Well we are really on the countdown now, so life is very busy at the moment but more on that later.
28th September
We motored further up the mainland coast and anchored at Ormos Oxios this bay is at the mouth of Greece's longest river we had intended to motor up the river in the Dingy the next morning. The weather had other plans for us and it proved too windy to leave the boat on anchor so we decided to head off to one of our favorite bays to anchor for a couple of nights, we went ashore for a walk among the goats, had lots of swims and I managed to get in plenty of reading and knitting. On the second night the wind came back and we had some very big gusts Steve didn't get much sleep that night as he sat up on anchor watch.

1st October and we headed for Vathi on Ithica and anchored in the bay. We met a lovely Australian couple from Perth their boats name was Ningaloo has a definite Aussie twang to that name turns out it is the name of a reef off the west coast of
Australia south of Perth. Richard and Claire came aboard for drinks and we swapped lots of information as they were hoping to head for Croatia.

3rd October we headed back to Vliho bay on Lefkis island and decided to stay a couple of night just to kill time really as we countdown to heading into the Marina, we were also on a mission for Anna as she had forgotten to get a fridge magnet from Lefkis, I had forgotten that she also needed one for Ithica.

5th October we decided to head for Ormos Kapali on the island of Meganessi where we anchored with long lines ashore we love this little bay and had it all to ourselves the first night just bliss with the only sound being the goat bells. We decided to stay another 2 nights and only had a couple of boats join us it was lovely getting up each morning and heading straight to the water. Steve also took the bike ashore and we went for a couple of rides. Was very hard saying goodbye to this place but we needed to move on as there was more bad weather approaching and we didn't want to miss our deadline for getting into the marina as we are on a fairly tight schedule with only a couple of days up our sleeve.

8th October and we headed back to Vathi on Ithica again, what a lovely day of sailing we had, the memory of it will keep us going over the summer as we work so that we can come back again. We anchored for the night and went into the village for coffee and in search of the last magnet for Anna. Mission accomplished we up anchored and head off for Messilonghi it was a big day as there was no wind and we had to motor all the way we decided to stop along the way for a deep water swim to cool off. We arrived around 6pm so decided to drop anchor in the bay and head into the marina in the morning. That night we managed to get the mainsail down flaked and stowed safely inside as it was dry and there was more bad weather expected.

10th October, we were up early and headed straight into the marina. The weather was turning nasty and the wind was getting up which makes it a bit tricky for trying to reverse onto the pier. We had not long to wait for the next weather bomb to hit lots of wind thunder and lightening so lots of instead jobs to be done. Day 2 on the pier saw the weather clear in the afternoon so we decided to get the Genoa down and stored, so as Steve said we are now a Motor boat 😁. Day 3 on the pier and we are well and truly into our task of preparing for winter. We have loads of washing and I have begun emptying all the cupboards and wiping them out. Bathrooms are all cleaned at we now use the marina facilities. We are hoping to have most of the work done before we get lifted out on the 14th October, then we will have a few days to pack and relax before our long flight home. 😄