Our Roundabout Route to the Island of Lefkada

After leaving Kioni (5th September), with flat seas and a gentle breeze that enabled us to sail with our full sails out and not get our decks covered in salt, we decided to go wherever the wind took us!

That happened to be the island of Kalamos, in particular the bay of Geroliminionas, known to us previously as Port Leone, where we dropped our pick in the middle, free anchoring, what joy.

As the afternoon drew on, we had some entertainment watching a number of charter boats come in and do the whole anchor with a long line ashore thing, much easier when you have 4 or more on board, but were still entertained!

We also watched some mad Englishmen row to the beach, tuck in behind the bush and light a bonfire, for a bbq 😱. Completely mad, and we hoped they would be able to keep it under control given the trees and shrubs surrounding them, especially as the wind had begun to blow as well. Luckily they did, just hoped they enjoyed their dinner!

The morning after brought a wind change which saw the 3 of us free anchoring turn. We were fine, but we marvelled at how close the other 2 were to the beach, clearly knew the waters better than we did!

As lovely as this bay was, not to mention the entertainment, there were some more gentle winds about so we decided to move on, sailing the 10 nm to the north east coast of Meganisi. David counted over 50 boats sailing in our vicinity, it was fantastic to see as for the last 2 month’s we have been lucky to see 2 or 3 on the water at the same time, except in anchorages and harbours of course! It also started to put our “who has right of way” knowledge to the test, with a squeaky bum moment or two, knowing we had the right of way but the other boat not so sure!

We found a little bay called Ormos Rementinou, which really only had 2 free anchoring spots, one right at the head and the other close to the entrance, the rest was this long line ashore stuff. Sadly the one at the head was taken so we opted for the one at the entrance, which was fine.

The afternoon was broken up a bit by one boat, whose owner hadn’t really tested that his anchor had held before taking his lines ashore, and that slowly as the afternoon breeze ticked up became looser and looser until he was resting on a boat to his portside, that was almost half his size. Clearly they weren’t happy, so rather than letting go of his lines and resetting his anchor, we watched in disbelief as he kept picking up his anchor chain, until he lifted the anchor right out of the water. The breeze on his nose soon broadsided him onto the rocks, it sounded very painful indeed!

The skipper ashore, tried desperately to detach his line now under pressure, we would have just sliced them before now, his wife floundering around the deck not knowing what to do, when the cavalry arrived in a small motor boat to take a line from the bow and pull them off the rocks. By this time the man in the powerboat had launched his dinghy and was pushing the bow from the shore side to help!

All seemed well, and they were helped to anchor properly. That said we didn’t see them motor around the bay to check for any damage to the rudder, nor dive to see the state of their hull. But they weren’t sinking, thankfully!

Then it was our turn, just as the sun was setting the wind did a 180 which swung us around and stretched our chain out in the opposite direction, resulting in us no longer being in 6 metres of water with 30 meters of chain, but in 25 metres of water with clearly not enough chain out. We couldn’t afford to put any more chain down in case the wind swung back and we hit the rocks ourselves, so upsticks we did. Luckily the yacht at the head of the bay had left so we happily snuck into his place, although it did take 2 attempts.

With nothing but a very few properties and no tavernas ashore we ate on board and had a very peaceful night, and calm morning which saw both David and I on the paddle board, at different times obviously!

Ormos Rementinou

By the 7th September we were really up for something to eat that wasn’t greek or chicken salad and knew from our previous times here that there was a very good, (well good for Greece), Indian in Palieros on the mainland, 8 miles north of us, so off we trotted to do just that, dropping our pick outside the harbour to go and book a table!.

Palieros

That night we sat outside by the beach, eating a wonderfully tasty beef madras and chicken bhuna, with all the trimmings, which included a portion of onion bhajis, for 4.5 euros and we counted 9 of them. We listened to so many English voices around us, again something we were just not used to anymore! The meal ended with some vile man who took a dislike to a cat, think Kurt Zouma, much to the anger of a number of locals, the guy must have been smoking or snorting something as he kept coming back for more abuse over the next half an hour.

Suffice to say, it was well worth the trip as we motored back to Seaclusion by dinghy, which were surprised had managed to stay afloat, given the amount food we, well David, consumed 🤣🤣🤣.

Next morning we woke to yet another millpond, we really are loving this, calm nights and mornings, just enough wind to sail and flat seas, really can’t remember it being like this, not since we left Turkey!

So we spent the morning relaxing, paddle boarding and swimming, trying to work off some of last night’s calories, until the wind got up to then set sail for all of 4 miles to a beautiful bay called Ormos Varko, still on the mainland, being one of about 5 boats when we arrived. Perfect! We stayed 2 days, even if by the evening there were more like 20 boats anchored there, but we were all quite a distance apart and everyone was very well behaved!

Ormos Varko

The only outside entertainment came from 2 catamarans who anchored off with lines ashore next door to each other, full of girls and their young skippers, who must have been having a field day…. particularly when they all lined up for what looked like a impromptu photo shoot with white towels wrapped around them. What was funnier was watching the chaps on all the other boats watching vividly, some with binoculars, perhaps hoping the towels would all be dropped in a flurry…..🤣🤣 No such luck!

Finally on the 10th September, we left our beautiful spot, heading towards the Island of Lefkada, our final island before Preveza, when all the hard work of putting Seaclusion to bed for the winter begins, not that we are complaining, couldn’t be more relaxed right now!

10th September 2022