Αντίο και καλή τύχη (that's Greek for Goodbye and Good Luck)

It may seem to you, our readers, that this holiday has gone on forever, as we have been posting for quite a while. However, for us, the participants in the holiday, the time simply flew by and all too soon it was time for goodbyes.

While George and Yorkie went exploring ashore, I tended to stay on Milia and met lots of lovely Greek fisherman as a result. I loved seeing their painted caiques and talking to them, so I had lots of new friends to say goodbye to.

It was very sad having to say goodbye to Milia as she was a very fine vessel - great for sailing, but also very comfortable to live aboard. I wanted to ensure we returned her in good shape, so while George and Yorkie swabbed the decks, I checked out her engine and made sure everything was clean and in good working order.

Our final group meal was, as always, a very happy occasion and we all enjoyed the customary speeches and awards ceremony. Not only did we receive a fine Loutraki plaque, with some great likenesses of the lead crew (the photo printing shop was apparently closed!) but I was also thrilled to get a special award.

In honour of the fact that Milia was the only boat with a crew of bears, we were presented with a new Greek friend, and you can meet him for the first time in the next picture.

Our new friend is Louis, the only possible name, as he was given us by the crew of Loutraki. He travelled home with us and has settled in well as the latest bear to join Bears Unlimited. Look out for him on future boating holidays.

We had all enjoyed the finest of fine holidays and can't wait to go again. Don't forget that the name to look for, for the best flotilla sailing in the Greek Islands, is Sailing Holidays. We can't recommend them enough.

George and Yorkie are just back from another adventure so expect to hear from them soon.

Bye for now and lots of love

Eddie xxx

What a Difference a Day Makes

The next day dawned bright and sunny but the forecast was for a repeat of the previous day, with more strong winds. Having had our paws burned, we, along with most of the boats in our flotilla, went no further than the short hop down from George´s taverna to the Vathi town quay.

We waited for the winds to blow up again, but nothing happened. There was hardly a breath of wind in the air and our next picture shows how still and calm it was.

You´d have though we were sitting by the edge of a lake, not the sea. Still it was a lovely day for relaxing, going for a walk and swimming and we made the most of all these opportunities.

We also made sure that we´d got all our postcards written, after which George and Yorkie went in search of a post box.

I also made sure we used this down time to practise our safety drill, and make sure any further big waves or heeling of the boat wouldn´t send us overboard.

The safety harnesses worked to perfection and kept us safe and all together.

All too soon it was evening and time to plan the next day's sailing.

Lots of love, Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx

Any Port in a Storm

Now, you may be interested to know, that Vliho bay where we'd anchored for the night, is often referred to as a storm hole, since it provides the best possible protection against a storm, being surrounded by high land with just a narrow entrance by water.

As we sailed off the next day, we didn't know it at the time, but we leaving a storm hole to go into a storm. We were due to meet up again with our lead crew and the rest of our flotilla at the port of Atheni on the island of Meganisi. We were quite excited about this as we'd been there before and enjoyed some great Greek dancing.

We had plenty of time ahead of us and not too far to go, so decided to do some sailing in the Zaverda Bay. We had a good but not particularly fast sail until lunchtime. The wind then suddenly dropped completely. At about the same time our VHF radio came to life with a message from our lead crew, telling us a big storm was brewing and we should head immediately for port.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the sky was an ominous black and the clouds were racing along. I realised that we had encountered the calm before the storm and ordered the sails to be taken down as quickly as possible.

Thanks to my efficient crew, we just had time to drop the sails, don waterproofs, take a bearing on our destination, and secure everything we could, before the storm caught us.

As you can see, the waves started to build very quickly and Milia was plunging up and down through them. She was handling the conditions really well, so I felt confident that as long as I held onto the wheel, we would be alright.

I began to change my mind when it started to rain, and visibility completely disappeared. We couldn't even see Meganisi - our world shrank to just boiling sea and howling wind. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger. At the start of the storm we thought winds of over 20 m.p.h. were strong, but they seemed nothing when we recorded on our instruments a wind speed of 34.6 m.p.h. We were experiencing force 7 winds and it didn't look good outside the safety of our boat.

This picture was taken before the rain and lost visibility; at that point taking photos wasn't practical and there would have been nothing to see. As the entrance to all the Meganisi ports is hard to spot from the sea, and we knew there were small islands just off the entrance, I had to make the hard decision to delay putting into the safety of harbour and stay out in the open. It was the only option as I couldn't risk hitting rock.

A few minutes later the rain eased and we could start to see again. We spotted a configuration of small islands which, when compared to the chart, could only be the approach to Port Atheni. What luck! We motored inside the entrance and spotted a number of boats sheltering at anchor in a calm spot in the lee of the wind.

We joined them, and put down our anchor. It was great to be still and flat! As the moorings are some way down the inlet and were out of sight, we called up our lead crew for instructions. We reached them on the VHF, only to find they weren't there. The anchoring wasn't suitable for the conditions, and they had already had an anchor pop. They had decided that mooring at George's Taverna, at Vathi, was the safer option.

It was the next port along, and not far, but it did mean putting out into the storm again, this time motoring across the waves, rather than having them push us along. We were quite relaxed by this time though, as we knew we could make safety.

Within 30 minutes, George's moorings were in the sight and the lead crew were ready to moor us. We were very pleased to see them and most of the rest of our boats (a few had taken shelter elsewhere and would join us the next day). It was lovely to warm up with a hot shower, change into dry clothes and then to join everyone in the taverna to share our adventures.

For me, the star of the show was our boat Milia - what a performance she had given, and she had kept us  safe and given us lots of confidence, should we encounter a similar storm again!

Lots of love, Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx

Goodbye Mother Hen

We'd enjoyed our overnight stay in Fiskardo very much, so it was tempting to stay a bit longer. The lead crew were having a rest day there and we had the option of staying there as well, or having a day's free sailing.

Nearly all the other boats were going off free sailing and we decided this would be a good experience for us. It wasn't long before the busy harbour started to empty and Milia had large gaps to either side of her.

After consulting charts and making plans we were ready to leave too. It was quite exciting going on our first solo adventure.

We joined the queue of boats leaving the harbour; it's amazing how a busy harbour can suddenly become so quiet when everyone leaves after breakfast.

Our choice of harbour for that night was determined by two things: a) there wasn't a huge amount of wind that day and anyway we didn't want to venture too far from mother hen, our lead boat Loutraki, and b) in common with the other boats in our flotilla we were nervous about mooring up in harbour without assistance.

The latter fact meant that nearly all of the boats in our flotilla headed for one of two destinations. The harbour of Spartahori on Meganisi, where there are lazy lines so you don't have to drop anchor, and the taverna owner is there to help, was a popular choice. We, however, but we opted for the alternative, of the harbour of Vliho, on the island of Lefkas. This is a very sheltered natural harbour surrounded by land on 3 sides and with just one small entrance. It is quite shallow and provides a very safe mooring. You don't have to tie up alongside a quayside, you just drop your anchor, and, if by any chance you came adrift in the night, you wouldn't go very far.

This was definitely the safe choice, and, as it was our first night on our own, it seemed the sensible one to make. Also it was somewhere new to us, whereas we'd been to Spartahori before.  

Milia, is the boat on the right. We took this picture from our inflatable dinghy as we rowed ashore to a taverna to have a beer and a plate of calamari.

Two other boats from our flotilla made the same choice as us, one being the boat on the left. We could wave across to them from our mooring, and it felt good to have company, even if it was distant.

We had a fine night and were very securely anchored in quite a bit of mud! The only drawback was that the water was murky and there were lots of big jellyfish, so it wasn't the best spot for swimming. We did have the best plate of calamari of the holiday though.

We did remember to text Loutraki to let them know we were safe.

Lots of love Eddie, George and Yorkie xxx

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

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 

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 

Double Punch

By the time our sail was changed, all the other boats in our flotilla - lead boat excepted - had departed for Zakynthos. It was going to be quite a long sail, so I was eager to set off as soon as we could. Secretly I was quite confident about catching up, even overtaking, some of the other boats, especially with my new sail. 

As we left the shelter of Cephalonia we waited for the extra knot of wind to arrive. Nothing happened, in fact the wind died completely. It was very strange: we were almost becalmed and having to switch on our engine, while over to our right we could see a boat heeling over in strong wind.  And then ... the wind arrived ... and it quickly became a very strong wind ... and help! ... we had rather more sail up than I would have liked.

The wind was gusting up to 20 knots and packing quite a punch, but I was pleased to see George & Yorkie were taking it all in their stride and relishing the speed through the water. I was pleased to have the wheel to hang on to, and my safety line. 

Not surprisingly we made good time and as we got closer to Zakynthos we came within the shelter of land and could all relax a bit. Once again we had a pleasant mooring and this time it wasn't us who was moored up alongside the ferry.

That night we had a flotilla punch party with lots of delicious nibbles, all beautifully prepared by our lead crew. I took the opportunity to get acquainted with our charming Kiwi hostie, Katie. As readers, who were with us at the time of the posts of our previous flotilla, should know, I do have a soft spot for hosties and like to have my photo taken with the them ...   

It was a lovely punch party and everyone was chatting and getting to know each other, as welll as enjoying the punch and nibbles. At the end we were still hungry enough to head for the local taverna.

Have you worked out the double punch?

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx



Feeling Like Sardines

Ithaca is a lovely and unspoilt island so, at the next day's briefing, we were pleased to discover that we would be heading for another port on Ithaca, that of Kioni. We hadn't been there before so we were all eager to see what it would be like. We didn't want to arrive there too soon though, as that would be to waste a good day's sailing, and that would never do.

When we did come into harbour, we were pleased to have our lead crew to park us, as it was very busy. Lots of flotillas had chosen the same harbour and we couldn't blame them, as it was rather lovely.

We managed to get a spot sideways onto the edge of a pier, so that's Milia you can see nearest the camera with me supervising operations from the top of the bimini awning. Then 2 more Sailing Holidays boats came in and were rafted against us, so their crews had to come across the front of our boat to get ashore.

Boats still kept coming after that, and were ingeniously inserted into places you'd never have thought a boat would go.

We were moored right beside a ferry mooring and had a bit of excitement, and a few heart stopping moments, when the ferry arrived and started reversing in. It finished up little more than a whisker away from us, but, such is the skill of these Greek Captains, Milia was never in any real danger. You can hardly see us in our next picture as we're the inside boat right next to the ferry.

There was something we really liked about the ferry. It ran excursions for tourists and clearly stopped now again for its passengers to take a dip. There were some great water slides for entering the water. Of course George & Yorkie simply had to have a go while I kept a careful watch to check they didn't bang their heads on the harbour wall.

I'd heard about a much better swimming place though and was keen to go exploring to find it. You'll hear how we got on next time.

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

Was Odysseus Here?

The great sailing that we had confidently predicted, got under way with a lovely sail over to Ithaca. At the briefing prior to departure, we were pleased to discover that we were going to an old friend, the port of Big Vathi.

We had such a good sail over, and Milia handled so well, that we actually sailed past the entrance to Vathi - it had come upon us so quickly. We had to do a quick turnaround when our GPS told us we had gone too far. I never like to rely too much on the GPS though, and think there is nothing like a visual recce of the land ahead.

After mooring, with the welcome assistance of our very capable lead crew, we still had plenty of time to wander round to the swimming beach and enjoy a beautiful swim in the clear warm waters of the Ionian, before heading into town to do some shopping.

That evening we had a lovely group meal in the local taverna and enjoyed looking at the lights of the town, over at the other end of the harbour.

 

We all felt very relaxed and at peace with the world. We couldn't think of anywhere we would rather be, and with the prospect of more good days of sailing to come, I was in bear heaven.

Lots of love, Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

All Aboard .... Milia

We embarked from our plane into lovely sunshine, and it wasn't long before we were admiring the beatifully clear Ionian Sea.

The sea wasn't the only thing we were admiring, we were also very interested in what was floating on the sea - lots of boats - and one was of particular interest, as it was to be our home for the 2 weeks of our holiday.

This was the good ship, Milia, and she was to me, Eddie, 32 ft of very beautiful yacht. I felt both proud and excited to step aboard.

Now, as you know, we try not to repeat our adventures too often, but some are so good that they simply have to repeated. If you're getting a sense of deja vu, it is because we've been on a Greek Islands sailing adventure before, and it was even with the same company, since, as far as we're concerned there is only one company to sail with, and it is, as our next picture shows ...

... Sailing Holidays. They really know how to give their customers a fantastic holiday, which is why their customers keep coming back for more.

For us,  this was our third flotilla: the first pre-dated our blog, and the second,was three years ago, so we're sure our most loyal readers, who have been with us that long, will have forgotten most of the previous posts.

This trip involved a bigger boat and a new route, so our posts will be different anyway.

We look forward to taking you with us on our wonderful adventure over the next few weeks.

Lots of love, Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx