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September- Leftkas - Kefalonia
Yet another fantastic month where we met more sailing
friends and also had a lovely week with Iain and Emma.
We had 3 weeks to head south from Lefkas until we got
to Argostoli, Kefalonia to meet them on 20th Sept.
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September began brilliantly, as we met Shane
and Mayuri, Catamaran Janix in Nidri and proceeded to
spend the next few days with them. We got on like a house
on fire and could easily have been awarded gold medals in
the olympics, if there was a category for talking. I include
all 4 or us in this category as it was a team effort. Shane
and Mayuri are from Nottingham and were out for a two month
holiday on their boat. They came to us for a couple of nights.
Then we popped over one morning, intending just to see Janix,
but then didn't leave until 10pm that night. Mayuri cooked
us a beautiful meal too. We all treated ourselves to a night
on a pontoon where we could hook up to electricity which was
luxury (everything got recharged that day, cameras, phones,
vhf etc as you have to make the most of the opportunity).
Whilst in Nidri we popped down to Vlikho, a tiny village
1 mile away, to see a secondhand boat supplies chap that we
had heard about as we wanted to sell a few things to him that
we didn't need anymore. A very dangerous thing to do as the
chap in question, Geoff had a second-hand Aladdins Cave that
I only managed to pull Karl away from once he'd purchased
a sprayhood frame, propeller and mosquito screens for our
hatches. Thankfully Geoff took our stuff as part payment and
we didn't have to part with as much cash as we would have.
After this we decided it was time to move on to Meganisi
as we needed to keep moving south to meet Emma and Iain on
the 20th. Meganisi is a beautiful island with lots of lovely
bays and inlets (too many to choose from), that you can anchor
in. We chose to go to Vathi
which is the 'capital' of Meganisi. It is a beautiful village
and definitely worth going to. We hooked up with Mark again,
(Yacht 'Vipress') and the weather turned nasty for a couple
of days so we had a few movie sessions on Marks yacht, as
he had a huge flat screen TV and a load of Oz/NZ movies that
we'd not seen. Unfortunately somebody crashed into us here
but thankfully they didn't do any damage to our boat as it
was our anchor they hit. The scary part was it was the
biggest catamaran we've ever seen that crashed into us
and we panicked initially. The guys that had chartered it
were lovely and ever so apologetic. Karl helped them tie her
up properly as they didn't seem to know what they were doing
(hence the crash) and they gave us 2 bottles of wine in return.
After a few days here we moved south again towards Ithaca,
with an overnight stop on a tiny island called Atokos with
a wonderful bay called One House Bay (no prizes for guessing
what was there). On Ithaca we stopped at another Vathi
which is also a 'capital' but this time a slightly bigger
town with much more facilities. We hung out here for a couple
of days and stocked up. It was full of beautiful buildings
and lovely narrow streets to wander around.
On 11th September we arrived on Kefalonia with 8 days to
get around to the south of the island to meet Emma and Iain.
Our first port of call was a lovely place called Ag. Eufimia
where Karl could get his dive tank refilled and then we moved
on the next night to Poros. Whilst in Poros a young couple,
David
and Emma that were on honeymoon stopped to talk to us
and it turns out that David is a sailing nut as well as being
employed in the UK as a Coastguard. David lives, eats and
breathes boats. So they came aboard and ended up staying for
a few hours drinking beer with us. They had a hire car and
said they might pop in the next day on their way back from
their day trip. This time they stayed for dinner. They were
lovely company even if all David and Karl did was talk about
boats ;-D They then offered to take us out in the car for
a day to see a couple of the local sights.
We didn't need to think twice about our answer and we had
a great time visiting the Melisani
Underground Lake and Drogarati
Cave. Both of which had amazing stalactites/stalacmites. We
even saw bats in the cave. The next day we moved on to Argostoli
and arranged for David and Emma to meet us there a couple
of days later so that we could take them out sailing for a
few hours. We had a fantastic time and managed to actually
get sailing
rather than motor sailing.
Argostoli is a lovely town with a big bay and plenty of places
to go walking and out and about. It even has a couple of resident
turtles.
Whilst in Argostoli we met a Swedish guy, Hans
with a beautiful aluminum catamaran named Moana (after his
little girl) and the amazing thing is he built it himself
(its 51ft long). He has a charter business and was doing some
maintenance on his boat to get her ready for the next set
of guests so Karl helped him out with that and I provided
lunch.
Finally on Sunday 20th September Iain
and Emma arrived....big hoorays. It was fabulous to see
them and the bambino bump. Emma looks fabulous. So we had
a good week with them. Had a lovely walk out to the lighthouse
on the tip of Argostoli and went out for dinner 3 times too.
Iain is a fabulous cook so we persuaded him to cook two fantastic
meals onboard. We also managed a day out sailing
and anchored up for lunch. The boys went snorkelling (scaring
the marine
life no doubt). We were cheeky while they were here and
sneaked into their hotel for showers which was a luxury. Unfortunately
we did have 3 days of terrible weather - rain, heavy winds
and storms but that just meant we chilled out and watched
movies and the grand prix. On their last night they took us
out for dinner for my birthday (1st Oct) and Hans came along
as well. We had a lovely meal and a few drinks and were the
last in the restaurant and then the last in the bar too. This
has not happened to us for a while. We were sad to see them
leave but at least we'll see them in a few weeks time, when
we get home.
Typically the day after they leave the sun came back in full
force. Hans was moving on and had to sail to the mainland
to collect his parents and daughter who were coming to stay
with him but was going to be singlehanded so Karl
offered to sail with him and get the ferry back to Kefalonia.
It's unlikely that Karl will get the chance to sail on such
a big and beautiful boat (it is worth around 600,000 euros)
so he was really excited about going. This did mean that I
would get peace and quiet for a day and a night too. Karl
returned after a lovely sail and a ferry and bus ride back
to Argostoli.
So here we are at the end of another month. We've been in
Argostoli for a couple of weeks now and will be moving on
in the next day or so. I know this is a September diary but
it was my birthday
on 1st Oct and I got 4 cards which Emma brought for me. We
didn't do anything exciting (washing and boat cleaning) but
did have a lovely dinner on board at night and invited a fellow
yachtie (Sid) around to join us and had a lovely bottle of
red wine.
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