Ormos Rouda, anchored in 15 meters just off the buoyed swimming area. The season hasn't really started yet. A peaceful anchorage but gusty at times with katabatic winds

The following day an unexpected opportunity presented itself to meet up with Steve and Svetlana, fellow Marina di Ragusa liveaboards from 5 years ago who had arrived in Nidri and were waiting for a spare part. Given that they were only 5 miles away we decided to return back for a catch up. Whilst there we did an oil change and disposed of the oil in a receptacle outside of Ionian Boat Assistance (IBA) as well as pay a visit to Nidri Marine and George's yacht chandlers just because we love a good browse.


Nidri Marine Chandlers, a fantastic place to browse new and second hand boating paraphernalia. You can even do the washing there.

We also took the opportunity to visit the port authority to check in and out as we had totally forgot on our last visit just 48 hours earlier. That's another two stamps in our transit log! When he asked for our next port we were pretty vague so he declared 'Ionian' on it. At the time we didn't question it but when we returned to Flirtie we wondered if we need to report into the next authority on route given that we plan to remain in the Ionian. It's definitely a question to save for another day.

Ormos Rouda was our next anchorage for the night, located on the south east coast of Lefkas Island before heading a mile further along the coast to Sivota. A stretch of water separates the island of Lefkas from the island of Meganissi. It's certainly busy with yachts sailing or motoring either north or southwards dependant on wind direction so a decent lookout was necessary. The mountainous views around us were absolutely stunning and spectacular especially when we started to see even more islands ahead of us through the haze.


It looks a bit windy over there! The islands of Arkoudi, Ithaka and Kefalonia

As for Sivota, we didn't get there because our starter motor failed on the starboard engine just as we reached the entrance. We considered anchoring, however with limited manoeuvrability in the busy anchorage we felt it unwise. To continue southwards offered us no guarantees of finding someone to help with repairing or ordering a new motor. It therefore made sense to return back to Nidri having previously seen some of the services offered including a Volvo Penta dealer. It would also give us the option of being able to take a bus or car over to the mainland should it be necessary.

Total distance this season: 604.77 nautical miles