New NPG's

We're arrived back in Lefkas on June 22nd along with Marks sister Denise and partner John. They came out to enjoy 2 weeks of Greek sunshine and we were out for 2 weeks of hols and an extra week to do some jobs on our boat and pull Summertime (the boat we're working on), and our boat out onto the hard. After the funeral of Mark's mum it was a welcome break for us all. John and Denise rented an apartment in Nidri due to the fact that Denise doesn't really like sleeping on the boat, however we did manage to get her sleeping over one night.

Denise learns the basics of helming

John blows up the swimming toys

We did however enjoy many day sails to the lovely bays around the island of Meganissi and made time for swimming, barbeques and general lazing about in the sunshine. Swimming was another passtime not on Denises list of favourite things to do but you can see from the photo below that she did eventually get into it. Along with John who took to our swimming toys like a duck to water.

The weather was superb with temperatures between 30 -35 degrees each day and the water temperature up to 26 degrees, perfect for snorkelling and swimming.

Denise enjoys the water after much tempting

In addition to days out on the water we enjoyed some good eateries in Nidri amongst the growing tourist population. It has to be said though, that Nidri in the summertime is a place to be avoided if you like a quiet holiday, the bars and discos often continue till the early hours and even when we were anchored in Tranquil Bay away from Nidri it was still loud. We'll be avoiding it now until the winter when it will quiet down again.

By the end of the 2 weeks both NPG's had a nice tan and looked like they had enjoyed their holiday.

Some more pictures here

Video One

Video Two

Video Three

Video Four

Back in Lefkas

We arrived back in Lefkas on June 22nd following Mark's mum's funeral. The Vicar, having known Hilda, did his best to make the service a celebration of her life, but even with his best attempts it was a sad affair and like often is the case bought lots of people together who hadn't seen each other for some time.

Marks mum was quite remarkable for her 88 years. Born in 1919 she had seen lots of changes in her lifetime, many of which were remembered by Denise and David (Marks older brother and sister) as the Vicar prepared for the funeral. As she got older and suffered increasing illness over the last 5 years she still managed at home right up until she died, enjoying the company of her family and close neighbours. She will be sadly missed by us all.

Sad News

We abandoned the boat in Lefkas on June 4th and made a hurried trip back to the UK. After being ill for some time Marks mum passed away on June 2nd. We're currently staying with Marks sister Denise leading up to the funeral on June 11th.

Marks Mum

We've been gone 8 months and being back, is a bit of a shock, it's cold, dreary and depressing with worries about the economy. How long we'll be here is not certain, we were coming back mid July anyway and staying till the beginning of September, but Marks sister is going to Lefkas for a holiday in 2 weeks and we were going to be spending time with them. So it's a case of wait and see for the next week or so. I really hope the sun comes out soon!!!!!

Watsons and Wycherleys explore the Ionian

Mark and I were really looking forward to Steve and Elise coming, it was going to be our first real exploration of the Ionian since arriving. The Watsons were in charge of the routes for our nine days away and we intended to get in as much as possible while they were here.

We left Levkas early afternoon after provisioning and sailed down to Spartahouri intending to anchor for lunch in Christina Onasis’s swimming bay. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was blowing such a hooly it wasn’t wise to stop so we continued around the island and headed into Nidri for our first overnight stop. Safely anchored in Tranquil Bay we went ashore. Nidri was celebrating Ionian Independence Day and we thought we were in for some Greek dancing on the quayside but instead were nearly sent to sleep with the Poets so went off for something it eat instead.

Next morning we motored up to Vliho for a quick viewing then out of Nidri to Ambelakia Bay on the north east corner of Meganissi, anchored up and had lunch. That evening we walked over the hill into Vathi for dinner and Steve and Elise’s introduction to Kalua and a very expensive bar bill!! To add insult to injury we got lost in the pitch black on the back to the boat.

Hangovers put aside we sailed off to Kalamos and anchored in Port Leone. Elise and Steve went ashore to explore the deserted village while Mark paced the decks because the anchor wasn’t holding well. Once the Watsons were back on board we set sail for Vathi in Ithaca and had a cracking sail nearly all the way to Vathi. Moored up stern to, got our glad rags on and went in search of dinner. Vathi`s harbour has a small islet which at one time was used as a prison so we included that on our general tour by dinghy of the harbour.

Next stop, just a short hop up the coast to Kioni and our attempt to anchor with a line ashore around a rock. It’s difficult to describe what a pigs ear we made of this and if I did our reputation as sailors would be sorely dented so suffice to say we had to finally give that up and go in and moor stern to on the quay. If it wasn’t bad enough that we were sooooo rubbish, the couple 2 boats down were watching us from up on the hill – oh the shame!!!

From Kioni we sailed up the coast of Ithaca and across to Fiskardo on Cefalonia, probably the biggest of all the towns we visited and definately in the throes of expansion. Mooring up is stern to on a floating pontoon. It was also the only place we got water. We used the water maker to successfully keep us stocked up. Steve decided to take the dinghy out to explore the bay using the novel propulsion of diving fins. Not sure why, it’s not always clear to those around Steve what’s going on in that head of his. Don’t think its clear to him either but that’s another story! Fiskardo has a new Ice Cream shop so that needed a visit to check the quality of icecream but to my shame I can’t remember what it was like so maybe it was pretty average.

Next day we made a beeline for Assos because the weather was going to be calm and it needs to be very calm to stay the night in Assos bay. It is the most beautiful little bay on the west coast of Cephalonia as the picture will testify. Assos has a fort on the isthmus and like many of these old places in Greece has a complicated history. We whiled away the afternoon swimming off the beach or to tell the absolute truth one of us was trailed around hanging off a fender by another of us who is training for a triathlon in August. The one being trailed had a knackered knee but was desparate to be in the water. The one doing the training had plenty of exercise that afternoon!!

Plantanos restaurant in Assos serves the ‘BEST’ food and the owner/waiter is a great character, full of enthusiasm for his food and eating and boy did we eat. We could hardly walk back to the boat. Next day we didn’t eat till lunchtime. Assos lived up to it’s reputation and with only one other boat in the bay it was truly an idyllic stay.

It was hard leaving Assos but we still had places to go, people to see, so we motor sailed back to Ithaca and this time to Frikes. Mark and I didn’t think we’d been here before but it turns out we had years ago on Flotilla. The only place we moored up alongside. Why everyone was mooring up alongside was hard to say but when in Rome and all that!! Another very good meal here and what I’ll remember most was the herd of goats running down the sheer rock face when it was time for them to go home from their grazing. These goats defied gravity as they hurled themselves down the side of the cliff with their bells ringing manically.

Next morning Steve and Elise went off to get a few supplies before setting off to Paleros on the Greek mainland and came back with the biggest doughnuts I’ve ever seen, we ate them for breakfast or should I say most of us managed to eat one each, the wimpy eater only managed a small amount. On the way to Paleros we stopped off at the caves on Meganissi and explored by dinghy. Steve and I had a quick swim and Steve tried out a new body surfing technique behind the boat.

We had to motor nearly all the way to Paleros, only the last 3 hours delivered up some wind, but it was good when it came and we had another good sail. Paleros was our last night out and we had to get dressed up in ‘team wear’ to go out on the town. Tonight was curry night, followed by stupidity in the childrens play ground and more Kalua to finish the night off before a slightly wet ride in the dingly back to the boat.

Next morning we were off to a quite bay for watersports activities. Racecraft supplied by Steve and Elise, hot air to blow them up supplied by all of us. Two hours of hilarity enjoyed by everyone, before they all had to be rounded up by Steve in the dinghy. Sadly we had to drag ourselves away from such fun and head back to Lefkas, Steve and Elise had to leave at 5am the following morning.

We did roughly 150 miles, the weather got steadily hotter as the days went on and everyone got brown. It goes without saying we all had a brilliant time.

More Watson/Wycherley photos here

Greek Easter and beyond....

I've been very very lax in keeping up with the blog, days and whole weeks seem to pass me by in a blink. I finished the last entry with the Carnival that signifies the beginning of 'no meat' for a month leading up to Easter. Since then we've been busy working on Summertime refit with a few social and light drinking evenings out just to keep our hand in for the coming Easter festivities :-).

Just before the Easter weekend I had a disaster, I crashed and burned, I came off my push bike. I went over a little hump back bridge in the marina that I hadn't been over before and it didn't have hardly any footpath at the other side, just bushes. By the time I realised I was in trouble it was tooooo late!! I tried to turn quickly with my front brakes on instead of the back and with a downhill motion way too fast, I went arse over tit over the handle bars. Got a puncture in one leg and grazed the other knee and hand and jarred my back. My bottom lip came out in a little tremble as I picked myself up and walked delicately to the van for my Mark to fix my chain. You should have seesn my bruises, they were massive and technicolour!!

Easter weekend ....

.... on the island is another big celebration. On Easter eve they all pile out of Church singing ready for celebraions in the town square, again with lots of noise and ending with fireworks. Now big, up in the sky fireworks, but colourful very load fireworks with the noice bouncing off the nearby walls and nearly deafening everyone. Motto here seems to be 'the more noise the better the enjoyment'. On the Sunday after Church everyone celebrates the end of 'no Clean Month (no meat) with meat, meat and more meat on barbeques and spit roasts, no doubt culminating in lots of constipation.

Easter Sunday, one of the guys that lives here put on a spit roast, cooking 2 lambs and a pig. Everyone takes something to go with them and booze and generally has a knees up for the afternoon and evening.

Before

and

after

Weather wise is was perfect, nearly a 100 people enjoyed free flowing booze all afternoon and the meat off the spits was gorgeous, it was a perfect afternoon.

More piccies of the lamb roast here

Wycherley's go racing!!

Easter Monday was the race from Nikiana down to Tyglia (a small island at the top of Meganissi), then across to Paleros on the Greek mainland. Mark must have changed his mind as to weather we were going to race 50 times in the preceeding 24 hours!! On the morning he said 'we'll go down to the start and just follow them round', yea right!! Can you imagine him FOLLOWING anyone?? Anyway we went down to the start line, listened to the racr briefing, watched all the boats getting sails up and crewed warmed up, most were suffering sever hangovers from the day before, and 10 minutes from the start gun, Mark decides we're racing. Well we didn't get a good start as you can imagine, we were on the wrong tack for starters, and crossed the line about 8th out of the 12 cruisers starting. Once we got going though and Mark got the bit between his teeth, me on the helm, him triming we had caught up and passed all but the lead boat by the first tack (about 40 mins after the start). We suffered real light winds for the next hour trying to catch the lead boat. That boat had been first on the water for the last 2 years running. We were luckier with the wind than they were for the next hour and put in 2 less tacks than they did but even so they were probably a mile in front of us. As the wind picked up with the aid of a thunder and lightning storm coming across the hills into the Meganissi channel, we flew down there, sailing our house like a dinghy, only letting the minimum of power off when we really had to - the first time in months we'd had the boat really flying. We rounded the island mark going like a bat out of hell!! Downwind leg now all the way to Peleros - get the Spinnaker out - the wind died again. Next hour we had to sit through the odd tiny gust until Mark was nearly at screaming point. Just when I thought he would throw in the towel, the wind picked up, the Spinnaker filled and we were away. By now we were reeling in the lead boat again but very slowly and really had no chance of catching them before the finish line, now we just wanted to finish as close as possible to them and we did that in style - flying across the finish line with Spinnaker up just 10 minutes behind them. What made Marks day was a comment from the racer organiser of 'I've never seen a 390 going so fast across a finish line - it was fantastic'.

Moored up at Paleros after the race

The evening is spent in lively company in the only curry resturant for miles and miles. We found to our excitement that after coming 2nd on the water we were also 3rd on corrected time, we were well pleased with the performance of our 'home'. Some more wine to celebrate please!!

Crystal Tea Light holder for 3rd prize.

Living and working the Greek way

Amazingly we’ve been here 9 weeks already. I don’t know where the time has gone, it seems such a short time since we arrived. The weather is warming up nicely, the days are lengthening and it’s a time for lots of polishing on the boat – groan – my arms have been worked to their limits!

As we settled into a work pattern the first thing we learnt was GMT – Greek Maybe Time! Arranging to meet tradesmen/women seems a simple enough exercise but the execution is extremely elaaaaaastic. Turning up ½ hour to an hour late or even days later is not unusual. As Mark has settled into a work pattern and tried to get the joinery and upholstery organised this has caused some frustration.

On the positive side we’ve found local suppliers of plumbing (there’s lots of new plumbing in this job), stainless steel, wood etc to be very good, once we’ve managed to track them down.

The Cheley team hard at work

We had a few days away with our first visitor, Andy. He arrived looking pasty faced and stressed and I think we sent him home with colour in his cheeks and looking much happier.

Captain for a day

We had a relaxed trip down to Meganissi then north up to Vliho Bay. Very pleasant it was too, considering we’d been waiting 3 days for the rain to stop. It doesn’t rain much here but when it does it really rains, with much accompanying lighting and thunder, quite spectacular when it gets going.

Carnival Time

We also went to the local carnival that signifies the beginning of Lent. The locals party all weekend and have a very noisy parade on Sunday to bring in ‘Clean Monday’. Those who still follow the traditional ways will not eat meat from Clean Monday until Easter weekend. Then apparently is a complete meat fest. We’ll let you know!

On Monday everyone goes out to the beach and flies an amazing aray of colourful kites. Quite a site.

Kite flying on Lefkas beach

All and all, living the Greek way beats the hell out of the UK ratrace!!

Lefkas our current home

The island of Levkas is situated just off the mainland west coast in the middle of the Ionian sea. It is so close to the shore that it only just qualifies as an island. It was the Corinthians who cut a canal through sandbanks in 600 BC to separate it from the mainland. Like many places in Europe the land has been fought over continually by the Roman, Turks, French and English until as recently as the mid 1800's.

Today access to the island is via a floating bridge. Levkas town is on the northernmost tip of the island and still very much a Greek town, not a tourist town. A little smaller than Skipton, with a population of just over 20,000 with some English spoken but not by everyone.

It has suffered it's fair share of earthquakes over the years, the last major one in 2000. As a result of earthquakes it has a quaint, if odd archetectual style of brightly painted houses, often topped with wood and corrugated iron to mitigate any more seismic shocks. Its narrow, traffic free lanes and its small size give it a village atmosphere, though the richly decorated Venetian churches packed with fine works of art, add a cosmopolitan touch.

Eating out is simple and cheap, with a plentiful variety of Tavernas. The one shown here is run by the 'New York Greek'.

The supermarkets, fruit and fish markets are plentiful and very good quality. The bakeries here, unlike many places in Europe, bake the delicious array of beautiful breads. Opening hours are somewhat suspect at this time of the year, official opening is about 8am till 1.30 - 2.00 then again from about 4ish till 8ish, but many places seem to close at 2ish and don't open again. If you're a local no doubt you just know these things but as a new comer it gives some frustration until you're used to it. As it gets closer to May and visitors start arriving I guess it'll fall into more the normal opening hours with siesta. Most things we need are within walking or pushbike ride from the Marina.

My Greek is still limited to Yes (Ne), No (Ochi), thankyou (efharisto), hello (yasas), please (parakalor) and of course dio bira!! I have learnt the alphabet in terms of what the letters are called and what their sounds are and can write all the characters, however that's still along way off being able to look at what's written and try and say it :-(

Tune in next month to find out what's it's like working here, so far it's very frustrating but lets hope that improves.

More pictures of our Greek town here