It’s a Small World

Morning brought sunshine and Daidre’s birthday. Her and Nate went for crepes at a nearby taverna while the rest of settled for the same old boat food. Then Ravi and I hit the town to look for groceries, a phone charger for me and some more energy drinks to replenish our non existent stash. Most of the stores are really little and a bit messy. We could find some stuff here, some there, so we ended up wandering into a lot of shops. By the time we got to the phone charger store Ravi already had a full clear bag of energy drinks. We passed a drink cooler as we stepped in and I saw a new kind of drink we hadn’t tried yet. Of course we grabbed a couple. The storekeeper looked at Ravi, one bag loaded with energy drinks and two more in his hands and her eyes grew massive. “Does he..really…” and her voice died away. “No, he doesn’t” I told her. “We are actually provisioning a boat with others on it too”. She seemed quite relieved. He did cut quite a spectacular picture!

The ferry came in just as we were about to cast off, so we waited and watched till it got out of our way. It’s always fun watching these huge ferries steam up and execute perfect med moorings, dropping their anchors at just the right spot, throwing their lines to the dock hands and smoothly landing. Makes me want to be a ferry pilot when I grow up.

We stopped at a little harbor called Vathy for lunch and a walk about. From there we idled along, sometimes nosing into bays to have a look see, sometimes tying up to a quay or dock and actually walking. We oggled One House Bay on Atokos, a tiny island with indeed only one house, went looking on another island for a large cave that allegedly was used to hide submarines during the war. We think we found it, but it didn’t quite match the description. Regardless, we were all too lazy to launch the dinghy and really explore so we shrugged and went on to yet another Vathy on yet another island where we spent a peaceful night. Rain pitter pattered overhead but we were cozy and warm.

Friday, our last day aboard and also our 21st wedding anniversary! The clouds were moving in and there were warnings of scattered thunderstorms, some with torrential rains. We had been at a peaceful sheltered dock so we spent a bit of time in the morning doing docking practice. Ravi and Nate both wanted to try their hand at it and Heath said I had to. I did not want to one little bit, as the last docking I did turned into a bit of a disaster, but with 4 people cheering me on and saying encouraging words, I relented. I won’t lie, my legs were literally quivering, but with all the positive energy all three of us managed beautiful dockings. We clapped and cheered and now maybe I have taken one step towards healing that particular ptsd trigger.

We tootled through a deep protected harbor that many boats use to ride out storms. It was amazing how full it was even now! I guess there is a storm on the other side of the islands, so maybe that was why. We had fun seeing which flags all the boats were flying. These had come from all over the world. It was the hard core sailing crowd that crossed oceans. Their boats looked weathered and well used. Some also didn’t look very big at all! Somehow it seems so hard to cross an ocean in anything shorter than 50ft. Clearly hundreds of people do it every year. Probably thousands.

We made a circle around Skorpios Island once owned by Jacki O’s husband. They owned two islands there actually and turned the main one into a large garden sanctuary for Jacki to entertain her high profile guests. It didn’t look like one bit of fun to live there. There was a beach house, but they had had to build a large fence across the front of it between the beach and the house, I suppose for privacy and security. Security cameras were all over and signs were posted that we needed to keep our distance and not anchor or beach or look or sniff or anything. I’m not sure who owns it now, but reviews say if you get too close security will come out on a boat and question you. There was a big old harbor where they used to keep the Onassis yacht docked. This yacht, Christina O. is 325’ long and the bar stools are upholstered with the foreskins of whales. The following is from Wikipedia.

The ship originally served as a Canadian anti-submarine River-class frigate HMCS Stormont, launched in 1943. Stormont served as a convoy escort during the Battle of the Atlanticand was present at the Normandy landings.^[6]Onassis purchased Stormont after the end of World War II as naval surplus, at a scrap value of US$34,000. He spent US$4 million to convert the vessel into a luxury yacht, the first postwar superyacht.^[7] He named it after his daughter Christina.

Lunch was in a harbor about an hour from base and by now it was raining in earnest. Our Bimini Top leaked like a sieve, so if you were in the cockpit you got wet. Nate’s had brought full rain gear, so they graciously did some of the worst outside stuff. Thunder rumbled and it started to feel a bit chilly and miserable.

As we idled into Marina D back at Lefkada, the heavens opened and we experienced the torrential part of the forecast along with small hail and magnificent thunder. We were allowed to stay on the boat for night yet, but we all opted to go find somewhere dry. We unloaded between squalls and some of us didn’t know what to do while the base personnel went over everything on and under the boat so we showered. The marina had delightfully hot showers and other luxuries like hairdryers. I showered and showered and showered.

Heath said he had never had such a thorough check out process in his life. I guess they had plenty of time since we were the only people to check. He even checked to see if any of the toilets were plugged, cause apparently that’s a huge problem. The dude said that people eat olives and just swallow the pits, and that’s one of the most common things they find when they unplug the system. Olive pits. Well, if they find that after us it will surely be a miracle.

And that was it. Fun sail over. Maybe we’ll see the Ionians again someday, but probably not. There’s not nearly as much to see there as in the Aegean Sea, and we feel like we’ve seen it.

Until next time-