Time to play a bit of catch-up on this blog, lest the days begin to blur together...

We left Trizonia yesterday morning after spending the night swinging on the hook in the harbor there. Trizonia is the only inhabited island in the Gulf of Corinth and is home to a population of approximately 400. It's a VERY quaint little place, primarily a Greek vacation spot except for the handful of cruising yachts like ours who come to visit. A couple of tavernas and hotels, a mini-grocery store in the back of one of the tavernas and a small marina for local boats. Also a nice beach in the bay just north of where we anchored. All in all, the kind of place we could have spent more time in if we weren't on a bit of a schedule to continue moving east.

Galaxahdi has a similar, authentic feel although it is a considerably larger place. The entrance was dramatic as we navigated thru rocky islets and shoals, then passing by a large cathedral on the hill overlooking the bay. While most of the buildings in the the Ionian Islands were hastily rebuilt after the 1953 earthquake, the architecture here in the Gulf of Corinth is significantly older, more varied and MUCH more appealing. We tied up stern-to at the town quay with a bit of help with the lines from "Tommy" the self-appointed harbormaster. He informed us that electricity would cost 5 euros and water hookup would be another 5. Sounded reasonable to me. But I learned later that electricity and water are free and that "Tommy" is the town drunk, scamming unsuspecting visitors like us to support his addiction. Visiting yachters beware of a bare chested bald man who looks a bit like Gandhi... he's not the real deal.

The holding is poor in front of the town quay and we had to untie ourselves and reset the anchor after about an hour. Up came thick gooey mud on the chain and anchor. We laid out 60 meters of chain on the second try, typically overkill with depths of just 4-5 meters. Then back we went to tie our stern to the quay. That held better until around 2:30 am when I woke to check on things and noticed we had slipped a bit. After pulling in a meter or so of chain we were safely away from the quay again but I spent the rest of the night getting up every 30 minutes or so to double check.

We had hoped to leave the boat at Galaxahdi while we rented a car and drove up to Delphi for the day. But it was windy and I didn't feel confident leaving Interlude unattended there so we decided to move to Itea, just 3.5 miles away, where there is a marina we could safely tie up at. We arrived around 10:30 am and found that the marina is no longer being actively managed ... the office, restrooms and security station have all been abandoned and there is no working electricity along the docks. Still, there was plenty of room for us to tie up alongside one of the concrete piers and it was a MUCH more secure place for us to leave the boat. Our rental car was delivered right to the marina by an entrepreneurial young woman who simply copied my driver's license info and asked for no credit card as security for the vehicle. I agreed to pay her 50 euro when we returned the car (expensive by US standards but by far our cheapest 1-day rental so far in Greece) and off to Delphi we went! That will be the subject of our next post....

Visiting cruisers seeking to rent a car in Galaxahdi or Itea should contact Ioanna Ntrismpioti with Corner Rent A Car at +30 6948582017 or via email at idrisbi@yahoo.gr. She's professional, fluent in English, prompt and will deliver cars directly to your boat in either location.