The Start of Greece and the Ionian.

Prior to setting sail on the 2nd September  for Montenegro, we had to clear out of Cavtat, which meant mooring up at the customs quay. Having motored into the small bay and started to line ourselves up to stern to moor with our anchor holding our bow, we were approached by a pilot boat who “suggested” we might want to let a monster of a powerboat go first…… speech marks as it was made clear it wasn’t really an option, and who says money doesn’t talk! When it was finally our turn, courtesy of another boat departing, not the monster, we found ourselves having to moor up against  a 100 ft yacht, first time for ages my knees were shaking in case we touched her, not sure our insurance would cover any damage to that!.

We finally set sail  for Porto Montenegro a little later than intended, and motored (SW Force 1 wind again..) and settled in for the night in the marina, and caught up with Dani the sister of an old friend of mine, Claudia, who we used to live next door to as children. It was a lovely evening and great to catch up with all her news.

The following day we needed to sort out an issue with our autohelm as it kept falling off the track, not something we wanted to happen whilst on our night sail to Corfu, and so  we spent the day calibrating and re-calibrating it,  which entailed sailing round in repeated slow circles followed by lots of sharp turns in the bay, finally resigning ourselves to the fact that we needed a new computer compass, luckily the supplier in Montengro had one in stock as we found out that not only had Raymarine discontinued our system, they had discontinued the parts!

Problem resolved we left the the gulf of Kotor on the 4th September and headed for Sveti Stefan, reputedly , well from the pictures, a very cute place, only to find that the whole islet had been turned into a posh hotel, so we never even got off the boat. 2nd rough night, with the swell hittting us beam on!

Sveti Stefan, shot from the air, clearly not one of mine!

Mine!

Sunrise off the Montenegro Coast

The following morning, we left early to get away from the swell and headed to Bar,  the southern most point of Montenegro to spend the night, clear out and leave early to start our 2 days sail to Corfu. we had intended to spend the night on anchor, but the wind got up to a force 7/8, so we tucked up safely in a rather grotty marina,  not that the price reflected that, we had dinner on board and retired early to catch up on some sleep from the night before and in preparation for the lack of sleep to follow during our night sail. And so finally on the 6th we said goodbye to Montenegro and the Adriatic for this year and headed towards the Ionian Sea and Corfu, staying a safe distance off the coast of Albania, particularly as the chart showed areas of explosives and mines! For the first few hours  we motor sailed in a Westerly 3 to combat the swell generated from the winds the night before and gradually as the seas dropped and winds became a little stronger we settled into a lovely sail through the rest of the day and the uneventful night except for the numerous cruise liners that we had to monitor, one getting within 1/2 miles of us, which at night seems far too close for comfort.

We arrived  at the Island of Orthonoi, north Corfu the following morning, where we had intended to stop. It is more of a  Islet with limited space to anchor up and sadly there was no room at the inn so to speak, despite it being September. Our Plan B however was on Corfu itself, some 25 miles around the north coast to tuck in to a small bay on the North East Coast. Tired, we crashed for the night and the following morning (8th September) we took the dingy in and set foot for the first time on Greek soil in a little cutesy village called Ayros Stefanos, for some provisioning and breakfast (ouch, and who said Greece was cheap… not by Croatian standards it isn’t) .

Ayros Stefanos, Corfu

We then set sail for Corfu town, stopping overnight in a bay near Gouvia, very peaceful until some snotty Brits on a 60 foot Oyster decided to party the night away, upsetting the 10 boats around them. at 2 in the morning, out of frustration, I got the spot light up to light up their boat in the hope that it would shut them up. Instead they, (clearly on the posher boat) turned a proper spot light, rigged on their cross trees onto us, and started calling us fascists. Brits abroad hey, no matter the money, and the posh voices, some things just don’t change. They finally shut up about 3am, so when we left in the morning, we sailed very close to their boat, the occupants still fast asleep and blasted our foghorn at them several times, to the applause of the others boats around!. Just to cap that off, I then got stung by a wasp on my left hand and despite applying Afterbite very quickly, I promptly sported an elephant hand for the next few days. Not such a great start to Greece!

That morning,  we motored the mile into Gouvia marina, passing a tiny church on its very own pensiula ….

to give us a chance to do some well needed laundry and clean the boat before Rich, Micaela & Peter (Friends from Spain) joined us the following day. We also ventured into Corfu town, just in time for the heavens to open.

Corfu Town

It poured for 2 days, (still it meant we didn’t need to clean the topsides), and the winds got up to a Force 11, beaching one yacht and seriously damaging one 60 foot power boat, anchored off Corfu town.

The 10th September brought the arrival of Micaela, Peter and Richard ( the rain stopped 2 hours before their arrival, thankfully) in surprisingly high spirits even though they had left Spain at 5am that morning, and taken 3 flights to arrive with us in Corfu at 11pm that night. we met them in the bar in the Marina, had a few drinks and a good old catchup, only to realise later that the bars in the marina were outrageously expensive and got royally stitched. We finally crash about 1.30 am.

Introducing Seaclusion’s new crew for the week.

The next day, having settled in well, we all trudged off to the Supermarket to stock up on food and wine for the week, but on checking the forecast, the winds overnight were predicted to be back up to a force 7/8 so rather than putting Peter and Micaela off sailing forever on day 1, we decided to go sailing for a few hours around the old fort.

Corfu Old Fort

It was fabulous afternoon with 15 knots of wind, just as well as the rest of the week was spent mainly on engine!. Rich, on the helm had a grin like a cheshire cat the entire time!. We then  stopped for a late lunch, and Rich determined it was beer o’clock, although David and I kept our sensible hats one and refrained knowing it was likely to be a rather tricky, windy mooring. Later than afternoon, we headed back into the safety of the marina for the night, and we had a great meal out in a local Taverna, called Zorbas, funnily enough outside the marina, although they did seem to run out of food as the evening went on.

On the 12th, we set sail for Sivota, on mainland Greece, under engine to start with and then gradually as the wind picked up,  we had a fabulous goose-wing sail until we rounded the corner to the bay we had planned to stop at, only to find a flotilla of around 20 Neilson boats already there!. Still we found a lovely cove further down the coast where we dropped our pick in the company of one other boat (unfriendly brits again). We had a wonderful evening on board, food and wine flowing, even serenaded by a lone guitarist on the beach. We even woke up to a singing Greek lady swimming by, had a swim, tried to entice Richard into the water, but no joy, and then set off early to  Paxos, knowing that we needed to get in early if we wanted to secure a spot for the night. We arrived to pristine turquoise waters and half a dozen other boats to keep us company.

Paxos

That didnt last for long!. Soon after, Catain Chaos as we aptly named him, arrived in a Italian Galleon, with a rather long passerell on its stern which could have passed as a fireman’s ladder capable of wiping out any boats within a 15 metre radius (slight exaggeration!). The boat itself was a little too large for the bay, but determined to fit in somewhere, he first tried his hardest to dent the boat next to us, but soon moved off to our relief and dropped anchor a little further away, but still too close for comfort for the poor yacht next to him. We then jumped into the dinghy to go and explore the town  of Paxos, David being the kind soul he is stayed on boat to act as the bouncer. We were having a nice mid afternoon drink when Captain Chaos decided to provide us with more entertainment, when his boat swung and literally leaned on a much smaller yacht, much to its owners disgust. The Captain took 10 minutes before he decided to listen the owner’s cries of dismay, and finally extricated his boat, nearly taking the Yacht’s Genoa off in the process with his fireman’s ladder. The picture below says it all!

Having headed back to the boat, more wine acquired, we then spent the afternoon watching about 65 yachts come in and squeeze themselves into the smallest gaps available, some taking abut an hour to get settled, one or two a little to close to us to be asked to re-position. All I can say is, if the wind had decided to blow a hoolley, everyone would have been in a pickle with all anchors and chains forming one hellava a knot!.

That night, after happy that no one further was likely to arrive we jumped into the dinghy again for a lovely supper ashore, Richard, AKA the pied piper of Cabrera attracting all the local cats, and I do mean the feline kind. We had a bit of giggle finding our boat on the way back, not proud but likely to have woken a few neighbours in the process, one even spot lighted our return for us, oops!. Coffee, Limoncella, Brandy back on board saw us all having a rather peaceful nights sleep, fortunately with no wind!  The next morning, the 2 early birds in board,  David and Peter went ashore in search for pita bread, at Miceala’s request and checked all possible shops  but to no avail, who would have thought in Greece!. We then  set off to explore  Andi Paxos early, no wind again, but clearly not early enough as the bay of turquoise waters was far too full for us to squeeze in to, so we set off  round the southern tip and dropped our pick in a very deserted spot, tying our stern to the rocks, well sending Peter and Richard to tie our stern to the rocks, Peter showed us that it was possible to row the dinghy backwards, ish, and Rich discovered the art of double bowlines!

We had a lunch of  cheese and cold meats and having thrown the fatty bits in the water, to watch the fish devour it in seconds, Miceala decided it wasn’t safe to swim there. Peter, AKA Marine Boy, didnt agree and  donned mask and snorkel and set off to explore the caves, David and Richard following suit it in a more sedate manner, via the dinghy! Beer O’clock arrived and we watched the fabulous sunset and the darkness set in, with no moon, and with Richard talking of Cannibals on the island, poor Micaela was not as chilled as the night before.

The following morning (15th) David set off in the dinghy to undo our stern, much to our humour as we thought he was bound to fall in…

Luckily for him (and us) he didn’t and we set off up the west coast of Andi Paxos only to find that Captain Chaos had anchored in the next bay round thankfully and we headed back to Sivota, where we dropped the pick in 4 metres of turquoise water, rigged our stern anchor to keep us steady for the night and had a lovely afternoon chilling out and swimming. The only thing to spoil our view was a naked 70 year odd German prancing around his deck and disappeared off in his dingy shaking his winky for all to see. We also watched a couple of incidents of “sea rage” when an american boat moored too close to the flashing German and consistently ignored his requests to move, forcing him to do so, against all seamanship etiquette and then a  yacht and caterman raced each other to the last spot on the public quay screaming profanities at each other! It certainly opened our eyes as we all thought that cruising was a rather genteel pastime. That night we jumped into the dinghy and had supper ashore, once again cackling our way back to the boat around midnight. Just in case anyone hadn’t heard us come back, we then had to run our engine  to charge our batteries, best that than our boat alarm waking everyone on the bay at 4 in the morning. Not the best planning our our part!

Sivoto, Mainland Greece

Finally, on the 16th September being the last day of the guys trip we meanderer, under engine yet again in a Force 1, back to Corfu… where we managed to grab a berth in the tiny Port of Mandraki under the old fort, and spent the later afternoon exploring the old town of Corfu, grabbing a bite to eat and the guys then grabbing a few hours kip before their departure at 5am the following morning.

Mandraki, Corfu

By Night

It was a fabulous week, rather alcoholic with at least a dozen bottles of wine and 2 bottles of Brandy being consumed, despite 3 nights ashore!

Now, with only 10 days left before we have to get to Preveza and start putting Seaclusion to bed for the winter, we plan to go over to the west coast of Corfu, back down to Paxos and then off to Levkas, so watch this space!