Bisou de partout: GREECE

Determined to keep heading north, and there not being any significant bays to protect us from the prevailing winds, we rose early and made for the channel once again, between Cephalonia and Ithaca. Already at 8:30am there were strong winds on our nose as we motored up the channel. We were visited by a couple of large dolphins for a short while and although Robin had her lure out hopeful of a catch, once again …nothing. We looked at stopping in Fiskhardo, a small town on the northern end of Cephalonia, but decided that we could come back that way later and that it was better to keep going. We had made email contact with some Aussie cruiser friends who were anchored in a bay on Levkas and wanted to catch up with them.

As we exited the channel and changed course, we were delighted to be able to raise the mainsail and the genoa and actually sail for about an hour as we crossed open water from Cephalonia to Levkas. As is usual for the winds in the Ionian, just about mid-morning, the winds dropped to a gentle breeze and it was time to bring in the sails and motor again!

The passage between Levkas and Meganisi (the island to the east of Levkas) is rather spectacular with the high cliffs of Levkas contrasting with the lower and very green hills of Meganisi. We hope to visit the latter on our way south later in the summer. There were a number of lovely bays we might have stopped in, but we continued north until we reached Nidri and the channel into Vlikhos Bay. This bay was much larger than we expected and although not full of boats at the time we arrived, by evening many more entered and anchored all around us. It is a well-sheltered and rather shallow bay surrounded by high mountains and hills so a popular ‘escape’ for inclement weather as well as being a lovely peaceful place. Our friends on “Nawii” (also owners of a Helia 44 which they collected just a month before we did in La Rochelle) found us and we had a fun reunion chatting about what we had both been up to over the past year.

That evening we dinghied ashore to a lovely tavern on the east side of the bay where the waiters greeted us, taking our line and tying us up to the dock where the tables awaited. We enjoyed a delicious Greek meal, starry skies and extremely attentive staff. The hospitality and politeness of the Greeks has been overwhelming so far.

The next morning we took the dinghy and explored the bay – not much to see, really, and Vlikhos is barely a town with a small mini-market and a few tavernas. There are a number of boatyards around which appear to be functioning but not much else. Continuing up the channel a short way to Nidri, we found a much more active atmosphere. There is a car/passenger ferry here which comes across from the mainland and it’s obviously a popular tourist spot as well. The port area is lined with tavernas, bars and clubs and one street back is wall-to-wall shops and more restaurants, etc. We did a little grocery shopping and Tad found a chaotic but extremely well-stocked marine shop/chandlery. Returning to the boat, we weighed anchor and set off towards the Greek mainland, intending to rendezvous with more Aussie friends.

As we exited the channel from Nidri, we were thrilled to find 25 knots of wind blowing so up went the main and the genoa and we enjoyed an hour or two of sailing back and forth across the water between Levkas and the Greek mainland. Tad had the biggest grin on his face – it was probably one of the few times that we have actually sailed just for fun rather than having to get somewhere and we hope to do a lot more this summer! We eventually made our way to the small bay known as Marathias and dropped anchor in more turquoise waters off a pebble beach. That evening we hosted our first dinner party of the season welcoming Jeff and Sandra from “Nawii”, Debbie and Campbell from “Wallanthea” and Helen and Marcel from “Dakini. We really enjoyed having everyone aboard and had lots of laughs sharing sailing stories!

Planning on staying only a day or two, we have ended up remaining in this heavenly anchorage for much longer. Each day we are swarmed by charter boats who come in and anchor for an hour or two, have a swim ashore and then leave by about 3pm. Each night we have four or five boats at most, and a beautiful starlit, peaceful evening. One night we dinghied around to the next cove and found a small tavern with a home-cooked meal that was delicious!

I have to digress a little to share an amusing tale of language difficulties: our friend Jeff is a ‘true blue’ Aussie and has never been exposed to other languages. He has been sailing with his lovely wife, Sandra, for the past year throughout the Mediterranean but has not learned much in the way of local languages. One of the problems of being at anchor in remote bays is the accumulation of rubbish/garbage and finding ways and means of disposal. Jeff took his rubbish on his kayak and paddled down to the tavern (which also happened to be a sort of resort which rents out villas and has a beach bar) to enquire about a rubbish bin. The lady in charge spoke some English but could not make head or tail of Jeff’s Aussie accented “rubbish bin”. She understood that he wanted ‘rabbit’ and the only ‘bin’ she knew of was beans! She thought he wanted her to make him rabbit with beans! A Danish guest with some English was brought in to try and clarify the situation and she concurred with the manager that Jeff wanted rabbit with beans. Shaking her head, the Greek lady said that she had no rabbit or beans. Later that evening when we went back to the restaurant for dinner, Jeff told us the story of how he had enquired about leaving his rubbish there – I explained to the Greek manager that he was looking for a garbage can and pointed to the bin at the side of the building. “Oh!” she said – garbage! I understand that word! Then we all had a good laugh when we realised the comedy of errors! Jeff needed to use sign language, drawing or other words to describe what he was looking for!

Today we experienced a lowlight (as opposed to a highlight) in our cruising season – rubbish! Those of you with whom I am friends on FaceBook will have already read the story there, but for the rest of our readers, here it is. For the past couple of days, we have been walking up and down the beach in our anchorage (Ormos Marathias 38 degrees 45’.790N 020 degrees 47’.378E) picking up rubbish. It all started a couple of days ago when Robin was swimming ashore for her morning exercise and swam into a plastic bag. She was so incensed that this beautiful beach and water should have a plastic bag floating in it, she started walking down the beach collecting plastic bottles, bottle caps and string and placing them in a pile. Tad joined her a little later and between the two of us, we spent a good couple of hours the first day and a couple of hours the second day picking up every bit of rubbish we could find. Tad had planned to take some petrol ashore and burn the rubbish but was dissuaded from this by other yachties as being possibly a bit of a problem. So we left the rubbish we had collected in buckets, bags and piles in a neat pit away from the beach.

Yesterday afternoon, a flotilla of sailboats arrived into the bay. They were the usual chaotic bunch, all anchoring on top of one another (including the boats that were already in the anchorage) and we all tried to make sure our boats were safe from the invasion. Other than this, they were a relatively quiet and peaceful lot. We saw them all dinghy ashore and later spotted a nice bonfire on the beach which they were clearly enjoying. They behaved and were not rowdy returning to their boats quite late. Imagine our horror the next morning when we went for our morning swim and saw the detritus left by the flotilla on shore! A huge firepit full of burned beer cans, balls of aluminium foil, plastic cups and plates as well as an esky, and a passerelle (used as a bench we suppose) and so much more! All left for the world to see – meanwhile the ‘guests’ of the flotilla (the sailors) were calmly sitting on their yachts, having their breakfasts and gradually waking up. Robin went ashore first and took photos - Tad leapt into the dinghy and went over to the flotilla’s skipper to have a chat. Tad noticed that the skipper’s yacht was a rubbish tip itself, with ‘stuff everywhere’ (to quote Tad) and quite filthy. He had sent the mechanic (according to the latter) ashore to clean up. When Tad questioned the ‘mechanic’ about what his intentions were regarding the burned beer cans, the reply was “the guests were a bit naughty last night”. We told them we would be posting the photos on FaceBook as well as contacting Sunsail about this disgrace. This was duly done by Robin – now we’ll see if there is any response!

It was time to leave our little piece of Paradise, as our friends were all moving on and we needed to get up to Preveza to organize a few things as well as provision the boat. We weighed anchor and set off for the Levkas Canal.