Fiskardho is a very popular harbour on the most northerly tip of Kephalonia. We visited here when we were on a flotilla holiday 17 years ago and it was busy then. We recall squeezing our small Moody sailboat in next to an Italian bloke who was desperately defending his beautiful polished wooden sloop complete with herbs and white awnings. We hope we have a little more skill these days!
Knowing how chaotic it would be, we arrived around midday to find the fight for the quayside spots already in full swing with boats milling around waiting for others to leave and then trying to beat the opposition to drop an anchor and reverse in. We declined to play that game and headed to the north shore of the bay where there were already many boats anchored back to the rocks. We found a good spot and got the anchor down and two lines ashore without any problems and then watched the fun as the wind built and other boats tried the manoeuvre with varying degrees of skill.
As the wind increased we had to add a third line to keep Splice’s bow up in the strong gusts from the side. We bring this line from as much of an angle on the shore as the positioning of the next boat will allow and run it out to a cleat near the bow. This means she is held at four points (including the anchor) and doesn’t twist as much. We think we were much better off on the north side of the harbour away from the crowds and noise but able to pull the dinghy 10m to shore and walk around the bay. We don’t recall any boats using this area 17 years ago, everyone was able to get on the quay......no way that will work now.

Moored at Fiskardho - the three mooring lines are visible in the shot
By around 17.00 there was not much space left but we had a slot to our port side. ‘Michaela’ , a charter boat with a crew of three asked for help and Chris used the dinghy to keep the boat from being blown off-line as they came in next to Splice. Steve, Emily and Sandra were from Los Angles and at the end of a three week cruise around the Ionian. We later met them in town and had a drink together in one of the quayside bars which was a nice interlude, chatting about sailing and selling Emily the positives of a live-aboard lifestyle (we tried to help Steve!)
We ate that night in Nicolas Taverna on the slope behind our boat and overlooking the bay and the town quay. It’s a fantastic view and the food matched the ambiance, we both had fish which was very good at a reasonable price.

The nightime view from Nicolas Taverna
We were fairly sure that ‘Michaela’ had dropped their anchor chain over ours which could lead to tangles when anchors are raised. As they were planning to leave at 06.00 the next day that meant an early start for us too. We watched as their chain came up, it was over ours but came up cleanly and there were no problems to sort out. As we were awake, we decided to depart ourselves and dropped our shore lines at 06.40 to head for the island of Kastos.
Main Photo: The quay at Fiskardho