Aktion to Corfu - A long day!
20 June 2019 | Gouvia Marina, Corfu, Greece
Graham Kyte | Very hot!
Well, although the 20th June is not the longest day of the year, it certainly felt it today! An early start, anchor weighed easily and departing the anchorage at 6-10am as planned. Graham on the wheel watching the sun rise over the mainland, everyone else asleep again. As usual for the Ionian in the morning, no wind again. Progress was steady throughout the day and with the sails up and engine on (called motorsailing) the boat can travel significantly faster than just running the engine with no sails. Several times during the day we managed to sail the boat with no engine but opportunities were not really in our favour today.My plan was to reach Syvota area by 2pm which we did successfully, the reason being that a strong north westerly was forecast to start building from this time. As luck would have it, there was still little wind so we decided to push on closer to Corfu, possibly anchoring near the old fort in Garitsa Bay. By 6pm we had reached the fort and the wind was beginning to build. We had two options: anchor in Garitsa Bay and finish the last 5nm in the morning or push on for another hour and tie up back at the marina, hot showers, taverna meal out, get up tomorrow and plug in the electric toaster.....we did not anchor in Garitsa Bay! After a total of 13 hrs 15 mins, we were tied up back on our pontoon in Gouvia Marina relaxing prior to enjoying an excellent Greek meze-type dinner in Harry's Taverna, Kontokali, a top local restaurant in this area at excellent prices. My cold which had been slowing building over the past 24 hours had kicked in hard now so after the meal we just returned to the boat and went to bed.Some tiydying up in the morning could be done and hosing down of the boat before returning home. This has been a great trip and more enjoyable than our previous outing in April which you may recall didn't really go to plan, albeit was still quite good fun. This time however, great weather, no boat problems, catching up with old RAF friends and seeing some great places made the trip most memorable. Now, back to the real world or repairing the house and sorting out the garden.....