Montenegro to Lefkas

We started the 175 mile passage from Budva, Montenegro to Gouvia marina, Corfu at 0930 and arrived 33 hours later having not sailed an inch. The distance through the water was 190 miles meaning that we suffered an average of nearly half a knot of adverse tide. Who says there’s no tide in the Mediterranean?

Miggy trailed her fishing line but apart from the ‘big one that got away’ she didn’t catch a thing. We glimpsed Albania as dawn broke before we were enveloped in dense fog, or was it smog, for an hour or so. As the fog cleared we saw a large school of Dolphins circling and Tuna jumping, both feeding on their small fish prey. We tentatively sailed through former minefields, now considered ‘not dangerous to surface navigation’, along the arid mountainous Albanian coast until we reached the north east tip of the contrastingly luxuriant green island of Corfu. At this point Albania is only a mile from Corfu. With its relatively recent Democracy and political stability Albania is opening up to tourism. Yachts are returning to Albanian waters and yachtsmen report fair but cumbersome formalities and friendly and welcoming people. The Authorities’ main concern is drug running and stowaways.

The temperature in Corfu was lower than we had in Croatia and Montenegro but the humidity was much higher making life quite uncomfortable. A little after our arrival the heavens opened and we had a dramatic thunder storm which lasted for an hour or two. In fact the weather was poor from then for a further two weeks during which we had rain, thunderstorms and cool temperatures sometimes low enough to abandon the shorts and T shirts for trousers and fleeces! We have had two weeks of rain in these lush green islands and still they charge us €3 to €5 for 200 litres of water. It is almost cheaper to buy the bottled stuff.

Formalities in the marina were handled by a rather disinterested young man. He had a laugh at Miggy’s port documentation form which she had translated into Greek. In fact she had merely transposed letters from the Latin alphabet to the Greek alphabet. The words were, of course, meaningless. Miggy later translated the port documentation using the Yachtsman’s Ten Language Dictionary and the phrase book and the Port Police lady was impressed! The cost of the marina at 34€ was twice what we had expected. It was surprising to find that it was high season until the end of September.

We are used to being on the flight path to airport runways but never before have we been within 20 metres of the taxiway from an aircraft’s stand to the runway. The seaplane from Corfu to Lefkas, Patras, Brindisi and other places is based at Gouvia Marina. We had 10 kilos of laundry done for 24€. Miggy was ecstatic not to have had to wash all that by hand.

Customs procedures, as we thought them to be, were carried out by three people doing one persons job but they were happy and welcoming. We had to pay £35 which included an entry tax and our Traffic Document (DEKPA). We discovered on leaving Corfu that these people were not the Customs but the Port Police and that we were actually persona non grata. We were told to try to clear Customs at our next port of call. We tried this at Gaios on the island of Paxos but the Officer waved us away when he learnt that we and the boat were British!

We have finally found out where all the Brits hang out. It is here in Corfu. There are some who have annual contracts, some who, like us, are passing through and some who have been here for years and who, looking at the state of their boats, will never move again. Some have moved base from marinas in Croatia here to Corfu because of the inhibitive expense of Croatia.

The Ionian Islands are the greenest and most luxuriant of all Greek archipelagos. Corfu, the most northerly Island, is the most verdant of all with one of the highest winter rainfalls in Greece. It is mountainous in the north with pine and cypress clad slopes interspersed with the silver grey of olive sloping down to the waters’ edge. Cows graze and much of Corfu’s plentiful produce grows on the fertile plains in the south.

Corfu is the fabled home of the Phaeacians who ferried Odysseus home to Ithaka in the 13th century BC. The desire for Corfu’s independence from the Corinthians who colonised the island from the 8th to the 5th century BC involved the Athenians and the Spartans and led circuitously to the Peloponnesian war that was in effect the demise of Athens and classical Greece. The Romans holidayed here during from the 3rd century BC until the 8th century AD when the Byzantines took power until the 11th century. After three hundred years in the wilderness the Venetians ruled until the end of the 18th century. The French had a go for seventeen years until the British took over for 50years and introduced cricket, croquet, ginger beer and fruit cake. Corfu finally ceded to Greece in 1864.

The fact that the monsoon arrived as soon as we set foot in Corfu town may have clouded our opinion of the place. In the two and a half years that we have been travelling around the Mediterranean, however, we have visited many interesting and beautiful towns and cities among which Corfu town does not rank.

The legacy of the Venetians, the French and the British is evidenced in some fine architecture but the buildings are grimy and in disrepair. The Old Venetian fortress that would have been subject to continual restoration and repair in any other town or city is neglected and actually partly collapsed. The stucco surfaces of The Palace of St Michael and St George built by the British and the home of the Greek royal family for a short time and of the French built Liston whose colonnades now house expensive cafes are grimy black as if the edifices were situated in the Welsh valleys. Even the cricket pitch has the indignity of being surrounded on three sides by car parks. The maze of narrow alleyways over which Corfiot housewives hang their washing from the balconies and the shady cobbled squares are picturesque but the buildings need far-reaching renovation. We did all the sightseeing prescribed including climbing to the top turret of the Old Fortress and then returned to the Marina where we had a very good Greek cuisine meal at a reasonable price.

A rare but wonderful and exhilarating reach from the marina at Corfu took us to Ormiskos Valtou hear Igoumenitsa on the mainland shore. We anchored in this secluded and picturesque bay for three nights. A tiny Belgian yacht called Dushi with Yannis and Agni on board that was beside us in the Marina also came in to the bay later on. The thunder roared and the rain poured and it blew up to 30 knots but we were secure and happy; that is until our anchor dragged after three mighty gusts hits us. The mud we had dropped our anchor on was soft and not the sticky stuff that holds well. We moved into a little more shelter and were fine from then on.

Herds of goats were heralded by their beautifully toned bells, herons flew from rock to tree and back to rock and the fish jumped high. This was a wonderfully natural and tranquil place.

Our next destination was Gaios on the island of Paxos. We were happy to see that Yannic and Agni on Dushi were of like mind.

The islands of Paxos and its tiny partner Antipaxos form the smallest archipelago of the Ionian Island group. Paxos is an island of endless olive groves and Antipaxos is one large vineyard. There are 2500 inhabitants on the islands but they are invaded by 200,000 visitors during the summer months mostly arriving by boat from Corfu and Parga on the mainland. Homer was the first to refer to Paxos and thereafter its history is much the same as that of Corfu except that the Turks managed to invade twice during the 16th century.

Gaios waterfront is pictographic with its multi coloured 19th century buildings with Venetian fashion shutters and balconies. Behind are the historic narrow streets with their cafes, tavernas and shops. It is a sleepy place, except when invaded by the tourist boats, and the atmosphere is sociable and, I guess, ‘Greek’.

During our forty mile trip from Gaios to the Gulf of Amvrika amongst thunderstorms we passed Preveza, the winter storage ashore Mecca for those not wintering aboard. The Amvrika Gulf is an extensive and virtually landlocked sea surrounded by impressive distant mountains. It had little to offer us, however, with cloudy water and unsheltered anchorages.

Vonitsa waterfront is attractive but nothing particularly special. We walked around the town which is relatively modern and clearly tourist orientated. The tourists have gone home now, however, and the place looks forlorn and feels lifeless. Even the Venetian fort on top of the hill, in the course of renovation with EU money, was closed. We moored amongst a number of other Brits and Germans waiting to be lifted out of the water at Preveza. There are British and German boat gypsies here as well because there is no payment for berthing.

We arrived at the entrance to the narrow ship canal that has separated Lefkas Island from the mainland since antiquity on time for the road bridge to open which it duly did. A German yacht, last in the queue, typically went through first! Why do they have this towel bagging mentality and always want to be first and to be where you are? The entrance is narrow with a sand bar extending from the western point which I had erroneously ignored when fixing my waypoint. Luckily Miggy had spotted another yacht going behind the bar so we are still afloat! On our way down the canal we saw a varied selection of bird life including, to our utter amazement, Pelicans.

Faint memories of happy weeks of sailing here some thirty years ago came back to me as we made our way to Nidri on the east coast of Lefkas Island. We moored to the crowded town quay squeezed into one of the two vacant spaces. The quay and the wrongly named Tranquil Bay were crammed with yachts most of which were British flagged or on charter and the waterfront was wall to wall restaurants and Tavernas. The smell of bad cooking oil and drains is rife. It is all particularly disillusioning for me as I recall a small town with a quay occupied by just a few yachts and a bay that reflected its name of Tranquil. Still Miggy was ecstatic that she managed to find a good, inexpensive laundry.

We were pleased to leave the quay and wend our way through the crowd of anchored yachts to the large but sheltered Vlikho Bay just a mile or so away where we anchored, waiting to take up our berth in Lefkas Marina. We didn’t want to get there until the end of September as the high season rates of €34 a night applies until then. This Bay, which is really just an extension of the parking lot for Nidri, was relatively crowded when we arrived and got more so as the day wore on. Ultimately a flotilla of 12 Jaguar 27’s parked very close to us. These are the very yachts that we used to sail here nearly thirty years ago and I seem to recall that ‘Andros’ anchored very near us was the yacht we had on one trip.

We have booked flights to arrive back in the UK on the 16th December and to return to Athens on the 29th January 2008. This wasn’t easy as Easyjet made an error with our online booking and confirmed and took payment for a booking for flights they had previously told us were full. Thus, although we have successfully booked a flight home, we paid twice for it. The airline considered this to be our error and no amount of argument would convince them otherwise. They would not give a refund and so we have had to settle for a credit against further flights. Bring back Stavros! Anyway we look forward very much to seeing family and friends whilst we are at home.

We are pleased to have arrived at our winter base after a season of seven months during which we have travelled over 2500 miles. Our address at Lefkas Marina from the 1st October will be:

Lefkas Marina S.A.
Lefkas East Shore 31 100
Lefkas
Greece

Our mobile Greek number is +30 6955948709

For those early risers Miggy’s dulcet tones will be heard on BBC Radio Solent at around 0635 on Wednesday the 22nd October 2008.