Cruising The Ionian Islands

Hi All Sue here

Well my sister and Richard arrived on June 1st and our first trip was to Lidl to stock up for the next three weeks!! We then spent one night in the bay of Corfu Town and the next morning sat out a major thunder storm. Unfortunately Summertime and Nostromo, two of our friends boats, got struck by lightning but luckily there wasn’t too much damage and they can continue sailing and get repairs done along the way. We then made a run for it across to Mourtos with more thunder and rain rolling behind us but it didn’t catch us up. In Mourtos we had the best steaks ever in a restaurant simply known as The Steak House, would definitely recommend it to anyone going there.

North of Gouvia, Corfu, with Summertime	Igoumenista Creek on the Mainland

The weather was pretty mixed for the first few days of June but then someone turned the temperature gauge up and all of a sudden we were in the high thirties in the shade and no breeze!! It was even too hot for Caroline and me some days!! So we spent a lot of our time in the water and swimming around the boat or to shore, all good exercise and of course we rewarded our efforts with lots of little drinkies!!

Sue and Caroline - Sundowners	Pretty Little Church, Vonista

Going through the Lefkas canal was fun, you have to go in single file for a couple of miles and somehow we ended up in front and had about twenty, mostly charter, boats behind us. They looked like our little ducklings following us.

Midday Traffic Jam Down the Levkas Canal	It’s a Hard Life !!

We went to so many islands with Caroline and Richard and they are all so different and beautiful in their own way. Even the local food dishes are different according to which Island you visit. Most places we anchored and tied up back to the shore or you could go on the town quays. That used to be very entertaining some nights watching all the charter boats coming in. Total carnage sometimes!! When we tie back to anywhere now we have made rat guards for our lines as our friends off Nostromo have had a rat on board. In fact it was in bed with them!! Aaaagh don’t want to even think about it!!

Strange Clouds Over Meganissi	Abelike Bay, Meganisis, Tied to the Shore

Richard worked very hard for his keep, scrubbing the bottom of the boat and swimming ashore with the lines but he was rewarded for all his hard work and was allowed total charge of Nimrod for two days. When we eventually do the Atlantic crossing he is aiming to come with us so is very keen to learn everything, which is a great help to me!! At the moment Caroline says she’s not doing it but it’s a long way of so never say never!!

Richard Working for his Holiday	Shiny Props Ready to go Back on

There are many boat trips to visit the Blue Caves but if you go early enough you can anchor by them and take your own dinghy in before all the trippers arrive. The time went so quickly with Caroline and Richard and we had such a great time with them. Richard flew home on the 19th June and their daughter Kathryn then arrived on the same flight so Caroline got to stay for another week.

Anchored Outside the Blue Caves, Zakynthos	More Caves

The same applies to Shipwreck bay, get there early before the trip boats and you can get in close to take some lovely photos.

Shipwreck Bay, Zakynthos	Deserted Anchorage, Pessada, Cephalonia

We have found many deserted bays, some with holiday apartments built and all left to ruin. One bay we found had three holiday villages on it and nobody there. One restaurant owner said this was the quietest summer in 25 years. Good for us wanting quiet anchorages but not for the Greeks.

Peaceful Anchorages Even in June	Ormos Polis, West Coast of Ithaca

Whilst Richard was with us Chris and him used to set of on their hikes returning some time later covered in scratches!! I prefer to stick to the paths so it’s great when Richard is here to go off on adventures with Chris into the undergrowth!!

Looking Across the Ithaca Straight to Cephalonia	Richard Practising his Golf in a Hidden Valley above Ormos Polis

Port Leone is a village that was destroyed in the 1953 earthquake and most of the villagers moved to the mainland as their water supply was destroyed. Every Sunday some people from Kalamos village visit the church still there and clean it and replace the oil in the lamps left burning there and put fresh flowers on the altar.

Deserted Village, Port Leone, Kalamos	Another View of Port Leone

There are lots of buggy type things out here, flying, jumping and crawling. The jumping ones are the worst as they jump on your shoulder as you are walking, even make it as far as your ear!! Chris says they are more frightened of me than I am of them but I can’t quite agree with that. It’s alright for him as he is taller and they can’t jump that high. The wasps and the mosquitoes seem to have some sort of shift thing going on. The wasps are on duty from 8 am until 8 pm then the mosquitoes take over. It’s hard to decide what time to have your evening meal, before eight it’s a very jumpy affair and after eight it turns more into a slapping time!!

Looking from Kastos to Kalamos and the Inland Sea Beyond	One House Bay, Astokos (Also now known to Nostromo as One Rat Bay!!)

We are now anchored in One House Bay but with no lines ashore as the rat that John killed might still have many friends ashore who would like to come aboard!!  Our plans are then to visit the Dhragonera and Echinades islands and then make way back to Cephalonia for the 16th July when I fly home for a week to look after my mum.

Seems like Sue has pretty much covered it all so not much for me to say!!!

Although everyone warned us that the Ionian gets very busy with all the charter boats from July onwards, so far it has not been too bad. The popular spots are certainly busier than a few weeks ago but if you wait until about 6pm then most of them head back to port to tie up to a town quay and you are left in the anchorage with only a few other boats. One House Bay, where we are now was very quiet last night with only 4 boats staying overnight, at midday there are now over 20 boats here and more still arriving – it is getting a bit full now and boats are trying to anchor far too close to others, all very entertaining.

There are many beautiful spots around that are not much visited by the charter boats so it is still very easy to get away from all the madness. However if we do decide we want to go into a harbour and use the town quay then we try and make sure we get in around early afternoon before all the others arrive, it is then much easier to find a space. Also most of the harbours seem to have a local taverna owner who will help you tie up, give you any info you want and hope that you use his place later on – all very nice and pleasant with no pressure, only a friendly smiling face to greet you.

It is great to find so many places to go within a few miles of each other because you really do not do very much sailing around the Ionian, it is mainly motoring unless you wait for the afternoon sea breeze to fill in. Then you get 10-15knts from around the NW from around 4pm till 8pm, then it dies down again to give you a quiet night and mirror calm waters in the morning. You need to be a bit careful in some places because the sea breeze gets accelerated around headlands and over the steep hills of some Islands and can increase to 25+ in no time at all. We found this out at Vathi on Ithaca where there was close to 40knts blowing down the mountains, a quick U turn and a mile south found us in a great calm anchorage with only 15knt gusts every now and then. Friends who were in Vathi at the time said it was pretty horrible in the harbour so we think we made the right decision. The other great thing about the Ionian is that the sea never builds to anything like rough so you can be sailing in 20knts of wind, 30 deg C and practically flat seas, just about ideal really!!!

We have a week to potter around before Sue heads back to Oswestry for a week so we are heading to some of the quieter spots for a few days then over to Argostoli, Cephalonia where we should bump into quite a few friends from Ragusa since everyone seems to be depositing or collecting guests at Argostoli about the same time.