfront. Even a small hardware store, which we much appreciated.

We had a couple days to get adjusted and replenish our water and provisions before we were to receive special guests for a week of sailing, Debby's brother Dan and his fiance Kelly. We were itching for a good long hike, and so we spent an entire day traversing the island from East to West, over to the azure bay of Myrtos. This entailed a three mile stretch through a dry riverbed, over a mountainous divide and down a tortuous serpentine road to Myrtos beach. On the way, as we passed through a small village, two women came out of a church and welcomed us with a loaf of fresh-baked bread, a nice treat after several hours of hiking. It was a windy, cool day, and we had a rain shower or two during the hike, refreshing after several weeks in the stagnant heat of the Corinth and Patras Gulfs... The beach, despite having pure white pebbles over turquoise water, was desolate on that day.

A welcome to our Guests

Two days later we drove past the same beach and there was a throng of several hundred people, all basking in a much warmer sunny day. We were on our way to the airport on the south end of the island, over a road that had sheer drops of two to three thousand feet on either side. Definitely a drive that required accurate steering by our skilled chauffeur Debby. We got to repeat the same drive with our new companions on the way back, with a stop in the lovely village and castle of Assos. Assos is a picture-perfect oceanic village with a small cove for a few yachts... and of course the usual tavernas lining the quay with their tables set in bright linen... Assos castle was built in 1593, during the Venetian Rule of the Ionian Islands which lasted from the 14th to the 18th century. As is typical for these ancient fortifications, getting from sea level to the castle gates required a hike uphill for about 2 kilometers, and about 500 meters (1600 feet) gain in elevation, refreshing exercise after a couple hours' of driving and sitting in the rental car...

Getting back to the East side of the island where DEVA awaited us entailed a drive over the top of Kefallonia's highest peaks. From there we could see the neighbor islands of Ithaca and Lefkas , including several of the bays that we would visit in the next few days...

Before leaving the tranquil bay of Efimia, we went on a land tour to nearby Melissani Cave, a large lagoon inside of a limestone cavern with an opening to the sky above... The cave was entered through a descending staircase, at the bottom of which is a dock from where a small fleet of rowboats took people for tours into the cave. The light filtering through the opening to the sky above casts a green glow into the deep waters of the cavern-lagoon. Our rower explained that the waters flowing through the cave actually came from the West side of the island, some 30 kilometers away...through a labyrinth of limestone and lava tubes that penetrate the island of Kefallonia.

So why are these waters turquoise?

One cannot help but wonder why so many of the spots in the Ionian and the Med have that beautiful turquoise color. The scientific explanation is that they are "oligotrophic". The word 'oligotrophic' comes from the Greek words ολίγον (oligon) meaning "little/few", and τροφή (trophi) meaning "food/nutrition", so it means "little, or not enough, food". Essentially, the waters of the Mediterranean don't contain enough nutrients to support massive growth of phytoplankton (algae).

Onward to Ithaca

The next morning we set sail with Dan and Kelly across to Ithaca Island, to Arti, a small cove at its South end, desolate except for a few other sailboats like ours that came to anchor later in the evening. We anchored in transparent water near the beach so we could do some exploring of nearby ruins...At night we could hear the sounds of a small herd of goats coming down from the hilltops to lick salt from the tidal rocks ... A canopy of stars covered the sky above our peaceful anchorage.

The next day we sailed up the narrow channel separating Ithaca from Kefallonia, to another bay called
Polis, which had some small caves along its shore, and a road leading up to the town of Stavros on the highest part of the island. We hiked along the shore to visit the cave of Louzis, which turned out to be distinctly uninteresting... then up the serpentine road to the village. At the center of the village is a monument to Odysseus, who is said to be from Ithaca, and featured the famous Homeric poems "The Iliad and The Odyssey"describes his return to the island. While the details of this history from 2000 to 3000 BC are sketchy, there is evidence that a small kingdom existed here, with Odysseus as its ruler, after his return to the island from battles in Troy and present-day mainland Greece.

From Polis we sailed over the top of Ithaca and down its East side to a village called Kioni. Only a few land miles from Stavros, it was a whole day's sail along the fractured coastline of this mountainous island... Kioni is a picture postcard Venetian architecture waterfront... very small and thus accommodating only a few boats. We chose to anchor in a small cove within easy walking distance to the town..putting a line ashore chained to the rocks as is recommended practice in this area. We enjoyed a taverna ashore and did some walking up the steep roads.

Fiskhardo

From Kioni we traversed back to Kefallonia, to the ancient and picturesque town of Fiskhardo...which is a well known and well appointed tourist town.. We were fortunate to arrive at a moment when another boat left the waterfront, leaving a small opening for us. We had actually already anchored in a less desirable spot, so we just heaved up the hook and scooted into the open spot at the quayside. Next to our boat were several elegant restaurants packed full of young adults enjoying fine dining and refreshment, and chatting quite noisily... One can accept this since it is (after all), the hopping center of the social universe of Kefallonia...We spent several days in Fiskhardo taking in the local shopping and dining and walking to nearby villages.. One windstorm blew through and several boats dragged anchor in the spot we thought we were going to stay on the first day... From Fiskhardo we rented a car and drove our dear guests Dan and Kelly back to the airport several hours away.. hardly believing a week had already gone by...

Having played for the past week, we now had to get some sea miles behind us and get closer to our lay up port of Preveza. We were blessed with warm sunny weather and light winds, so we motor sailed to the next island to the North, Lefkas... We had heard of a very protected bay on its East side where we could anchor and do some much needed maintenance on the boat unhindered by other boats tied up next to us... Mike sanded and varnished the rail caps down both sides of the boat, and did some touch up painting of the bow, scratched a few times from our many anchoring and bow-in tie ups over the past two and a half months.. We launched our dinghy and gave the outboard motor a good workout going in to the nearby town of Lefkas... For three days and nights we enjoyed perfectly calm conditions...80 F degrees in the day, 60 something at night... We could relax knowing that Preveza was just a days run away...

Preveza

Getting to Preveza was a break from the ordinary as we motored up a very narrow channel and through a swing bridge that was timed to open only for a few minutes every hour... All automobile and truck traffic from mainland Greece to Lefkas island goes over the bridge, so it was quite busy. Our timing was nearly perfect as we arrived just in time as it opened. Then we just sailed up the coast a few miles to the narrow entrance to the large bay of Preveza. We tied up in the Cleopatra Marina, which we had arranged for weeks before... It would take three full days of cleaning and preparing, so we once again rented an apartment in the marina area to make the work easier... Everything had to be right so DEVA could sit in the boatyard out of the water for 90 days. We put her into a snug resting spot and then we were on a nonstop flight nonstop to London from an airport conveniently located just 2 miles from the harbor...