Sailing back to familiar places and forward to new ones .
24 August 2020
Donna Smith
Crikey Rats - can't believe that there is only one week left of August as I sit here on deck trying to catch up with our blog.
Since I last wrote, for those of you who don't already know, we are sad to say that Solomon, our teeny tiny stowe away sparrow didn't make it after all. We were devastated!
That said, our spirits have been lifted as we have been revisiting some of our favourite places, catching up with old friends and had fun finding new places to anchor.
Friday 7th August
As one of our priorities was to mend the auto helm, we headed North, towards Nidri on the Island of Lefkas where we knew Ricky could get parts easily and work on (hopefully) fixing the problem. On route we called in at Poros, on the
South East Coast of Keffalonia and had a night on the quay, where we topped up our water tanks and had a short walk into town. We ended up buying ourselves a Gyros (a posh kebab),and sat on the small harbour side, watching the cats and the sun setting over the water. A real Shirley Valentine moment, except that I had my lovely man with me.
We arrived in Nidri at 6pm the following day and stayed a week. Mending the auto helm was not as straight forward as we had hoped. Despite Jim, from Yacht Mukker giving us a replacement belt, the whole thing needed an overhaul, clean and re calibrating. But..as I write this, all is good and we got the chance to do shopping and hang out with old friends that we had previously met on our travels.
Saturday 15th August .
The water is not as brilliant in Nidri as most other bays for swimming, so we headed over to Varko Bay on the mainland. After being waved off by Jim and a turtle, we headed out, set the sails and enjoyed a leisurely sail. The bay had a few boats in, but was by no means packed. The water felt fresh and cool as we swam down to check the anchor and feed the fish who had popped over to check us out. The place had changed a bit, the cute ramshackle bar on the beach, where an old guy served draft beer and played Bob Marley music (had no internet -yay) has been replaced by a rather swish soulless affair. It plays thumping dance music and has sun loungers with reed umbrellas, lined up with precision along the beach. Perhaps I am being unfair, perhaps I am just old.
We would have stayed longer, but wanted to take advantage of the favourable winds and sail up the channel to Lefkas. This is a much larger town and we wanted a few bits from the Greek equivalent to 'Home Bargains.' Namely a replacement 12 watt fan and some decent containers for our now much smaller fridge. On route we stopped off at Ligia as wind had decided to die on us and we were fed up motoring . The following day, still no wind but we went anyway and got some great bargains !! I even got really cheap, very jolly, Christmas table cloth material - why ?? Cos, in shops like that you always find something you didn't know you needed!
Thursday 20th August.
One of the islands that we have previously visited, but decided to explore some more , was the small island of of Meganisi. It is one of the islands that sits in the stretch of sea between the island of Lefkada (we call Lefkas) and the mainland. Ironically, translated it means 'big island,' when actually it is quite small. It is part of a municipality containg 2 other islands, Skorpios, with a population of 5 and Sparti, which is too small to mention a population, so I guess relatively speaking it is big. It really is a beautiful island, with lots of natural harbours, almost enclosed bays and that 'never ceases to amaze me' clear turquoise blue water, to die for. It is a tranquil place, the numerous anchorages are glorious and when we ventured onto the town quay at Vathi the local shop and taverna owners were really chilled. I bought some postcards for the Octogenarians of the family, which were prints of original paintings of the the port years ago and I can honestly say, it still has the same charm. The fishermen rubbed shoulders with the few Super yacht owners who ventured into the marina. As the sun went down the children played together in the tiny town square, watched over by us yachties, parents and grandparents, happy to be out in the cooler evening air.
I have just found out that there are numerous caves on the island, one that famously hid a mini Greek Submarine during the Second World War, according to the locals. So Meganisi, we will be back, our exploring has only just begun.