The Corinth Canal

Passing through the Corinth canal on our own boat was a real privilege and special experience which we enjoyed enormously. Not only could we admire the engineering achievement of forming this 4km long, 25m wide channel through limestone towering nearly 80m above us, but we were also changing seas from the Ionian to the Aegean, which was quite a watershed moment.  At the far end of the Canal we had to tie up and pay the transit fee.  The Corinth canal is officially the most expensive waterway in the world.

We did have some fun and games in the couple of days leading up to the passage though.

We had enjoyed a broad reach from Galaxidi to Kiato, a town with a little used commercial harbour and small fishing harbour, where we expected to be mooring alongside on the commercial dock. As we approached we realised a change of plan would be needed. Taking up all the dock was a large cargo ship, with cranes and lorries on the dock busy unloading what seemed to be a very dusty cargo. Not an option to go anywhere near this operation and our brief excursion into the fishing harbour convinced us that we would not find a suitably deep place to stop here either.

It was 5pm and the wind was abating, so we decided to make a further two hours and try to berth up in Corinth harbour, which did offer the option of anchoring as a fall back option. Within an hour we were motoring into a strong headwind as a local north easterly whipped up a lively sea in the cul de sac of the eastern end of the Gulf.  Apparently this is quite the norm, so we found out later. The harbour at Corinth offered a commercial dock and a small yacht harbour, but it was all open to the northeast and the very shallow approach to the yacht harbour was untenable, as was the anchorage! No ships here, so a quick call to the Port Authority gave us permission to go onto the commercial dock. This turned out to be not so easy but we managed to find a space between the huge rubber fenders where the boat could come alongside sufficiently close for Mo to leap off with the warps! The wind did not help, but a charming Greek fisherman minding his own business did help haul in the ropes and get us tied up. It was a very bumpy night. First thing for us in the windless morning   we made our way into the tiny yacht harbour where the only space we had identified the previous evening had been taken by a yacht that had come in stealthily in the calm of the early hours before we woke up! Fortunately some friendly Norwegians on a large 54 ft yacht allowed us to go alongside and this is where Brian and Michele arrived late afternoon on Tuesday 12^th June.

The pictures that follow tell the story of the canal transit. We did take some video footage of the transit and caught a pod of dolpins on video the day before, but sadly we haven’t yet got video editing software so cannot upload yet!