Trizonia to Corfu

Leaving Trizonia at dawn

Our unintentionally long stay in Trizonia due to the very strong westerly wind ended up being a very pleasant if somewhat of a forced vacation from all this sailing and relaxing. We also met some very nice people and ended up getting some excellent ideas for our Italy trip as well as cementing our plans for where we leave Rocko for the winter. It seems like Ragusa (Sicily) is the place to be, but more of that closer to the time.  We left just before daybreak and the stillness was quite eerie after days of being battered about by the wind.

Joining the mainland and Peloponnese

The trip westwards from the Gulf of Corinth takes one under the Rio-Antirrio bridge into the Gulf of Patras. This is a remarkable structure clearly visible some 12NM (over 22Kms) away and is the longest bridge of its kind. From the approach it looks like you can see the curvature of the earth, but I rather suspect that is just an optical illusion.

Looks closer than it is 

Deserted fishermen's houses Messolnghi

After a long day's sail we decided to stay the night in Messolonghi which, famously, is where Lord Byron died at the time of the Greek war of independence. The Marina is at the end of a long narrow and shallow channel lined with deserted fishermen's houses on stilts. It is a strangely bleak place, not somewhere I would recommend you place on your holiday destination list. It served its purpose for us though as we needed to fill up with fresh water and plug into power for a bit. We didn't find any ice though - and I now know how Byron must have felt (he died from a fever apparently).

Vathi on Meganisi

Since we had fallen a little behind schedule we had to catch up and get to Corfu by the weekend. Not wanting to miss too much, we picked out a few spots recommended by Kate and Davey and Vathi on Meganisi was the most memorable.  The whole of the inland sea bounded by Cephalonia, Ithaca, Lefkas and Zakinthos on the western side and the mainland on the east is a lush landscape that looks nothing like the barren islands of the Cyclades. The houses are also no longer the picture postcard whitewashed and cobalt blue doors and windows, but more terracotta and Italian in feel. Less dramatic perhaps but therefore crowded with charter yachts. In fact the days of seeing perhaps only one other yacht for many hours on end are over in the Ionian.

Jackie O's beach hut on Skorpios

Not bad for a non-morning person at sunrise

Heading north we then made our way toward the Lefkas Channel. This is another peculiar thing probably only to be found here in Greece. Lefkas is separated by another narrow, shallow channel and road access is via a car ferry that is wedged between the mainland and Lefkas. This then moves out the way hourly to allow boats to pass, thus making it an Island.  After all Islands get EU subsidy...

Traffic at Lefkas Channel

I said turn 'left'

Paxos

As we set off a tad late, we decided to stop in Preveza for the night and we found an anchorage away from the discos of the town quay which was quiet and protected. Our next stop was the Island south of Corfu, Paxos.  Paxos and anti Paxos look amazing in the pilot books and they are really gorgeous.  We only spent one night there as we're heading back next week after Corfu.

Dusk in the Marina this evening

I needed to find a safe harbour from Sunday and after a little research and phoning around I was able to get a place in Mandraki Harbour right below the Corfu fortress. Being slightly paranoid that it wouldn't work out,  we, I mean I, decided to arrive early.  The setting is very impressive and one has to walk through castle the  grounds to get the sailing club entrance. This fortress successfully repulsed 3 Ottoman sieges, the first being in 1537. Today the quayside offers crisp chardonnay and fresh fish on an elegant terrace, not an Ottoman in sight.

The moat at Corfu Fortress

Entrance to Mandraki Harbour

Corfu Sailing Club under the Fortress in Mandraki

Meganisi Anchorage

Poros - Corinth Canal - Trizonia

Leaving Poros 

Usually a lighter person does this..

Well, it has been a little quiet on the blogging front, but busy on the water. Since I last wrote,  I spent a week in Poros while Catherine went to  play a concert. My entertainment was the almost daily debacle of anchors being fouled and the local diver being called, something I managed to escape, miraculously .  The only, it seems, local diver was on speed dial and I saw him cash in €80 numerous times, sometimes even in one morning. Aside from this I had a few maintenance tasks to complete (some invented I admit),  although not many really as everything is still in good shape.  When Catherine got back we escaped the stifling heat of Poros and made our way to a lovely anchorage just a five hour sail away off the small island of Angistri. This lies just next to Aegina, which we visited some years back and my ears are still ringing from the memory of the discos in the harbour.

Angistri 

Entrance to the Canal

Angistri in contrast is idyllic and we spent two days at anchor enjoying the noticeably warmer pristine water. I didn't quite believe the water temperature gauge on the instruments so I pedantically got my multimeter out and set about calibrating the reading only to find that it was in fact correct at 28 degrees.  This, being the wimp that I am, is the perfect temperature for me.  This part of the Saronic is so protected in comparison with Cyclades that it feels like an inland waterway. Unfortunately superyachts seem to find this compelling too and our disdain is evidently not felt strongly enough to ward them off. There is something blissful about being at anchor and totally self sufficient for a number of days - this presumes of course that you have made the right provisioning decisions, which I am pleased to say we had.

On Wednesday we sailed toward Isthmia, which is at the eastern entrance to the Corinth canal. Everyone says it is an experience to go through the canal and it really is. Traffic is only allowed one way at a time and the management by the control tower is punctuated by fraught radio messages to skippers not paying attention.

Clearance deceives

No turning back...

When it is very busy the wait can be hours apparently, but we moored up along side the office, paid  the exorbitant fee, and a couple of minutes later the submersible bridge at the entrance was lowered and we were told to proceed. The limestone walls are almost vertical and for three and half nautical miles you are in an eerie engineering relic that serves no commercial purpose other than taking tourists through, being too narrow for commercial shipping. Usually there is a convoy  but we were alone save for a superyacht some distance behind us.

Gulf of Corinth

Once in the Gulf of Corinth we were greeted by a flat sea and mountainous landscape. The coastline is quite underdeveloped and we found a remote anchorage not seeing another yacht just about the whole afternoon.  The Gulf of Corinth and then Patras stretches less than 100 miles until it opens to the Ionian, but it has its own weather pattern and fierce winds seem to drive eastward when you're headed West and vice versa. We decided to visit a town whose name, Galaxidi, seemed to ring a bell and when we got there we realised that we  had stopped by there on a road trip nearly ten years ago on our way to Delphi, which is only 20 minutes away.

Galaxidi

The town is charming and shows no signs of any reduction in the standard of living that locals seem to continually want to point out. When they see foreign flagged boats they invariably say,  ah, you have a better standard or living, to which I say, yes,  but you have a better standard of sunshine. A brief  conversation with neighbouring yachites to compare notes on the weather confirmed a strong westerly coming in for a few days so we headed out to a sensible midway point in the gulf being a tiny island called Trizonia.

28kts on the nose

As we got in the wind started howling and at first glance it didn't look like a place to spend a few days sheltering, but around the corner from the forlorn marina there is a picturesque waterfront with several tavernas and a beach. Some re-calculating confirmed that we will get to Corfu on time next week even if the wind blows against us for the next three days.  Fortunately there are pleasant walks here and lots of time for me to listen to Catherine practicing Berlioz Romeo & Juliet  for the Proms in a couple of weeks time, while the force 6 wind howls outside. The fridge is working brilliantly though, so my hydration plan is bang on schedule.

Trizonia

A dodgy insurance claim in Trizonia methinks

Serifos to Poros

Moments before the storm on Kythnos

This has been a week of fewer ports but much wind. We hadn't planned specific legs of our journey except for a few, this Saturday being one of them, when we had to be near Athens for Catherine to fly out. The weather being what it is in the Cyclades, we have been trying to time this carefully and it had been going so well. Until last night that is. We were moored up in a peaceful bay on Kythnos which resembles a transiting location and had been watching an ominous cloud for some time and just as it got dark all hell broke loose and a we had lightning and 40kt plus wind in an instant. Some people got into their dinghies and went ashore to seek refuge from the lightning, which seemed like a risky thing to do, so we stayed put, didn't touch any metal and put VHF, phones and all the electronics we could into the oven which acts as a Faraday cage in case we got struck. By midnight it had blown over and an eerie stillness descended on the bay. The next day we met some crews in Poros who told us that they had been through it on Hydra and they had mooring lines snap and all manner of damage. All fun and games.

Sunrise on the way to Poros

Windmill island interrupts 8 hour tack 

Just before sunrise we set off towards Poros and the forecast turned out to be just we had hoped and we had a great wind on the beam taking us at 7 - 8kts across a relatively flat sea. 8 hours later we entered the Poros south channel. This is a busy place and the last time we were here was in summer 2007 when we sailed from Athens with our cousin Anthony and the whole family. Quite coincidentally we moored up almost exactly where we did 9 years ago. Not a huge amount has changed, although the quay is well organised now and the services are quite slick.  It has a very different feel to being on the remote islands and although this is a small place with limited facilities we have the feeling of being back in civilisation. I am sure it is a feeling one can tolerate for a week or so.

Me (white legs) haggling with the same water man 9 years ago

On the right - Skipper turns Violinist again 

Catherine set off to work for a week - taking a ferry to Athens  - the same one we curse as its wash causes havoc in the harbour. Just to make sure I am ok on my own this next week, she bought me a leaving present of some worry beads - or calming beads as they are more accurately called. I explained that the chandlers (boat supply shop) will keep me occupied as will a few projects I have to complete along with some of my ongoing Sommelier duties.



Earlier in the week....

Chora on Serifos

Looking down on our anchorage -  Livadiou

Serifos is a small island with a population the size of our High Street at home. Admittedly the view is better though, as well as the olives and Ouzo. The Chora is perched on the side of the hill and looks as thought it will slide off at any moment. We decided to anchor in the bay for the couple of days we were here even though the harbour has been completely renovated - the water is cleaner and rowing is healthy for you - I am told.

A recipe for anchor problems in Poros 

Poros from the hill