Sailing with Moondance : After Corfu

Corfu again was a delight. A lovely green island

We spent most of our time in Kommeno- just outside Gouvia Marina, with various bus rides to Corfu town to visit the extensive markets, sort out internet, get supplies etc.

Kontokoli village has changed, with growth of the marina, marine related business has expanded with bigger, better stocked stores, post Brexit there are fewer Brit visitors, so the "feel" in the village has changed.

In Gouvia, we caught up briefly with Dr Andreas Kalampalikis, who has a very busy surgery established.

After moving to Garitsa - the town anchorage, and checking out of Corfu, we had souvlaki lunch with Babis and Wendy Kazianis, and their god daughter - cruising friends from NZ.

Next morning we motored to Petriti. A very pleasant anchorage in Southern Corfu. This time we anchored just south of the marina and restaurants.

O. Fanari was our next anchorage. A big day to the mouth of the River Acheron (Styx) where souls enter Hades. A very rolly anchorage, and no sleep.

The larger town of Preveza was next, and a very safe land locked anchorage in "Turtle Bay" - no turtles this year, but a large dolphin cruised slowly by - in only 3metres of water.

Preveza town was visited to stock up on supplies -not much appears to have changed in 5 years, considering the Mermaid Restaurant from pre 2006 still exists this is not surprising.

It has ben quite windy for the last week, and temperatures have dropped. A respite from the constant high temperatures. The water is warm, so does not help in keeping cool.

Wildfires and heat

During this time, Corfu, Rhodes and the mainland experienced extensive wildfires. This caused major disruption to some hotels full of tourists, smoke everywhere, loss of houses, vehicles etc and unfortunately loss of life when 2 people in a fire fighting plane crashed. We really feel for the people affected.

Leaving Preveza we headed to Levkas for fuel, big shop for supplies and a night in the marina. The waterfront is busy with multi directional roads and strips of restaurants along the quay. We braved crossing the road to a very good bakery/gelato shop.

We left our dinghy in Levkas for repair, and in the 3 days that took, waited on anchor at the South end of the Canal. Weather has been very calm and hot. It was pleasant and our time basically relaxing and swimming went quickly enough. Dinghy recovered, we headed to Nydri.

Nydri has not changed much. The hardware store, Chandlery, Marine store and Stathi's restaurant all look the same with the same staff and different patronage.

First Electrical Storm

Anchored safely in Tranquil Bay I went ashore to check in and get a few things for the boat. Nothing different.

We have had a predicted electrical storm for about a week now on the weather report, so made sure we had enough room. This always leaves the temptation for insecure sailors to think they can get ahead of you and sure enough, we had two yachts arrive and come a bit close. The night was calm, with the storm predicted for Saturday afternoon. I went ashore in the morning and bought the supplies needed for the yacht. The hardware store had been closed the previous day.

Going back to the yacht, the two other yachts looked like they had no intention of moving, so we upped anchor and moved a mile North into Vliho Bay. A large enclosed bay with plenty of room and good holding. A good decision, but annoying when yachts anchoring later in Tranquil Bay had run over our chain the day before and were too close. We had an alarm on our phones regarding the weather event which preempted the move.

I made a Faraday cage for the electronics as we do not have a microwave . The storm turned out to be a reasonably moderate tea cup. An hour of thunder and mostly sheet lightning. Raewyn saw lightning hit the hill. No damage to yachts. Enough rain to have a freshwater shower, not much wind and it was over. It is possible to watch the approaching weather on our phones, so we knew it was nothing sinister.