It’s the 25th October, we leave for London tomorrow. We will miss ΟΧΙ day, celebrated on the 28th, we are near to the clocks falling back and to the spooky goings on of Hallowe’en. We are in Gouvia Marina, Corfu.
Since bursting out of the gulf of Patras into the Ionian Sea with a terrific sail in a mostly F5/6, and a very happy husband, we lingered for as many days as we could in our favourite bay in Ithaca, made a reconnaissance trip from Lefkas to Ag Nikitas on the west coast and stopped off at Lakka on Paxos.
Next year I hope to attend the Omilo Greek language course again, this time in Lefkada, so we hired electric bikes and checked out the location. Stupidly I had not packed swimming things so I bought, at end of season prices, a swimsuit and towel. The swimming is really lovely at this time of the year. Ag Nikitas was very pretty, if a little twee.
Now we are in our winter berth B 294 in Gouvia Marina on Corfu. Our plumy position on B pontoon secured, in part by request but more I think by the lovely girls in Zea Marina, chatted up by Andy, who put in a good word for us. Whatever it was it worked.
Our trip from Lefkada north was very wet. It was necessary to ‘heave to’ twice, as we pirouetted under thunder and lightning and didn’t know which way the wind would turn – it bucketed down!
The first day in the Marina capped the previous day. Water simply poured unabated from gray skies, creating great puddles and soaking us through. The girls in the office asked us if we had swum to reach them, we felt like ducks. However next day the skies were clear, the sun shone drying everything up and Incy Wincy spider came out again.
This last week we have had my dear sister-in-law Noel with us. We spent a couple of days at one of our favourite places, Ag Stefanos. Our days were relaxed with lots of swimming, the occasional cocktail, eating good food, some souvenir shopping, oh! and a practice kayak capsize and recover.
We visited Kassiopi and moved some swimming dragon Qi Gong on the aft deck.
We anchored underneath the castle and dinghied into the magical moat, braving the hissing goose protecting his mate.
On the last day we even had a good wind to sail by. It blew down the narrows between Albania and Corfu, at its narrowest point a scant 2 kilometres and where, before the regime of the 1990’s fell, many an Albanian attempted to gain freedom by swimming. There is an annual Corfu to Albania swim and all shipping traffic is warned as it is a busy conduit for both Cruise ships and ferries.
Back in Gouvia and Andy is, as ever, setting in motion a series of improvements to our faithful floating home. We reconnected with Spiro, the rigger who sent a wonderful young man, Laertis, to talk about improvements to the steel work of the Bimini structure. We complimented him on his English and rather abashed he told us that he’d learned most of his English from the Holy Trinity Anglican Sunday School, his mother being Dutch. What a gift, all those languages. I finally shed my guitar, which I have not played in ages and took up too much room. I posted it, free to good home on the Mairna Facebook page and in minutes Argiris replied and arranged to come by the following morning. What a serendipitous meeting! His business is Corfu Boat & Yacht Services and he will be a boon in the summer when we want to lift the boat out and do some essential below water line checks. He put us in touch with yet another charming man, Nikos, who is an engineer and while we are away over winter will come and sort out some of the engine anomalies.
So that is the end of our sailing season for 2022.
At around three and a half months on the water, an improvement on the two months in each of the covid years. We are still extremely vexed with Brexit.
Selkie Dancer Sailing 2022 