Otranto and Brindisi

Yacht harbor from walls

We called Andrea - the harbour master - on his mobile an hour before we arrived and he was there smiling and helpful to see us in to the quay. To our pleasant surprise it was only €15 per night including water.
Otranto is a small but pretty fortified seaside town. Very Italian with little or no English spoken. The harbour is large and safe although Northerlies push enough surge in to need springs on the lines (from personal experience).

Otranto town walls

We went looking for internet contracts - there turned out to be only one small Vodafone shop but actually did all 3 main networks. We had difficulty following the technical Italian but eventually figured out that we should come back the next day as there was some sort of a promotion starting. So we did. After lots mor waffling, I still didn't fully get it so we went for a Vodafone pay as you go - €25 for 1 month or 7Gig. We'll try to get a better deal in a bigger town.
We intended to go out for a meal that night but the weather was so horrible (wet, cold & windy) that even the cat didn't want to go out.

Tiny piece of the huge mosaic

Friday was blue sky and sunshine. The town was alive with people promenading and enjoying the end of the Easter holiday. Did sight seeing - lots of little winding back street and little shops. The most impressive sight was the byzantine cathedral. Gorgeous rose window and a seriously weird mosaic covering the whole floor - the medieval mind was very strange. Well worth a visit.

We left for Brindisi at crack of dawn the next day. The wind was moderate and behind us all the way so we sailed for 8 hours. Did the last few miles on motor as the wind died and we were being chased by a thunder storm. The harbor is huge and very well sheltered. The outer part is entirely commercial. The inner part has a town quay, a Lega Navale pontoon and a Marina. As we got there, the heavens opened - very cold and very wet. The town quay looked completely full. We lurked hopefully outside the Lega Navale until a bloke with a large umbrella came out - and told us to go away. There is a huge mooring space below the Mussolini steps with nobody on it. We called the harbormaster on VHF to try to get permission to moor there. He passed us on to VTS who passed us on to Brindisi Pilot. Everyone friendly but negative. The Pilot told us there are only 3 places we can moor - the quay, the Lega Navale or the marina. Where did we want to go?
"The town Quay".
"It's full" (we knew that).
"OK - the Lega Navale".
He spoke to them and told us to call them on VHF 9. We did - no answer. Repeated several times. In the end, we gave up and went to the Marina - expecting it to be €50. It was a pleasant surprise to find it "only" €22 with free water, elec & showers. We were cold wet and miserable and decided to stay 2 nights.

Brindisi Duomo

The following day dawned blue and warm. We took the number 5 bus into town from outside the marina (after a long 3/4 hour wait). The town was closed (not really surprising as it was Sunday). We wandered round a bit, saw the fountain, Apian way column and cathedral, then ended up just missing the bus back and waited another hour. It's not entirely Brindisi's fault but we won't remember it with a great deal of warmth.

Brindisi Marina

A very Italian way of "sailing".

Crossing to Italy

The weather did as predicted so we set off on Monday morning at 04:30 with a light wind behind us. Dawn broke as we rounded the North East bulge of Corfu.We had a nice sail along the North coast although once we started out to the islands, the residual swell from the past 3 days of strong Southerlies made life less comfortable. We bypassed Erikousa as it only has shelter from the North and anchored in Fika bay on the North side of Othoni at 14:00. Heikel says it has good sandy patches but also rocky ones so put a trip line on the anchor in case it gets stuck. He isn't kidding!
After a few hours we noticed the only other boat anchored there moving around and eventually putting a diver down. We thought their anchor must be stuck. Actually it turned out to be the chain - and we got the same problem. A bit of the anchor chain got stuck under a rock and the boat started to object to the now short length of chain going more or less straight down. With no elasticity, every little wave put huge stresses on the bow.
It was getting dark so I tried letting out a bit more chain then fixing some extra rope with rubber gizmos onto the chain to take some of the strain. It worked but it wasn't a very restful night - with me cogitating on how to use the dinghy to retrieve the anchor if we couldn't free the chain and L fretting about going into the freezing cold water with her scuba gear on.
D got up and made coffee - and noticed we still had company. By the time it was properly light and we went outside, they had gone. We suspect they may have had to abandon their anchor and chain. We fervently hoped we weren't going to be in the same situation.
As soon as the sun came up, we pulled the chain in until we could see the rock that had us - straight below. We could see which side it went under so we positioned the boat and pulled hard with the windlass. after 3 minutes of grinding and snatching it came free and we were able to get the anchor up and leave for Italy - not forgetting to pour a libation for Poseidon.
The crossing was mostly uneventful. The wind was too light to get us to Otranto in the light so we motor sailed all the way and arrived safely in harbour at 17:00

I tought I taw a puddy tat

On the way, two small birds landed and rested foe a while. Lucifer was asleep for the first one but wide awake and desperate to get at it for the second. The birds had no idea how close they came to a very nasty surprise!

Corfu

Well we enjoyed Corfu. Mandraki Yacht club gave us good shelter for a reasonable price (€25) in a fabulous location right underneath the castle. As we had hoped, we were there for Easter. We walked up to the town on Good Friday to see the processions. Each church organises a separate one and the priest, altar boys, scouts, clubs and bands associated with the church wind slowly through the alleyways of Corfu town looking solemn and playing funeral music (mostly drums). JC of course is dead and this is the funeral.

On Saturday morning there are more processions and all the houses have red cloths hanging from the windows and balconies. Television teams are all in place on cranes. amid massive crowds. Then, just before 11:00, the streets are cleared by the police, the church bells ring and suddenly everyone in the flats and houses is throwing pots - some of them huge - out of the windows and onto the street to loud cheers and applause from the crowds below. Only in Corfu apparently. But why? Well we heard three different explanations:

• The loud bangs as the pots hit the road scare evil away
• It commemorates when the women who went to JC's tomb to clean and wrap him up, they had pots of water with them. They were so surprised to find him gone that they dropped the pots.
• The pots represent Judas's head.

On Saturday night, there is a short service in the park and everyone lights and holds a candle. At midnight, the bishop intones "Christos Anesti!" (Christ is risen) and all hell breaks loose. Bells, music, people shouting to each other and fireworks. The party goes on most of the night. Sunday is a family day like Christmas day in UK.

All the family comes out

Falling Pots

Winding up the audience

And over she goes

The aftermath

Gulfs & Ionian to Corfu

We a spent a good night in Kiato. There was room in the Fishing harbour so we went alongside and even got free water. We had intended to stop and catch our breath but the forecast looked good to get to Galaxidhi or even possibly Trizonia so we set off at first light - missing the delights of the early morning fish market and the fantastic church. But the gulf was beautiful in the dawn light. Calm, peaceful and with lots of little fishing boats hauling in their catches.

We had a really nice sail to Galaxidhi - glorious dawn and a gentle breeze to waft us along. In fact it was so nice that we decided to go right on and head for Trizonia. Mistake! We got about 5 miles past when, within 5 minutes, the wind had turned 180 degrees and was now a force 6 on the nose - and still 15 miles to go. Very unpleasant! So we turned tail and ran to the little bay called"Apomeri" just as you turn North to go to Galaxidhi. There are fish farm in the entrance and a large fish-farm-factory on the side but there is masses of room to get by and once you are inside and round yet another corner there is 100% shelter in lovely surroundings. An excellent anchorage. Even the fish farm is clean, modern and appears amazingly well managed.

The wind the following day was forecast as behind us so we flew the spinnaker and had a great run up to the bridge. The wind got a bit strong so we dropped it and took the bridge with the white flappy things. It was a bit lumpy but otherwise great all the way to Messolonghi. We "raced" a German boat that came out of Trizonia as we passed and beat him hands down. Got our towels down in the marina well befre he arrived. Messolonghi hasn't changed much. Still a bit tatty but appears reasonably priced at first. That's until you realise how much the little blue cards are costing - everything is charged and not at a cheap rate. Still it was only one night and they do have nice showers - which we were desperately in need of.

An so onwards. Back down the canal and out to sea. We passed a fisherman standing up and punting in what looked like a kyak - Lucky it was calm and even so I don't see how he managed to keep his balance! It was nearly windless until 1500 so we motored gently round Oxia, past Petalidhi and on towards Meganisi. By now we had a strong beam wind and seas to go with it so we were screaming along at 6.5 Knots. It got dark as we reached Vliho and dived in for the night and to ride out the predicted nastiness the next day.


And nasty it was - one thunder cell that came over gave us white-out conditions and 50 knot winds. Luckily it only lasted 10 minutes as, 10 minutes later, there was a knock on the hull and Rory, the guardianage man, told us we had dragged our anchor and were now too close to the boat behind (one of his charges). We hastily up-anchored and moved out into a less crowded area. Unfortunately that put us out of reasonable range for an evening meal at the yacht club so we ate on board. Ho hum.
Thursday morning dawned bright and calm so we slid up to Nidhry for L to do some shopping. The place is still half dead in April (and all the better for it in my opinion). As you can see from teh picture thogh, they're getting ready for the tourists.
While she was away, the wind got up but it still looked OK so we headed for Levkas. Canal was very smooth and quick so we were free and only 2.00. Where should we go - Preveza, Paxos, Corfu? we decided to go for Lakka. In the eevent we chickened out when it got dark and dove into Mongonisi - a perfect little anchorae on the south end of Paxos. Pity to miss Lakka but we had  a quiet calm night in there.
In the morning it rained but then cleared. We wanted to try to get to Corfu for Easter but hadn't expected to make it because of weather. But now we were within spitting distance. So we took our lives in our hands (well actually just our comfort) and set off. Before going we poured our customary libation to Poseidon. He looked after us as several nasty looking thunderstorms skimmed us on the way but none gave us the full works. We even spotted a few tornadoes forming but none touched down. We made Mandraki in Corfu at 2.00 and dropped anchor in our usual spot outside NAOK. A good anchorage but vulnerable to southerly winds - which are forecast for tonight. I took the dinghy through the castle moat and round to the Yacht club on teh North side. They had a berth which we have taken for 3 nights. We'll sit here, recover our breath and hopefully enjoy the Easter celebrations. then if the weather is good, check out of Greece on Sunday and head for Otranto in Italy via Erikousa or Othoni (the last tiny islands in Greece).

From Eastern Greece to Western (through the Corinth Canal).

Well, it's been a couple of weeks noow and we've made a lot of progress. We just went through the Corinth Canal and will spend the night (and possibly Sunday) in Kiato.
We stayed 4 nights in Spinalonga waiting for a good weather window to cross the Aegean to Idra and Poros. Desi and Chris on Skylark II are sailing along with us and we also met up with Andy and Steph on Norna Biron. Had a very restful stay - hopping across the bay a couple of times for shopping and to avoid the slight chop that builds up in strong winds (of which there were plenty). As always, we were safe as houses in this superb anchrage.
We set off before dawn on Friday after pouring our custmoary libation to Poseidon. We played very safe with cape Ioanis and didn't put our sails up until well out to sea. We needn't have worried though - it was dead calm with just a light residual swell to keep us on our toes. In the case of poor Lucifer - he had a strong seasick pill poked down his throat and spent the next 18 hours mostly asleep but staggering around cross-eyed when he wasn't. We had to motor for about 6 hours until the expected tail wind kicked in and pushed us along at over 5 knots for most of the rest of the journey. Close to Milos it got a bit stronger than we wanted but other than that, it couldn't have been better.
I dithered a bit about where to make landfall as it was difficult to juggle time of arrival (we wanted to arrive before nightfall) distance, and swell direction - which was likely to make our original planned anchorage under Nisos Spathi untenable. In the end, we decided to go straight for Idra, checking out Mandraki on the way. Mandraki turned out to be useless as, although the swimming buoys had been removed, two huge power boats were tied up line ashore and hogging all the available space for swinging. They looked as if they had been left there to over-winter with crews on board. Idra harbour was as empty as I've ever seen it. It was also the noisiest.

There was a big athletics meeting going on with huge amounts of whistling and hooting. Everyone seemed to be involved from tiny kids to grandmothers. A lot of athletes had arrived by ferry and stayed over the Saturday night to compete on both days. They were running up various steep hills and back. It was lovely to see the Idriots enjoying themselves - and for themselves. Not just putting on a show for tourists.
And then to Poros - our favourite place in the Saronic. Skylark and another boat we had talked to in Idra were nervous about the narrow Poros channel so we did a mother duck and the ducklings act. We anchored in Navy bay to be serenaded every morning and evening by the Navy. The pontoon was side-to mooring at this time of year -a fact well worth remembering. Water also appeared to be free - at least it was turned on and there didin't seem to be anybody to pay.
After a final night of Mexican Trains, we planned to set off at dawn and head for Aegina. Oh the best laid plans... I switched on the plotter and got a "seatalk failure" error. No GPS, almost no plotter and no auto pilot. After an hour dismantling things and finding no problems, it suddenly burst into life. I hate that! Made a blind guess that it was related to the rather low state of our batteries and off we went. We sailed most of the way to Aegina. The swell was too strong to anchor comfortably outside the harbour (our original plan) so we med-moored in the almost empty harbor for L to do a quick shop and then headed for Angistri.
Nasty surprise - the pontoon which is usually reserved for visitors was occupied by small fishing boats which were far too small to tie up alongside. And squalls were expected. We headed for Korfos with two reefs (in case of squalls) in rapidly strengthening winds and seas. The anchor went down just as the first one hit.
I got up and made tea at first light then we got the boat ready to go. But when I turned the instruments on - "Seatalk Failure" again! After an hour fruitlessly opening things and waggling wires, there was no progress so we decided to use our hand held GPS. It always used to work fine with the Navionics charts we use in teh plotter but this time it refused! L suggested we pour a libation (we hadn't done the previous day - so we did after apologising humbly for neglecting him the previous day. I was just about to get the paper charts out when it all sprang back to life again! There is life in the old Gods yet!
Had a lovely sail up to the canal with Lucifer sleeping contentedly under the spray hood. Other than a serious (€145) pain in the pocket, the canal went smoothly. We even had time to fill up with Diesel very cheaply. We're just about to pull into Kiato so more later.