Fiskardo by Night

What was it I was saying in our last post about being King of the Castle? Well it was only minutes later that I found my castle. Sadly though it was in ruins, and there wasn't much left to be king of. But I did strike what I thought was a suitably regal pose for my next picture, and, looking at it now, I feel that I was rather lucky that that crack over my head didn't get any bigger!

On our way back to our boat we spotted a restuarant that the lead crew had recommended to us, especially good for moussaka, we were told. It was Nicolas' Taverna, at the top of a short hill.

We decided to return there for a meal and what a good choice it was. As it wasn't a waterfront restaurant it wasn't crowded and we got the very best of service. We were also the only British diners there. We were able to sit outside on a terrace looking down on the harbour ...

... and as you can see there were some lovely flowers scenting the warm night air. Fiskardo at night was a rather magical sight ... we sat there for quite a while taking it all in and the wonderful atmosphere ...

... until we started to get hungry and thirsty. We can really recommend the wine ...

... our choice that night was a cool and refreshing rose, lovely to look at and even better to drink. The food lived up to expectations too, especially the moussaka that had been recommended.  

We did hear from others in our flotilla that the Thai restaurant in Fiskardo was very good, but we'd had such a lovely evening we wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Lots of love, Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx

A Bird's Eye View

So was our cocktail a hit or a miss?

Sadly, on grounds of taste, it was deemed the latter, although we did subsequently find out that we had won the best decorated cocktail, which was something of a consolation. I think we suffered from the fact that engineer Richard, wasn't available for the judging, as he had to work on somebody's broken engine. This meant that we had lost a beer man from the judges and ours was mostly a beer cocktail, after all. Thankfully our male minder liked our cocktail so it wasn't wasted.

All the flotilla enjoyed a wonderful beach picnic with lots of roast chicken and lovely salads. We got extra rowing practice when we realised that we'd forgotten to bring our own cutlery as instructed and had to row back to Milia to get some.

The next morning we sailed over to the very popular Cephalonian harbour of Fiskardo. As it is so popular we were advised to get there by lunchtime to get a mooring on the quay. We did this and got a prime mooring as you can see from our next picture. Doesn't Milia look a fine vessel?

When it came to early evening, and the briefing for the next day, we all gathered in the designated bar and wondered where our skipper, Ben, was. When he was spotted at the top of one of our boat's mast, we realised he was going to be late!   

As you see from our picture, he was a long way up, which is why he seems so small. It certainly isn't an easy life being lead crew. And this was all to fix a problem with a radio aerial. Mind you boat radios are very important which is why George and Yorkie practise regularly with ours.

We'll tell you about our leisure time in Fiskardo next time.

Lots of love, Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx

Our Private Paradise

After our epic journey, we had a much shorter day. We only had to cross over to Ithaca and locate Poli Bay, where we were going to be rafting up that evening.

We didn't want to go straight there though, so first we sailed up the coast of Cephalonia to do some exploring. There were some beautiful small bays, as you can see from our next picture. What a gem of a beach ...

And the best thing about it was that it was completely deserted: we could have it all to ourselves. And so we decided to drop anchor and spend a relaxing hour swimming and sunbathing.

As we got closer to shore I kept an eye on the depth of the water, both visually and by using the depth sounder. I was looking for a depth of about about 10 metres to drop the anchor. I kept looking and Milia kept getting closer to the shore, but the depth was still too deep for anchoring. It was most bizarre. It was only when it seemed that we surely must run aground that the depth suddenly dropped off.

We dropped the anchor and it held, just in time. As we went snorkelling, we discovered there was a very sudden increase in depth very close to the shore. The seabed simply dropped away. It was a great spot for swimming with the colourful local fish. We'd already got Greek salad for lunch so we didn't need to catch any fish. It was their lucky day. 

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx 

Down with the Old, Up with the New

This holiday was a great one for combining the old and the new. From the new, Kioni, it was off to Cephalonia, and an old favourite of ours, the port of Poros.

Actually I hadn't been there before, it was George and Yorkie who had the fond memories, and they were very enthusiastic guides. They showed me the big rocks on the way into town that they'd been photogrpahed with before. They looked even better when lit up at night.  

The boys also took me to their favourite pizza restaurant and it was every bit as good as they remembered. We ended up with a complete mountain of pizza and were fit only for a lie down and sleeping by the time we'd finished. 

The next morning we had a delayed departure as we had to have a new mainsail fitted. I'd reported a tear in our old one to the lead crew a day or two earlier and Ben, our skipper, decided that now was the time to change it.  

Both my minder and I made ourselves available to help. It was quite a lengthy and involved job getting the old sail off and then it was the same for getting the new one on.

I learnt an awful lot as I observed Ben in action from the cockpit.  It was all good experience and fascinating stuff.

There was a very good reason why this was the right day to have our sail replaced. We were due to sail over to Zakynthos, our longest sail of the holiday, and one that took us out of the shelter of land (Cephalonia) and into an open stretch of sea between the 2 islands. Ben had warned us that some strong winds could get up as we left the protection of land, and for this, we would need our boat Milia to be sailing well and problem free.

A couple of hours later we were very glad of our new sail. Find out more next time.

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx