Cruising progress 2017 (Click to enlarge)
Current location using Vessel Finder
29th August 2017
Our first step on dry land in Greece was Gouvia Marina on Corfu, to sort out the Greek paperwork. After a couple of days we motored round the island and anchored in the bay off Corfu town but decided not to go ashore as we’d noticed three cruise liners arrive in the harbour every day, so I can imagine that the town would not be particularly inviting. As this is an island we have explored extensively, albeit a long time ago, we decided not to spend any time here at this time of year. Everywhere is mobbed in August, the French and Italians descend on the area, not to mention all the hundreds of charter boats. Our main aim this month is to find places that the charter boats don't visit and in that we've been reasonably successful. We motored across to the mainland and headed down the coast, stopping at bays and towns which seemed to be a bit off the beaten track. Unfortunately as were now in the Northern Ionian, there is little wind in the morning and then in the early afternoon it gets up for a couple of hours before dying away again, so we've not done a lot of sailing.
We spent a few nights in a large, well sheltered bay at Igoumenitsa, anchored just off the town and were the only boat there. It's not a particularly attractive town, but had all the amenities we needed. It's a very busy ferry port with ferries arriving and departing more or less continually all day, but they were far enough away not to cause us any problems. The next stop was at Preveza which is a traditional Greek town with a long quay and plenty of cafes and restaurants. We spent a couple of nights at anchor and then motored down to the town quay and tied up, stern to the quay. We noticed a slight difference compared to recent prices, at only €7 a night plus power and water! Most boats are only in overnight and leave in the morning, so it's quite peaceful and quiet until mid-afternoon. Being at the town quay does have its advantages as we were able to do two big supermarket shops and wheeled everything back to the boat in the trolley. Much easier than lugging it on our backs and in carrier bags, transferring it all to the dinghy and then on to the boat!
During this time Southern Europe had a heatwave which lasted for two weeks with temperatures up in the 40's during the day and 30's overnight. Luckily, being on the quay during the worst of it we were able to use our big mains fan continuously which meant we could at least get to sleep at night. All our deck and window covers were deployed along with the sun shades and we cut up the old genoa to make a cover for the awning. Our sprayhood and awning are navy blue and the heat radiating down through them was overpowering, so hopefully this additional cover will reflect more of the heat. Unfortunately I didn't get it finished until the temperatures had started cooling down a bit, so we probably won't know for sure until next year, but it did seem to help.
Preveza is in an inland sea which extends for about 20nm, so we motored and then managed to sail down to Vonitsa on the south coast of the gulf. This is a very popular tourist resort for the Greeks. We found a lovely anchorage behind an island and had a very peaceful night. When we left the following morning there was a nice breeze for sailing, but as soon as we put the sails up the wind died and we were back on the engine.
We returned to the anchorage in Preveza for a few days and then back to the town quay, before heading down through the Levkas Canal. The wind is much stronger here and gets up about midday and lasts until the evening so we’re able to sail every day. Our pace of life has slowed down considerably with the average sail of about 8nm and occasionally up to 20nm. We leave after lunch and sail on to the next anchorage on another island. The only problem with this is that we have to use the generator to charge the batteries nearly every day as last year's flexible panel has died and the other two don't produce sufficient power. Another job for next year is to fit another rigid panel.
We are now on the island of Ithaca, anchored off the town quay at Vathy. After dinner at one of the taverns we walked along the quay looking at the boats and saw two we know. The first was sv Carnival sailed by John & Wendy, whom we met in Syracuse, Sicily, and who very kindly invited us on board for a drink. After we left them we then saw sv Windhover sailed by Sean & Bernie from Ireland. We met them back in 2014/15 when we wintered in Aguadulce. They've spent the last two seasons in Sardinia and only recently arrived in Greece. They weren't on the boat and we couldn't get a reply when we tried to phone, so we went off round all the bars and restaurants until we eventually found them. We had a great reunion and eventually got back to the boat around 02:30 and met up with them again the following evening. We also discovered that we are going to winter in the same marina in Preveza, so even if our paths don’t cross again while sailing we’ll see them in October.
