Lefkada and our Final Hop to Seaclusion’s Winter Home, Preveza

So on the 10th September we waited for the winds then left our lovely bay, headed and sailed all of 6 NM’s (nothing is very far apart here) to Nidri, on Lefkada and dropped our pick just off the town in a bay called Tranquil Bay. We do think that someone had a real sense of humour when they named this bay, as tranquil it was not… with a number of wrecks evident in the bay, presumably due to rough conditions, and because it was also the M25 of Levkada, being the route in and out of a popular anchorage Vhilio Bay where we spent many a night in 2016!

But it was wonderfully close to Nidri town for the dinghy, so without much ado, we popped across the water for a wander around and to check out whether we could grab a space on one of the pontoons for tomorrow night, that were mainly used for charter boats, as by now we had spent over 9 days on anchor and our batteries really needed a decent top up!

Thankfully we were in luck and grabbed a spot the following morning, with a very nice chap…. who despite us telling him our depth was 2 metres, he thought we were 1.8m, so he popped us into a slot rather close to the beach with 0.0 showing under our keel… 🙈. And his response… aah don’t worry, its just mud!!! We actually couldn’t feel anything so were reasonably comfortable, helped by the calm conditions.

Nidri itself isn’t much to write home about, very much a tourist place set up for the mass charter yacht market and boat trips, but it served its purpose for the night.

Nidri, Lefkada

The following day, we once again waited for the winds and had a much better than expected sail up to the north of Lefkada, to the bottom of the channel towards the capital. I say much better as we were expecting to have to tack multiple times, but the wind just seemed to do a “bend it like Beckham” for us, until we got to our anchorage, dropped our sails and our pick to settle in for the evening & night, only disturbed by a Dutch lady who felt we were a little too close to her… clearly she hadn’t spent much time in the Ionian, had she, she would have realised that normally there would be at least 4 boats in between us!

Kariotes Beach

We woke early the following morning to head up the channel to Levkas, the “capital” of Lefkada hoping to get a place on the quay, as we were meeting a couple of people for quotes for next year’s jobs.

Levkas Channel

We were lucky and got a place, Levkas has changed hugely, there used to be a town quay and marina, with space to anchor off if need be, now the town quay is full of pontoons for the charter boats and very very few places for private boats not wanting to use the marina.

So the day was spent meeting people, talking through our requirements. Having met with the mechanic, we decided we needed to get seriously pissed that night, we tucked into a bottle of rose before we even went out for dinner. We certainly entertained Steven on the phone for an hour, amidst remembering to bring the washing in!

We spent a couple of days in Levkas in the end, utilising the time revisiting the town, David getting ripped off with a hair cut (20 euros, God forbid!) and doing some prep work for Seaclusion’s winter, before setting off to Preveza.

Levkas

So on the 15th September, we joined the queue for the swing bridge at the top of Lefkada to pop out and sail to Preveza. We were expecting to motor at that time of the morning, but were really surprised of have a very gentel sail, but sail nevertheless for the last time this season, arriving in Preveza Town, to moor on the quay, perfect to do her final winterisation before lifting.

The Approaches to Preveza

Preveza

4 days later, the day arrived to lift Seaclusion out of the water and say goodbye once again, thank you for keeping us safe in what has to be one of the windiest and challenging seasons in a good few years.

Seclusion’s Winter Home 2022/2023

All in all we spent 90 days on board and sailed 1130 nautical Miles from Port Lagos, Xanthi in Northern Greece, down through the Aegean, around the Peloponnese, up into the Ionian, to Preveza! We hope all have enjoyed our tales of fun, challenges and even woes this season, we will of course be back in 2023!

21st September 2022