SERENITY NOW

  26th Aug 2020 (Porto Kagio - Milos) Hadn’t written one of these for a few days, and as I have some time on my hands (on an overnight passage to Milos), thought I’d catch up on our travels.  We’d spent a few days in the bay at Porto Kagio, distinctive small stone maniote tower houses dot the surrounding hills. The bay was a quite swelly at night, some way beyond ‘rock a bye baby’, which made for some interrupted nights. There we enjoyed a nice dinner on the beach: tzatziki, ‘small fishes’ (what we’d call whitebait) and octopus marinated in vinegar - all very nice. The friendly staff there also offered to buy us some bread when the delivery arrived the following morning, there being no baker in the village. Sure enough, a call of ‘Reechard!’ from the beach the following morning had me rowing over to pick up two fresh loaves. The evening before we left, we'd seen a strange reddish/brown sunset, sadly having seen a few of these in our time, knew it to be a bushfire somewhere l...

  17th Aug 2020 (Methoni) The day before our 30th Wedding anniversary... woke to cloud dappled skies, a nice change from the close to unbearable heat and unrelenting sunshine we’ve had for the last month or so. ....having written that, I must point out that I am fully aware that there are very many worse problems we could be suffering! We’re anchored in 3m of crystal clear water into a good sandy bottom in the bay of Methoni.  I head over to shore early to pick up some decent wifi, and to chat to Char about the lodger situation (no luck just yet, trying to fill the space left by Matt the Canadian lumberjack). Town is populated by a few sweepers cleaning the areas outside their restaurants, and groups of rotund nonnas heading for their morning float around - you can’t exactly call it swimming, as it’s just standing in the water and sharing the previous days gossip. Return to the boat, and after a brekkie of baked beans with some exceptionally good bread (from a baker in Pil...

  15 August 2020 (Pilos) We arrived yesterday afternoon at a single yacht sized enclosed bay just North of the town of Pilos on the Greek mainland... well on the South West Peloponnese to be accurate.  It’s quite shallow, so with some trepidation Chez took us in, while I manned the bow on the lookout for swimmers and any submerged rocks that might not have been charted. Once in and happy with our spot, we dropped anchor in 3m and settled down. The bay is open to the sea to the West, small rocky cliffs North and South (the Northern one sporting an impressive looking castle ruin and large cave) and around its Eastern edges lays a long sweeping sandy beach. The Greeks (as I understand it) are marking the entry of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, and have been given a public holiday to celebrate. This has translated into the beach now being well populated with laughing children, umbrellas, scantily clad ladies, muscled chaps splashing around, and one or two dads being happily buried...

  9th Aug 2020 (Ithaki to Zante) Awoke early in the bay at Vathi. Vathi is home to Ulysses, whose tale of his ten year round trip back here following the Trojan War is told in Homer’s Odyssey. Our own memories of Vathi will be marked by ABBA playing loudly until 4am. ....I’m starting to realise quite how old and grumpy I am; I’m sure there were numerous people out for their holiday who, merrily drunk at a quarter to four, would have loved to hear ‘Waterloo’ played at high volume through large crap distorting speakers one more time, and it may well have been the highlight of their holiday... but for me, laying in bed, trying to sleep, it wasn’t well received. We both got up, too tired for chatting, went about the pre-departure routine in silence, both being fully aware of what was needed to get underway. Once the anchor was up, I remarked to Chez that we were like Morecambe and Wise in their well rehearsed breakfast sketch. (I’m the tall funny one) Today we’re heading back to our...

  6th Aug 2020 (Meganisi - Kalamos) Having spent a few days on anchor at Vliho on Lefkas - and catching up with Glen and Lynn on their catamaran ’Magnificat’. We filled up with water and swapped some books at the Vliho yacht club - a fancy name for a well run bar restaurant catering to a very British clientele. We left the busy, almost alpine looking cove and made our way through the throngs of charter yachts swarmed around Nidri (not as many as usual apparently) and back out into open water. Made a short hop down to Meganisi - passing the island of Skorpios previously owned by Aristotle Onassis, (now owned by a Russian Oligarch). Found a peaceful and only partially occupied small bay, and tied back to shore - a skill that we are slowly but surely becoming more proficient at. Meganisi has a sad reputation for rats, after the local cat population was wiped out - so to avoid any unwanted guests, we fitted serrated plastic bottles to our lines to deter any inquisitive rodents. ...