The Start of the Ionian.
We left the peaceful waters of Methoni on the 27th August, taking up the western coast for 13nms into the wonderful Navarino Bay, which looked more like an inland lake of Pylos, passing by its own castle and the town.
We anchored off the “marina”. Shame it could have been wonderful but was again one of those unfinished projects, free and from the looks of it filled with abandoned boats.
We then went into the town by dinghy to have a mooch around. Nowadays Pylοs hаs аbоut 2700 inhаbitаnts and it is centred around a smаll squаrе, nеxt tо a hаrbοur full of саfеs, grill hоusеs аnd tаvеrnаs.
Pylos
After watching another stunning sunset, we spent a peaceful night at anchor with only the dull thud of music drifting across the water from the other side of the bay and woke to a millpond.
Watching the sun in the morning we had wanted to go over to the other side of the bay, drop anchor and walk up to the Pаlеοκаstrо Fortress that overlooked the infamous Voidokil Bay, normally a beautiful anchorage in absolutely no wind, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon! But it was Sunday, which meant a very very loud beach bar and music all day and into the early hours 😱 That together with much stronger northerly winds forecasted the following day was enough to send us on our merry way. Just to show what we missed (until another year)…
So on the 28th we set sail again, passing the uninhabited rocks of Sfакtiriа аnd Tsiсhli Bаbа.
We were heading to the town of Kyprissia, some 36 miles along the coast, sailing most of the way which was a godsend, as we are trying to eek out our fuel until the end of our trip!
We arrived at 4pm to an almost empty harbour and got settled without any issues. David then filled the boat up with some much needed water!
Having gone off for a wander, we soon realised that there was very little in the harbour or the vicinity, so went back to the boat to shower, changed and then jumped into a taxi to take us up to the Old Town. It was only when I got into the shower, hoping for a cool one, and squealed, did David realise that the water travelled through a very very very long back pipe along the harbour wall, and which of course had heated up during the course of the day. As a consequence our tank was now filled with very hot water, so whilst we might have been clean at the end of it, we certainly weren’t refreshed! At this point we made a note not to fill up late in the afternoon !
The old “town” was pretty cool, a single cobbled street with tavernas and cafes and lots of life! We found a wonderful restaurant and tucked into our 1/2ltr of vino and rather empty tummies. Hmmmm…. should explain why, when the bread arrived, I sprayed what I thought was olive oil onto my plate, only to realise it was hand santizer (lucky nothing else was on it), then promptly, thinking it was a tissue, to clean my hands, then realised I had stuck my fingers into the greek version of Aioli, Oh, where were my glasses, all this was much to David’s amusement, in fact I think he had tears in his eyes from laughing so much.
After dinner, with the aid of Google, we thought it would be a good idea to walk back to the harbour particularly as we had seen that the road took us through the newer part of town half way down. So off we set, this time with a litre of vino inside us and got to the point of no return when the arrows pointed us down a pathway which was by now pitch black. I don’t think David was too chuffed with the plan, but thank god for phone torches, without which broken ankles might have occurred.
We finally got to the main square which was again full of life.
We then made our way safely back to Seaclusion for a very quiet night. The following morning we headed back up to the old town to investigate the castle and area in daylight. Having learnt from earlier we set off to make sure the castle wouldn’t be closed…..😂😂😂, only to find it all locked up and not open yet, we just can’t win! So we just had a slow wander through the old part and back to the new and will let the images do the talking!
We then set sail again, for another 30 odd miles north to the town of Katakola, which looked very pretty from the pics on the internet. We close hauled all the way, at time under a single reef in a force 4 gusting 5, and dropped our pick just outside the harbour a little after 5pm. Once again we jumped in the dinghy to go and explore to see if we fancied eating ashore.
Hmmm, well this town didn’t look a bit like Greece, more like an American town, think Carmel, all set up for tourists, and on that day, there were none so most of it, except a few bars on the very front, were all shut up, all very strange.
Katakola
Deciding not to bother to have dinner ashore we jumped back onto the dinghy to head back to Seaclusion, only to soon realise we had another problem, this time with the dinghy which really had been running perfectly since we got her! The drive /gear seemed to be slipping as soon as we upped her revs a bit…. luckily enough we still managed to get back, albeit very slowly to the yacht, then spent the afternoon lifting the engine on board, trying to work out the issue…. Then with the help of “phone a friend”, that being Jack, and describing the issue, then removing the prop, we were able to ascertain that a new prop was needed! And you would think, Yamaha being a very popular make, that that wouldn’t be too hard….🤣🤣🤣. Job for the morning, vino and food was calling by this time!
The following morning we woke to realise why this town even existed……
Perhaps the town would wake up! Apparently Olympia was only 25 miles away, hence this was a cruise liner stop!
We then set about trying to source a new prop in Zakynthos, which is one of the largest islands in the Ionian and our next destination. No such luck!!! We found a second hand one in Athens, and then a new one in Corfu and finally one in Lefkada with a wonderfully helpful chap who said he would get it shipped to us in Zante! Phew.
With that, we set sail again, to Zante!
30th August 2022
