This season we fancy sailing around the Peloponnese, a large mountainous peninsula in southern Greece that is surrounded by water and connected to the rest of mainland Greece by the Rio-Antirrio bridge in the Gulf of Corinth and further east by a narrow land bridge across the Corinth canal. It's virtually an island possible to circumnavigate in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. Our plan is to take advantage of the NW prevailing winds and travel clockwise starting from Messolonghi in the Gulf of Patras, approx 58 nautical miles away.

As we departed Argostoli to head SW along the Kefalonia coastline the wind appeared to come from all directions and in varing strengths due to it being squeezed through and around the surrounding islands of Ithica, Lefkada and Zakynthos. One minute we were romping along in a F5 then suddenly no wind until we had cleared the islands then it then settled to be a F4 coming from the NW. Unfortunately though, the wind didn't last so we ended up motorsailing for the majority of the way.

Messolonghi is located on the north side of the Gulf of Patras on the west side of the greek mainland. It's lagoon is characterized by a complex network of shallow waters, wetlands, and salt marshes and are the largest in Greece, extending over 150km2. From the sea access to Messolonghi is through a 4km long narrow channel dredged to 6m and marked by port and starboard pillar buoys that eventually opens up to a oval shaped basin with access to a marina, a commercial harbour wall and space to anchor.


the anchorage


the 4km long causeway to Tourlida with wildlife lookout points. The area has naturally attracted hundreds of different types of birds endemic to these types of wetlands such as terns, spoonbills, pelicans, herons, cormorants


Tourlida, the tiny village where the majority of fisherman cottages sit on stilts in the lagoon of Messolonghi & Tourlida, Western Greece


fishing

Messolonghi produces approximately 65% of greek salt and a visit to the salt museum can be highly recommended as we learnt just about everything there is related to salt. The museum displays in conjunction with pre recorded handsets were very informative. It certainly provided answers to some of those unanswered questions when you see salt pans but never really stop to think further on how they work. There's even the opportunity to purchase "Messolonghi salt" from the museum shop given that two salterns are still active here.


salt comes in many colours from around the world


this is just a small part of the impressive 1,500 collection of salt shakers. Some of them are true works of art, others simpler in design that date back to the 19th century

On the subject of all things salty, we ended up dismantling the watermaker for a second time in order to check the unit for any dirt, fibres or split o-rings as it has yet to produce fresh drinking water. We are beginning to think that the problem may be with the internal o-rings that are original so we have reached out yet again to the guru Jim at Mactra Marine for advice and thoughts. In the meantime we're back to the good old days of filling and lugging several 15ltr flexible water containers.

Total distance this season: 375.48 nautical miles