We had planned to head north up the coast of the island of Elafonisos to the local town to top up on stores, but the winds from the cape were stronger here so we opted to head round the western coast and up to Plitra, a small village in a bay that has shelter from the north but is open to the afternoon southerlies.

We had a good sail with 15 knots on the port quarter which Splice enjoys, Carolyn enjoyed helming at 6-7 knots as we closed towards the bay.

There were two French yachts there as well but plenty of space to sit out the rest of the afternoon wind. We stayed on board the first evening as we usually do in exposed places.

The bay is reasonably attractive with a beach club set up on the shore to the west of the village and the harbour walls crowded with local fishing boats. We ventured ashore the following morning and walked around the the sunken ruins of the old town that had been destroyed by an earthquake in 375 AD. There's not actually much to see, there are some significant sized cleanly cut stone blocks and a couple of outlines of the buildings, the walk was hot though.

The village was dusty and rather closed down but we got some stores from the one and only shop. We had planned to eat ashore but the tavernas looked uninviting so, rather than sit out another afternoon southerly we decided to move on after filling up with water.

Filling up with water

We pulled up the anchor and motored across to the quay, there was just enough room to squeeze Splice on the end with her stern sticking out, luckily we only needed to stay 30 minutes to top up the water tanks and the wind was still calm.