Bear with a Sore Head

 After a lovely time relaxing at our private beach, it was time to join up with the rest of the flotilla. We sailed across to Ithaca and went from one beautiful beach to another. Our lead crew had picked the charming Poli bay for our night's stay. It was rather special and very unspoilt. This was because there was no harbour and no shore facilities. This meant we had to raft up all the boats a stone's throw from the shore - I say we, although, as usual, it was our hard working lead crew doing all the hard work of tying up and placing anchors.

We did have some work of our own to do though. First we had to pump up our inflatable dinghy so we could row ashore for our flotilla beach picnic. Our paws were pumping madly for quite a long time. It was hard to find a flat surface to put the boat while we pumped, so we opted to use the roof.

It was then quite a logistical feat to get the inflated boat from the roof onto the water, bearing in mind that there are lots of ropes, rails, awnings, not least the boom, to get in the way.

With much pushing, shoving and squeezing we got our dinghy into the cockpit and from there, into the water. It was a good job it was made of tough material.

We then had a very important job to do. We had to make our cocktail to submit at the best cocktail competition that was taking place at the beach picnic. We had thought long and hard about our cocktail. We knew that the male members of our lead crew were beer men, but we were also aware that Katie, our hostie was more of an ouzo girl. We thought we would combine a beer cocktail (3 different types of Greek lagers) with a splash of ouzo. We'd had a trial run the day before and thought it tasted pretty good.

We knew there was a prize for the best decorated cocktail so we really went to town on the decoration and even included one of the turtles for which Zakynthos is famous. See Zak hanging from the top of our 'pitcher'.

We were really pleased with the end result and, even though the cocktail colour wasn't too appetising, we thought the decoration more than made up for it. We even served our cocktail in a cut down Loutraki water bottle, which we thought was a touch of genius, as our lead boat was called Loutraki. And what better name for our cocktail could we choose than 'Bear with a Sore Head'?

Did our lead crew judges like it or not? Find out next time. 

Lots of love, Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx 

More than a Marathon

We suspect that Honey might be venturing further afield than Greece, but that's where we're heading back to now.

We enjoyed our evening in Zakynthos town although it was a bit stressful keeping out of the way of ferries while we waited to be parked by our lead crew, working together with the helpful harbourmaster. There were some good shops in the town so we bought everything we needed for the cocktail competition (more on that soon) and we also bought a few small Christmas presents.

We didn't stay out late though, as we had an early start the next morning. Our lead crew wanted us away around 7.30 a.m. as we had a long day ahead of us. We had a massive 42 nautical miles to cover to take us back to Cephalonia and the port of Ag Euphimia. At a motoring speed of just over 4.5 knots and a variable sailing speed, you can see the reason for our early departure.

As I am always up early, I was more than happy to make an early start. Leaving before the Sailing Holidays boat that had come in after us the night before, turned out not to be such a bright idea, when we discovered their anchor had been laid on top of ours and we were taking it up as well as our own.

Our male minder did a great job of lifting the extra anchor up and over ours, with the aid of a boat hook. This saved the skipper, who was supervising from his inflatable, from having to take an early morning swim, so he was pleased with us.

As you can see when our anchor finally came up it, was very muddy and some of the mud had ended up on our minder. It was reassuring though to know that there had been such good holding in the harbour.

It wasn't long before we saw our lead boat, Loutraki, (which leaves harbour last) come steaming up towards us, thanks to her bigger engine. We got ready to take a photo, but then she stopped dead and floundered in the water. We thought about going back to help, but as they had Sailing Holidays no.1 engineer, Richard, on board, we didn't think there would be much we could do. Sure enough Richard soon had the problem with the engine fixed, and then Loutraki really did steam past us.  

All the lead boats have a great collection of flags which are really useful for spotting them when you're out at sea. Our lead crew were flying flags from New Zealand and England and were even flying Warwickshire's bear and staff. This went down well, as the longer standing members of both the Norfolk & Suffolk branches, originate from Warwickshire, and,of course, the Midlands branch still have their bear cave there.

The rest of the trip passed without incident and it was a lovely long day at sea. We were tired, but very happy bears.

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

All Good Things Come to an End

All too soon the day I really had not been looking forward to came round: our last day's sailing. I was trying to make every minute last for two minutes but it didn't work and the day flew past.


We all took our final and admiring glances at the Bear flag flying proudly at the back of the boat knowing that it will be a while before we see it flying at sea again.

Before I knew it it was time to call up the lead crew on the VHF radio for the last time as we came into Sivota harbour.


After a thorough cleaning of Spetses, ready for the next lucky crew who would be enjoying a holiday aboard her, it was time for our final party night.

The crews of all 10 boats in our flotilla and our lead crew came together for a final meal and the infamous Sailing Holidays flotilla awards ceremony.

With full stomachs we settled back in our seats to enjoy Skipper James' speech and to find out the awards which we were up for grabs and who had won them. I was a little disappointed not to win the dancing divas award, but did agree that the recipients, John & Emily, deserved it. George, Yorkie and I were, however, pleased with the award we did get which was the 'Lou Love' award.


This probably needs a bit of explanation for the uninitiated. Lou is short for Loutraki our lead boat and we earned ourselves the award on the occasion we were at the same taverna as another Sailing Holidays flotilla. There is always great rivalry between flotillas and the crews of each think theirs is the best flotilla. On the occasion in question everyone was 'well oiled' from the earlier punch party and there a lot of singing and cheering. We led the cheering for Loutraki and this is how we got the Lou Love award for our very vocal support.

We are very proud of our award and now we are home it has pride of place in our display cabinet.

It is quite timely that we have finished our postings on our sailing holiday as George & Yorkie will be heading off on their next adventure at the weekend, armed with the camera. I won't be going though as it doesn't involve boating.

Hope you have enjoyed our sailing adventures. Keep reading, as the guys who stayed at home are waiting for a chance to get a word in and report what they've been up to.

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

A Well Drowned Steak!

Not only do the lead crew do a great punch party they also lay on a fantastic barbecue.

We invite you to imagine the scene. All the boats in the flotilla are rafted up in the most idyllic bay miles from anywhere. The sea is calm and turquiose blue in the sunshine and a stone's throw from us is a lovely sandy beach. In our picture George & Yorkie survey the scene from the land where they had gone exploring to work up an appetite for the barbie.


Jono and Stu are on the beach tending the barbie while Holly prepares the salads, and we all have our inflatable dinghies pumped up and ready to row ashore once we have have finished our apperitifs on board. What could possibly be more heavenly?

Then, all of a sudden, the heavens open and down comes the rain with a tropical storm intensity. The lead crew do not shirk from their task and the barbie continues to be tended. We all put our big awnings up on our boats and shelter in the cockpit below them, feeling a bit guilty about being in the dry while Jono and Stu are getting so wet on shore in just shorts and t-shirts. The only compensation is that it's not cold rain.

We wait patiently thinking this is just a storm and it will end soon.


However, it doesn't stop and our enterprising crew take all the cooked food back to their boat, Loutraki. We then all switch on our VHF radios and tune to the flotilla channel. Orders are then placed and plates of food are passed from boat to boat. It was amazing that nothing was lost overboard! What could have been a damp squib turned out to be a lot of fun and a great success.

You could order seconds and then thirds over the VHF and we, on board Spetses, timed our order rather well and manged to get the last souvlaki of the barbecue. It came to us, passed from boat to boat, on a paper plate which Holly had written on to say 'hands off this is for Spetses'. We knew then that Holly did rather like us!


George & Yorkie tucked in and declared it the finest souvlaki they had ever had. Then the rain stopped and we got in the dinghies for some fun.

More to come.

Lots of love George, Yorkie & Eddie xxx