We were ready to leave the Gulf of Corinth but our decision to delay our departure to allow the strong easterly winds to give way to more moderate southerlies proved to be the wrong one. We should have taken the opportunity the easterlies presented to shoot us west before turning north to the safe anchorage at Limini Petalis. In the event we enjoyed an hour of fresh fast running before we lost the wind for a couple of hours during which time it changed direction.
We did have a great sail north for the last five miles with the promised southerly, but we had to use the engine in between to cover the 25 mile journey. Liminis Petalis was unusually calm at 5pm when we arrived and it was the most idyllic evening at anchor, swimming before the sun went down behind the tall hills on which we could hear the goats bleating to signal the end of the day.
We had been warned of a possible Medicane scenario manifesting again off the foot of Italy and bouncing across to the Ionian but thankfully the pressure systems collapsed and this particular threat faded. Notwithstanding that it was clear there was bad weather ahead as a strong southerly stream was getting established and looked set to last for over a week.
We headed north, overnighting in Sivota on our favourite Stavros pontoon and then fetching up to anchor in Vliho Bay to celebrate Nigel’s birthday on 26th. He did well having a morning swim after which we had a good sail north to Lefkas where we moored on the Charter pontoons. The evening brought a drink on board followed by dinner in a very nice fish restaurant and then cocktails and cabaret at the Lefkas Cuban bar where we were royally entertained by Santana style music, it was great fun.
We spent Tuesday to Thursday on the charter pontoons, watching storms and heavy rainstorms go by. We had the engine serviced on Wednesday which was a regular end of season event, but bad news hit when the engineer discovered the dreaded diesel bug in our fuel tanks. Both tanks are contaminated; it is a hazard of bio diesel and only using our boat for part of the year. The black bio mass was a rotten sight and we have major expense ahead to drain the tanks, dispose of the diesel and chemically clean tanks and fuel lines. Ah! the joys of boat ownership.
As ever when moored up you get to meet your neighbours. On one side we had a couple of Israeli gentlemen who were there having their boat repaired after a lightning strike earlier in the year off Corfu. On the other side an Argentinean couple who we shared an evening with. They had just purchased their boat from the charter company and planned to spend a few years sailing on Greece in the summer and Argentina the rest of the year. Quite an interesting pair and it was great to hear about the comparative challenges of sailing in South America.
Thursday dawned and we slipped lines to head up to Preveza for a night in Cleopatra marina prior to our lift out of Friday 30th.
We did well to get the jib down and folded in between rain showers and to make a start of the end of season boat cleaning operation and routine maintenance.
There was very good news amongst this bad weather that Mo had been granted Greek residency, so we spent some time planning another trip to Agrinio to get the documents. We fixed our flights home for Friday October 7th and decided to make use of our time and a rental car to go north to visit the monasteries of Meteora, which by all accounts are an amazing sight. We will include a blog entry on that alone before the end of 2022 sailing season blogs.
As far as the boat is concerned in 2022 we have travelled 821 miles, 357 of them in September alone. It has been fun and we have enjoyed our visitors and stretching our sailing legs into the Gulf once again. Who knows where we will sail next year, but at least time will be less of a problem now that we have found a way round the post Brexit travel restrictions! Hooray for that!
Deja Vu 
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