With a near complete lack of wind the next day we motored over to the mainland town of Sivota Mourtos. This is tucked into a bay protected by a couple of small islands and gives a number of anchoring options. It's also very pretty which makes it a popular and busy place. The skipper was conscious of a strong southerly wind forecast for the following evening so we tucked ourselves up against the north side of one of the islands with our anchor keeping us off the shore and four lines to rocks by the shore - our two ancrolina tapes crossed as springs and two long lines as stern lines. Mitch made use of Fizz to set the lines. We had a few neighbours off to starboard arranged along the rocky shore and were only a short dinghy ride into the harbour.

We wandered along the promenade that evening and met up for a drink with Martyn from Timeless Odyssey with his new crew Clive. The three of us then ate in the Mediterranean Pizzarria behind the front on the southern end of the bay. Very good pizza, it gets a Splice recommendation - we did order one each which turned out to be excessive even with two male consumers, we took more than one back to the boat for lunch the following day and the day after that!

Mitch's mast climb

We had a relaxed time that day as we were in a good position for the coming winds. Mitch exercised his inner monkey by climbing the mast for fun and we watched a few anchoring antics, especially as the wind built in the afternoon but everyone was set by early evening. Dependant on the site/model you viewed we were due for gusts of up to 32 or 39 knots during the evening. We ate on board and the skipper watched the wind, the sky, his lines and other boats waited for the first gust... and waited... eventually nothing happened. At 22.30 he went to bed, the stronger stuff must have diverted out beyond the island of Corfu giving us a peaceful night.

We liked Sivota Mourtos, it has enough commercial activity to be enjoyable without becoming irritating and it's a very attractive anchorage.

Main Photo: Splice moored back to the island for protection against the wind (that didn't arrive!)