End of September

Settled weather at last! We are slowly finding out how things work down here by talking to fellow sailors we are meeting.

There are a lot of elderly sailors, many of whom are Brits, who spend long times in each place, often blocking quays and berths for the sailors on a journey and just passing through. There are also lots of abandoned and neglected boats littering quaysides. We even saw a couple that had sunk at the quayside. The locals tell us Greek law prevents their removal as it is the owner’s responsibility. Often the said owner has long since passed away, and there seems no way can such property be ‘moved on’. Consequently some quays, notably the west side of Vlikho Bay and parts of Lefkas Town Quay are spoilt, rendered unusable and the investment made in developing a nice promenade, wasted through neglect. Oh for a harbour master to sort it all out!

In spite of the fact we had a week of benign weather with precious little wind, we heard many horror tales of sailing in these waters. The most famous perhaps, that is well documented, was the Vlikho storm of September 2011. An extreme weather event that is quite rare in the Med, hit Vlikho Bay in the early evening and sent a hurricane force squall to cause chaos both on land and water. Boats were flattened, one capsized and a great deal of damage was done in the ten minute carnage. It had been a combination of weather runes aligning to trigger this very local effect; preceding strong southerly winds, abnormally high sea temperatures providing hot moist air to feed the thunderstorm, cold torrential rain typical of a downdraught from a thunderstorm cell; the whole event gave rise to a new weather term of ‘microburst’. Horrific and terrifying at the time of course, but many people will not go to Vlikho Bay now, even though paradoxically is had earned a reputation of being a ‘hurricane hole’ providing all round shelter!

We heard other tales of crowds in certain ports, nowhere to moor up unless you arrived by 11am, poor shelter, bad anchoring. Perhaps we were being warned off to leave the space for themselves!

This makes life very difficult if you want to sail, as the breeze doesn’t normally get going until after lunch!

On the other hand we met enough optimistic sailors who painted quite a different picture to restore our faith in sailing here. They were enthusiastic with refreshingly reassuring and inspirational tales of their own.

We enjoyed a couple of days in Sivota on the south eastern side of Lefkas where we tied up on Stavros’ pontoon. The deal was that Stavros provided the berth, water and power, and showers, we only had to eat in his taverna. Food was good and very reasonable, so that was no hardship.

Vlikho Bay was a must on our itinerary to bury the myth and we had a very peaceful couple of days exploring here. Big downside of the Bay though was the proliferation of jellyfish which rather curtailed ambitious swimming activity. Instead we did jobs on the boat, polishing the rails and cleaning up down below.

Nigel celebrated a birthday on September 26^th, waking up on anchor in Atheni Bay on Meganissi and having a very pleasant time snorkelling. We then sailed back over to Lefkas and tied up on the IBA pontoon in Nidri and spent a very pleasant evening in the busy tourist town. We discovered the delights of Nik the Greek’s tavern and retired that night very happily sated!

As we headed north again, we stopped off in Varko Bay which was featured in our last blog, with Nigel walking along the shore beside the sunshades, beds and bar. Here is a shot of the same shore, with all trace of the ‘pop up’ bar and facilities gone!

We renegotiated the Lefkas canal stopping off for one night in Lefkas Marina before going past the swing bridge at 11am and back out into open water to the north. It was quite a shock to get 20knots of wind but we had a fast sail back up to Preveza, and a pleasant anchorage behind the town marina.

Countdown to the lift out which proved to be a well organised operation and now Deja Vu is safely ashore. There has been plenty of work to do to winterise her, not least wrestling with her winter cover, but she is now buttoned up and battened down for any weather the winter may present.

It is crazily busy here at Cleopatra Marina, we have never seen so many boats ashore. Apparently the most in one place in Europe.

We have met up with friends we have made in the islands and will share a farewell supper tonight at Panos Taverna with Dave and Dee from Australia, Mandy and Bob from Hampshire. We have also met up with Ian and Glynis from Saddleworth, north of Manchester,  who kindly offered us a lift to the airport in their hire car. We are hoping to keep in touch with everyone and meet again next year.