We are in Greece finally! How cool is that? We had a great sail the 15 miles from Sarande to the port of Corfu. Solid 7 kts with just the Genoa. Beautiful way to arrive in Greece on the afternoon prevailing NW winds. Easy navigation down the main channel between the mainland and the island of Corfu.

Navigating the regulations for non-EU boats entering Greece was not so straight forward. We had studied up all of the rules for cruisers clearing into Greece, and thought we had it all figured out. Well, ... not so much. The first stop was to the Port Authority/Port Police/Coast Guard (all different names for the same agency). There they took our paperwork and checked us in with not too much fuss. Then we were sent down the pier to Immigration, where they reviewed our passports and crew list, but didn't stamp the passports. He explained that since we were crew, we could come into the country and stay as long as the boat stayed. I wish I had known this before, as we could have spent the winter here, eating olives and drinking ouzo. Then we were sent to Customs, where we were issued a transit log, which we had to take back to the Port Authority to have stamped. That was easy, right? Well, .... almost.

Since we were disembarking Nick in the next few days, we needed to get permission from the Port Authority to release him from the crew. They would need to fill out a special form to authorize this, and then the Immigration official would stamp his passport. Sounds easy enough, .... right? Well, that presumes that the Port Authority has this form and knows what to do with it. And they didn't, on both counts. Since this seemed like a task to tackle anew another day, we settled for getting our transit log stamped, and out of the office. More later.

We had made arrangements to stay at the sailing club dock, which is located right below the castle. Very picturesque spot, with easy access to town. The dock was a bit exposed to the prevailing winds, but after a painful docking job, we got settled in for the weekend. We had to walk through the castle to get into town, which was pretty cool. Not everyone has a castle for their boat.

I got to navigate through the town back to the authorities the next morning to clear up the paperwork for Nick's departure. I was prepared for it to be difficult. Which is good, ...because it was. The port police had no form, go see Immigration. The Immigration guy said the port police have to fill out the form before he can stamp the passport, go see them. It seemed like we might be stuck in a 'do' loop. Fortunately, they were all very helpful and weren't going to leave us stuck trying to figure it all out on our own. In the end, after a couple walks back and forth, we had Nick's passport stamped and he was good to go home. Mission accomplished. Now we can go enjoy Greece.

The old town was very cool, and something of a mix of the souks of Morocco, and the streets and buildings of Venice. The people are really friendly, the food is delicious, and the scenery is spectacular. We found the local market and bought some sardines for dinner. The fishmonger gave a quick demo on removing the head and guts. Basically, pinch the head and pull, and everything follows. Tracy cooked them up for dinner that night. Very tasty.

We are here very early in the season, as well as being here the weekend before Easter. So the streets are not overly crowded, and most of the people that we see are Greek. We waited and watched the parade on Palm Sunday, and it seemed like everyone in town is in a marching band. There had to be at least fifteen marching bands in the parade. That's a lot of musicians. The castle was fun to explore, and since we technically lived within the castle keep, we had the run of the place.

On Monday, we saw Nick off to the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:30 in the morning. He is headed back home to finish out his senior year. We will miss having him onboard. Nick has been a great shipmate, and I hope he had as much fun as we did in our cruising from Malta, up the Adriatic, and back down again.

After getting Nick to his taxi (which drove into the castle to pick him up), we went back to the boat to snooze a bit more. We plan to head out sometime after the sun comes up, so we have a full day ahead of us.

So far, I am really loving being here in Greece. The people are really helpful and friendly. Food is really tasty, and the area is breathtakingly beautiful. The only real problem that we have encountered is that everything is written in the Greek alphabet. Because we are after all, in Greece. In all of our travels so far, we could always rely on some creative interpretation of the words in Croatian or Italian. Not anymore. I guess we will have to do a little studying.

So, it's all Greek to me, but somehow I think we will manage to enjoy this place to its fullest. With the wonderful Greek people, how could we not!

We head next to Preveza. Stay tuned.