Rounding the capes

Cape Maleas, the second most southerly point in Europe, has a fearsome reputation and at times lives up to it according not only to the author of our pilot guide, Rod Heikell, but also the present day locals and the Ancient Greeks.

Having waited for a week in Momenvasia for the very strong winds to abate we actually set off in very light winds and ended up motoring towards the cape and around the bottom. It was quite an awesome trip with huge rock faces towering above us and an uncanny atmosphere of silence as we rounded the bottom. The winds here are simply unpredictable and gusts can be 50 or 60 knots in a 20 knot ambient wind. In the benign conditions we encountered we saw barely 15knots which was perfectly fine by us!

We had seen pictures of the idyllic anchorages off the island of Elafonisos and so made a bee line for them. The two open to the south were untenable with the residual swell from the week long gales so we opted for the east facing bay of Levki for a pleasant overnight stay.

With limited time before we needed to be in Kalamata to meet Paul and Jane, we pressed on to the second limb of the southern Peleponnese and anchored in the small bay of Porto Kayio. It became very crowded here and we had boats all around us; not good for Deja Vu who wanders annoyingly at anchor in a fresh breeze. We did get ashore to a taverna for a not very good fish supper but spent quite a bit of the night on anchor watch until the fresh wind eventually died down soon after midnight.

The second cape of Matapan complete with lighthouse has been described as ‘the entrance to the underworld’ but it is far less threatening than cape Maleas. By this time though we had seen a lot of the rugged outline of the Peloponnese and it is a formidable tough and inhospitable landscape which is awesome and worthy of respect.

After a long day turning north into the western most gulf we made the approach to Kalamata. We had no pre-conceived ideas of the area and were a bit surprised just how large the town of Kalamata seemed to be. It flanked the north east corner of the Gulf and spread some distance inland. It did not seem that the Marina staff were expecting our arrival in spite of our careful booking in, but we were ushered into a welcome berth on Wednesday July 4^th, well in time to be ready for our next guests to arrive on Thursday 5^th.