We have been fortunate enough to meet up with some old friends - Steve and Jenny on Tashinga, new friends - Ted and Ginny on Suum Cuique (It's Latin for 'each to his own'), Bobby and Ian on Carlina (hairdressers who happily make you sit on the back of their boat, covered in a black hairdressing robe in 36 degrees, while you have your haircut with everybody looking on...). Finally Ian and Jenny, with Fran the Dog, on Solent Clipper. So if you get called Jenny, or a variation therein, it's because I've been surrounded by Jennys. What with the fact that we call the wind generator Geni W, the Honda generator Geni H and the genoa (headsail if you don't know), Geni S, all makes for a very confusing life, as in 'I wonder what Jenny's up to?' Am I referring to one of three friends or one of three bits of boat equipment...
Moving swifly on. For a change (and because needed to collect some large items) we rented a car for a day with some other friends - David and Lesley on Hie, note that she is not be called Jenny, but he is called David - even more confusion.
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| Lefkas Northwest Coast |
As we walked to our chosen restaurant (the one that had a space in its car park) we saw quite an imperssive sight - paragliding going on directly above our heads. We watched as they rode the thermals off the cliffs and then eventually landed on beach, between the umbrellas. After lunch we continued to drive up, and through, the magnificent mountains of Lefkas, and back over the middle of the island and round the sometimes trecherous road leading back to Nidri.
We stopped to look at the stunning view over the islands of the South Ionian and down into Vliho bay, before continuing around Vliho Bay to get a different view from the one we normally see - from the land to the boat, not the other way around! In the picture on the left you can see Scorpios, owned by the infamous Onasis family, now rumoured to have been let on a 99 year lease to a very wealthy Russion who is going to build apartments...I bet you don't see them on Last Minute.Com when their built! But you do see an enormous mega yacht (power) in the bay most days. Now when you stop there fore lunch you can go ashore, up until now you could only swim up to the beach before you were asked to leave!Anyway, I digress. Our remake of a 1975 British Children's Films...Let me explain further. As we left Nidri, one fine sunny Friday morning (we had received a call two days before to say that our new sail was ready for collection - horray!), we headed out of the bay and up the coast for Lefkas to collect said sail. On route, David, in his calm, collected fashion, commented that one of the oars from our dinghy had been stolen over night...'some bugger's nicked one of our oars' to be precise, 'what idiot would want to do that?' This would be very bad triming as we were about to to up a river to meet Tashinga and Solent Clipper, and would therefore leave us...wait for it....'up a creek without a paddle'... it get's better... 'Oh dear.' I replied (clearly already thinking of my punchline), 'does that mean we can make a remake of the film 'One of Our Dinasaurs is Missing', but call it...'One of our Dinghy Oars is Missing'. You can imagine his response - I thought it was very quick on my part! Anyway, as it turns out the oar was just hiding beneath the dinghy cover and was there all along, so we won't be making any remakes of 1970s kids movies - shame, I thought it would be fun.
So, onto more interesting things - WE HAVE A NEW SAIL AND IT SAILS - New sail up, through the 12:00 noon Lefkas bridge heading north, three and half hours sail. No problems, sail comes out, sail goes in, no jamming, no creasing, just a lovely bright shiny new sail (thanks mum!)
However, more interesting stuff was to come - we were about to enter the River Acheron on the mainland. It is supposedly the river that flows into the ancient Acheron where the souls of the dead were thought to descend into the underworld. As we sailed towards Fanari Bay, where the entrance to the river hides, we had been greeted with a reasonable wind on our nose and two meter waves - where did they come from? (The Adriatic, which is why they were so big). As you can see from the photo, the entrance is not very wide, less than 100m wide, quite shallow and with a 1-2 knot current flowing out. This current, meeting the waves created an interesting approach that we decided not to attempt before checking it out in the dinghy. We anchored, took the dinghy in (with both oars) to meet up with our friends who were already tied alongside the wooden quay that has been built about 1km up the river. Having riden the waves on the way out in the dinghy, we decided it was too dangerous to attempt at 7pm so we stayed at anchore that night. We took the boat up the river first thing the next morning.
The river is ice cold and spring water. On the quay they have provided ice cold showers for you to use, if your brave enough. Whilst in the river, we actually woke up in the mornings shivering and the floor in the boat was cold! The quay is set in the village of Ammoudhia, which itself is very pretty, tidy and full of very reasonably priced restaurants and hotels. Although it is a tourist village, it had a very calm and friendly feel about it.
The following day, we took the dinghys (photo of Ian, Jenny and Fran the Dog) up the river to see if we could find some lost souls trying to find they way down to Hades. All we found was a tripper boat full of holiday makers, a few birds, one sunken boat and not enough depth to go right the way to the entrance. But we had fun all the same.The following day, Ian and Jenny (Solent Clipper) left the river. We knew this would be an interesting sight to watch, as the river isn't really big enougn to turn a boat around in - certain techniques would need to be applied. We would all watch carefully. For your information Ian and Jenny's boat is 4 ft shorter than ours. Firstly they tied a line to their starboard side (that's the one on the river side in this case), and took this back to Steve and David, who were standing on the boat that Solent Clipper had been rafted to... keeping up.
The current in the river flows between 1 and 2 knots, heading out of the river. The aim was to move the boat forward with lots of power, the boys would hold on to the line as Ian turned the boat back on itself, hoping that the current would take the bow once the boat had gone past the point of no return, and hopefully not getting caught up in the bushes on the other side of the river. Here's them just at the point of no return.Now, we have to do this tomorrow, but with no spare room...to say it was going to be an interesting morning when we left would maybe be and understatement!
However, before Ian and Jenny left, she gave me and Jenny (Tashinga) a challenge. She has on her boat an Italian herb garden that she has been growing since leaving Italy at the beginning of July. So, out of the kindness of her heart, she left us both two baby tomato plants - the challenge being the first to grow a tomato. I have since repotted and named my plants (hereby referred lovingly as 'The Boys'), and am speaking and nuturing them everyday. Here's their photo.Having had three wonderful days up the river, with both our paddles, we decided to move on. Our exist from the river was as expected, interesting, and I feel that the new addition of foliage to the anchor and pulpit works well, even though David made me remove it. Luckily no photos available to show what a mishmash we made of it.
We decided to go the fifteen miles across to Lakka and we had decide to get there early to try and find a least a little corner to anchor in. Lakka in August is always full. To make our journey even more delightful, we were greeting by two dolphins just five miles out from the entrance to the bay.
As I say now that we are in August, it is Italian season, and there is normally no space available. WRONG. We arrived to find not one, but three spaces available on the town quay - unheard of in August. We call our friend Terry (Seadragon) who we had agreed to meet there and all slipped onto the town quay with no questions. My main reason for going to Lakka, apart from the glorious colour of the water and the picture postcard cuteness of the place, is the bead shop...which has now closed down! Typical! However, we did find a fantastic beach bar, set up in the trees, just off the beach, with sun loungers, free wifi and cold beer. So I suppose it is the next best thing. We met up with some more sailing friends from Messolonghi and we stayed two nights.
Since then we have been back to Vliho, Nidri, over to Port Atheni. We have decided that this will now be our weekend retreat. You can anchor in clear blue water, take two lines ashore and create your own private swimming area behind the boat, and there is a wonderful little beach bar, only a dinghy ride away. While we were there this weekend we met up with Terry (Seadragon), Bob and Jane (Bobcat), and the following day, Steve and Jenny (Tashinga) and their two guests joined us again.
On the first night we had 'progressive supper BBQ'. This took the form of Terry cooking everyones meat on his boat, I made a salad and Jane a potato salad. We transported all the food from all the boats to Bobcat (a lovely big catamaran with a fantastic outside eating area). We then played a very silly game called Banana Scrabble - much fun was had. On the following night we had a 'progressive supper chilli'. I made a chilli, Jane made a chilli and Terry made the rice. All the food was once again transported to Bobcat and we place Mexican Train Dominoes (appropriate for the chilli). And then we discovered the freshwater leak......watch this space to see if we've fixed it!
Til next time - Michele and Dave onboard Alhambra in the Ionian
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