Equinox 2025

"It’s late September and I really should be back at school." It has the feeling of the end of the summer. The temperature, over the past ten days has gone from a daily high of 30C to now around 21C. It’s very pleasant for it not to be blistering hot in the afternoon. The days are also much shorter; we did pass the autumn equinox a week ago. When the sun goes down in the evening, it’s cool enough to need a sweater; there’s a novelty. Boat names I would not have chosen! Imaging going on the radio and saying "This is Oh La La" Someone has done a good Ferrari mock up on this boat, with even a Prancing (Sea) Horse motif  The sun reflects off the roof of the main church in town. The walkway to the end of the breakwater is populated with these anchor shaped seats. The weekend has been just readying the boat to leave. It’s about 117 nautical miles from Bar to Bari, the longest passage we will have made on Equinox with just the two of us. On previous longer passages, we ...

After some days of being constantly on the move, we feel the need for a break, and the chance to restock the food supplies. We also need to prepare for our crossing to Italy, and be ready to leave when the boatyard are ready to receive us.  In case you need directions, this sign post points to various locations around the world, and gives their distance. Bar is offering good access to shops and markets, and we spent Thursday morning walking to a large farmers market, with a wonderful choice of locally produced fruit and vegetables. On Friday we decided to visit the capital of Montenegro, Porgarica. This entailed a one hour train ride in each direction, through the mountains and on a long bridge which spans Lake Shkodra. A fter  World War II , Podgorica was first designated as the capital of Montenegro in 1946. At that time, it was renamed Titograd in honour of  Josip Broz Tito , the leader of  Yugoslavia . It served as the capital of the  Socialist Republic of M...

My birthday began with breakfast out at one of the beach-side cafes; a great treat. Later we took the local bus up into the hills behind the port of Bar, to visit Stari Bar, the earliest settlement in this part of the country. Montenegro borders with Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Albania. It is a very beautiful area, although the large port of Bar is an industrial area. Over the past few decades the country has experienced considerable turbulence, from earthquakes, political uncertainty and from knock on effects from the wars in this area. Most of the physical devastation has been repaired, making it more attractive as a visitor destination. This morning a cruise liner was in the port and large numbers of people poured into the town. It was a surprise to us, as a lot of cruise ships go into the Gulf of Kotor, to the north of here. We can only speculate that there are so many such vessels these days that there just isn’t room for them all. Stari Bar is an ancient fortress ...

 A barking dog woke us before both dawn and the alarm went off, but this was a good thing. We had been told that we had to have permission to leave the harbour and that this would not be granted between about 7:00 and 8:30, because various ferries were expected. So we were glad to be able to clear out before this, leaving at 06:10.  This was just as well because, in stark contrast to yesterday, when we saw almost no boats, today there were a number of ships at anchor and the first ferry was arriving at 06:30 just after we had cleared the narrow channel into the port. If we had missed the chance to leave, it would have been a long and unwelcome wait. In addition to the ships, there were a good number of fishing boats, behaving as erratically from our point of view, as they usually do. Eventually we cleared all of the traffic around Durres and then had the sea to ourselves for the long motor across to Bar in Montenegro. As we approached we started to see other sailing yachts and...

 It doesn’t feel as if we need the alarm clock at the moment, either we are still on Greek time (an hour ahead of the Central European Time) or we are keyed up for progressing. It certainly wasn’t daylight that woke us, as it was well before dawn.  We wanted to be away early as there were miles to be covered, and hopefully, some administration to be done when we arrived.  We set off not knowing if we had a berth booked for the night, but during the day the boatyard contacted us to say that there was a space for us as another boat was delayed by 1 day.  It was the flattest calm conditions that I can remember in years.  The sea was like glass, definitely a case of “the ocean is a desert with it’s life underground, and the perfect disguise above……..it felt good to be out of the rain.” We spent hours not seeing any other vessels, certainly a big change from the Ionian, where we could often see 40 or 50 other boats. The land was flat and featureless, and as it wa...

The upside of moving further along the coast than expected last night, was that we didn’t need to go as far today. We had picked out a bay that we could anchor in, a few miles from Vlore. It’s on a peninsula with hills protecting the bay from southerly winds. Not that we expected any wind. Transiting along this part of the coast gave us a view of rugged high high hills than plunge straight down into the sea. There are no places where you could take refuge, if you needed to. It means the distances between safe places to stop are far apart. We timed our arrival to be late afternoon, in the hope that the locals would be heading back to the city, it being Sunday. The bay has two rather nice looking beaches, only accessible by boat. Lots of folks were enjoying their day on the beach and, as expected they departed on a day tripper boat, accompanied by various other motor boats and ribs. It seems to be a fun pastime here for the high speed ribs to race through the anchorage, giving the visi...

On Friday we headed to Corfu Town, and our usual anchorage, just beyond the cruise ship dock. We anticipated having to motor all day, but actually had enough wind to sail and with no pressing deadlines, we enjoyed the peace of not having the motor running.   It is always a challenge getting past the entrance to the harbour in Corfu, there is a lot of fast moving ferry traffic and you have to have your wits about you. And there is also the possibility of coming across those who are not aware of their obligations.  We had spotted one of the hydrofoils coming from behind us at 31+ knots and were keeping well out of its way. However a pair of yachts and a small motor boat came out of a side bay, and one of the yachts proceeded to carry straight on across the path of the  hydrofoil.  There was a lot of horn tooting and the hydrofoil had to make a dramatic course change before passing around the far side of an island prior to entering the harbour.  All a bit dram...

In preparation for our trip into the unknown, we knew that we needed to stock up on all sorts of things, so headed the short distance into the marina at Preveza. What a difference a few hundred metres of separation makes, even if you have to motor a couple of miles to achieve it.  From the drab view of industrial waste, on the other side of the sea wall we had a smart modern marina, with all mod cons. Electricity, cooking gas, petrol and water were priorities, but food provisions came a very close second.  Fortunately we now know the marina and it surrounds well enough to have favourite shops for various types of food.  It is also nice to be recognised and welcomed by both the marinaros and the reception staff.   The day was finished off with a shower with unlimited hot water.  Bliss. Thursday, we had planned to go to Corfu town, but when we awoke, the boat was being shaken in unpredicted strong winds. We concluded that with the cross wind, we would not be ...

The alarm went off at 6.30, fifty minutes before sunrise, so when we were raising the anchor at 7.00, it was light. All was quiet in the bay, with a dozen or so boats at anchor. The wind was down. We slipped out quietly and all the way round the south west tip of Lefkas and up the west coast, we were joined by only two other yachts, both larger and going faster than us. The floating bridge at the north end of the channel between Lefkas and the mainland is closed. It’s been taken off to Athens for repair. Meantime the ferry carrying road traffic is opening sporadically and we hear stories of long queues of yachts, when it does open. For us, it was no question but to go around the outside of the island. It’s not much further and once round the ‘cape’ the waves calm down, as long as you go in benign weather. Thus, we motored most of the way, but had a short spell of quiet with the jib up towards the end, when we got to the bottom of the narrow channel leading into the bay of Preveza. ...

This was a day of contrasts. It started with a run along the undulating road around the bay of Spartokhori. It was peaceful and quiet, with most of the sailors on the numerous boat still asleep. Two or three runners passed us by. A short time later people were surfacing and preparing their boats for departure. A charter boat next to us had seven German youngsters on board , who we found very nice and personable. They had various levels of experience, they told us and it appeared that one of the girls was having a lesson in leaving their parking slot. It didn’t go well, but they managed to escape doing any damage to their boat or the one on their other side. It will have been a big learning curve for her. It was a short motor in almost no wind through the relatively narrow passage between Meganisi and Lefkas, then along the south coast of Lefkas to Vasiliki. We wanted to arrive by one o’clock, when the afternoon wind, famous in this bay, started to blow. Vasiliki is a mecca for wind...

We had arranged to meet friends who are on holiday on Meganisi, so headed off to cross to this island.  As usual, motoring in the morning, in flat calm conditions. Once we were approaching the southern tip of Meganisi, the wind kicked in and we could stop the engine and sail. It is very noticeable how much busier the Ionian is to the places we have been further south. All of a sudden we have 50+ boats in sight at any time. Each hour the Coastguard puts out a broadcast of the stations that they broadcast weather and navigational warnings. There are about 15 channels, and they are said first in Greek and then in English. We have concluded that it sound a bit like a bingo caller, and think it would be enlivened if they were saying "legs 11, 2 little ducks, 22, etc." When we arrived at the bay we had planned to stop at, we found it was already very full.  We tried to find space to anchor without success, and also tried 2 places were we could anchor and put lines ashore, but again...

We had to motor all of the way to Vathy, which was no problem.  When we arrived there was a space on our preferred bit of quay, between a large motor yacht and a catamaran.  This was great, as it meant that there was a bit of shelter for the side wind and plenty of people on the quay who took our lines. However, the motor yacht left shortly afterwards, and so did the catamaran, which exposed us to more wind and we discovered that the anchor had not dug in, so we had to do it all over again.  This time we got the anchor to bite well, but there was nobody to help on the quay, so I had to jump across with the lines. Always a bit daunting, as there was then only 1 person on board and still multiple jobs to do until I could get back on board.  All managed safely enough and we had got everything set up, electricity from the quay etc. and the laundry washing, when a bloke came from the nearby café and said we should move, because 3 very large motor yachts were coming in and...