Equinox 2025

  The beach seems endless, and it is possible to walk for miles, gloriously away from traffic with the exception of the few cars and motorbikes that use the beach as a road. These rather beautiful birds inhabited the waters edge, until passing strangers (us) scared them into moving. Another trip to Olympia was called for, it is so close.  The very cute train rattled along, totting its horn merrily every time it approached a level crossing without a barrier. The line felt as if it ran through peoples back gardens, and it looked as if it was used as a road in places. The line goes via one bigger town, Pirgos.  The track seems to go right through the middle of several road junctions, stopping traffic in 4 or 5 directions at once.  At other times it stops at request halts, where you can't even see a platform.  The driver also stopped at an unscheduled place to let a lady out, stopping right across a level crossing and forcing the traffic to wait. Olympia was just as...

Cracking sailing conditions to move the twenty-six miles to Katakolon on the mainland Peloponnese today. The ferry left at 07:30, so we had no worries about having to wait, leaving an hour later. Our new friends, from meeting on the quayside in Zakynthos yesterday, left just ahead of us in their catamaran. Obviously with another boat in sight following the same route ...... ... we were racing, even if they did not know it. Despite it being Sunday morning, I managed to catch the harbour master on the telephone. We had to arrive at 12.30 and he would wait to see us in. Katakolon is harbour we have previously been nervous of entering, because the depths are not clear, but Igilos assured me, it’s fine for three metres. Thus we cracked on the engine to rush across the remaining few miles and made it bang on time. There is complexity to the weather systems here, making it difficult for the forecasters to be in agreement, so this visit it’s been reassuring to be tucked up in the harbour, ...

Zakynthos town has really grown on us. Towards the outskirts it’s not pretty but you can find anything you might want. For us this included a brass plumbing pipe connection, followed by bread and baclava from a beautiful bakery. Brass fittings for our new water filtration system The centre of town has all manor of shops, all spotless inside. Walking the pavements, though, is hazardous. I wouldn’t want to be doing that here, if you have poor eyesight. Broken paving stones, potholes, drain pipes, you name it, mean close attention to whether you are putting your feet is called for. The enormous car ferries come and go to the mainland three times a day. Otherwise the harbour is quiet. Zakynthos is a the far edge of the range of the charter boats and, as the season hasn’t started and it’s the weekend, the few yachts here are privately owned. It is easy to while away a couple of hours just sitting in the sunshine in one of the numerous cafes. A forty  minute walk to the church and café...

Our route plan is under constant review and revision.  Today, we decided that we would move on again, as we contemplated where to spend a “rest day” (cleaning?). Although the wind was forecast to be much the same on both Thursday and Friday, the prospect of some rain was enough to clinch the deal. So we eased away from the pontoon in Poros and headed to Zakynthos town. There was little wind en route, but we did manage to make progress under sail power for half an hour. On arrival, we had a second drop anchor and stern to mooring of the trip.   This was not quite as good as in the first, as on the first attempt, we dropped then anchor too soon, and ran out of chain before we reached the dock.   The second attempt was almost perfect, with the anchor chain at its absolute limit when we were up to the quay. The port at Zakynthos Port theatre continues to entertain us, except when the perpetrators are heading to moor next to you, which is what happened today.  The boat ...

Having, remarkably, managed to do a drop anchor and reserve to the key mooring yesterday, at the first attempt, with no dramas, we also managed to get out in similar fashion this morning. To be fair, it was as easy as it could be because there were no boats either side of us, so we could be confident that there was no risk of being tangling with someone else’s anchor. V athy is a splendid place to stop over. The port police are civil and reasonable, making getting a stamp on the transit log quick and easy. There are good shops for supplies, and it’s pretty. The bay is well protected from most wind directions, but not from the northwest, which is frequent in the afternoons. As we had put out less anchor chain out than would be ideal in big side-on winds , the choice was to re-park if we wanted to stay another night, or leave. We chose to move on. It’s a nice distance of 18 miles from Vathy to Poros, at the southern end of Kephalonia. A small amount of wind mid journey allowed us t...

It was "full on" activity as soon as we were awake today. We had to visit the chandlery, which had some supplies that we needed and the office to pay for our berth, both of which opened at 8:30. We had managed breakfast before setting of on these chores, but they were completed in time for us to have a pleasant coffee on the harbourfront, before our son got his taxi to the airport at 9:30.  The taxi rank was conveniently placed so that we could go straight on to buy the food provisions that we needed for the next few days, before we returned to the boat and pulled out of the harbour by 10:30. Our plan, which evolved as we went on through the day, was to get to the Lefkas Canal for the 12:00 bridge opening and then proceed on into the Ionian.  We made it to the bridge with time to spare and had an uneventful passage through the canal. As we were making good progress, we kept pushing our target destination further south. In the end we decided on (Big) Vathy on Ithaca. ...

It’s time for us the get to Preveza so that our son can catch his flight home tomorrow. We slipped out of Gaios having really enjoyed our time there.  It was 35 miles to Preveza, and the contrast to our experience of last year could not have been greater.  Then, we were thrown around in large waves and very strong winds, this time we had to motor sail all the way, on flat calm water. On arrival, we were shown to a berth and helped in by a friendly marinaro. We had just missed the Office opening times, reduced today because it was a public holiday, so that added to the list of things to be achieved in the morning. The weather was good enough for the shorts to be out The marina supermarket was open and seemed to be stocked with the supplies that sailors need We checked TripAdvisor for good places to eat, and found that almost everywhere that rated highly was a fish / seafood restaurant.  We had a little trepidation about this, as we suspected that the boats would not have...

We continued our zigzagging back and forth across the northern Ionian today.  It was a leisurely start as the distance was only going to be around 14 miles, so we had time to wander along the front and get a coffee at one of the few cafes that were open. The destination was Gaios on the eastern side of the island of Paxos and with no wind, we had to motor all the way.   We have not visited this town before, and had heard that there was a new pontoon which would be available at this time of year. Presumably it will be fully occupied when we get to busier parts of the season.   It is a gorgeous little town, set behind a couple of smaller islands which give shelter from all directions.   The weather forecast indicated that we might get a bit of a blow from the west, but we didn’t feel any of it at all, so it might be that the shelter was perfect. We had various walking trips into town, with Tricia and Chris going several kilometres, through the town and out of the oth...