We had a great sail for part of the trip back across the open water between Ithaca/Cephalonia and the Levkas /Nidri area. We have learnt that this is an area of strong winds as its exposed to the NW and we’ve had a few bumpy sails across. This time we had Splices’s favourite 15 knots on the beam and with main and the gennaker set the Skipper was very happy sitting on the bow as we made 7.5 knots back to Vlikho Bay just south of Nidri.

The Skipper's happy!

We needed supplies and a post office. Our friends Frans and Sarah have a special wedding anniversary and we feel guilty as we will be missing the party, so we had been trying to send off a card in the last few places we visited....fail, no post office and as there are few postcards sent these digital days, no one stocks stamps either. We dinghied into town that afternoon only to find that the PO closes at 14.00, we’d missed it, so we visited Georges Chandlery and left with more than we planned - including two 35m floating lines which are used frequently around the Med for stern to mooring to rocks etc. As we like to put more than two lines ashore, these will work well with our mooring tapes. We finally got the card posted the next morning........

(F & S - Hope it reaches you eventually, Happy Anniversary and hope you had a great party)

That afternoon we headed for a bay to the north of us that had been recommended by another skipper. Ormos Varkos is a wide bay near to the town of Palairos. It’s on the way back to the marina at Preveza as we only have another few days before the August break as we return to the UK until September.

Ormos Varkos taken from Splice at anchor

There are a number of areas you can anchor but we chose to sneak in behind the main group of boats in the more popular NW anchorage. With our shallower draft at 1.2m we are happy in 3m of water. In calm conditions this looks an ideal place to spend a day or two. The water is crystal clear; we could watch our anchor chain hit the seabed as it dropped. We plan to spend a while swimming and doing bits to the boat etc. Chris will probably get his scuba gear on and change some of the anodes under the boat before she sits in the marina for a month, we’ve been looking for somewhere with clear water to do the job, can’t get better than this so he has no excuse!

Main Photo: Viliko Bay in the morning sunshine