Pork Pies and Carol Singing

Mark decided that he ‘needed’ a Pork Pie for Xmas and so set about ordering ‘real’ bacon from the corner shop in Corfu, along with the right flour for the pastry. He then spent hours on the interwebulater looking for just the right recipe – unfortunately that didn’t exist in Marks opinion so he decided to ‘consult’ the recipes then make his own up.

I, in the meantime, went Carol singing, it involved no cost, no long hours arguing with the cooking sites and no mess on the boat. We met at our Marina community room for mulled wine, mince pies and lovely Greek sweeties to fortify ourselves against the cold before embarking on our singing tour. We sang around the town and rattled our tins, sang at the old peoples home and were rewarded with more Greek sweeties and drinks and much handshaking and hugging until we thought we were never going to get out of the place, then on to the hospital. The hospital wasn’t as hospitable but then who wants to be in a place like that at Xmas! Back into the town and some of the guys join us for a final couple of carols under the huge Xmas tree in the square. By then I was seriously cold and in need of proper food and alcohol so a few of us peeled off and ducked into one of our favourite restaurants for a late supper. Very enjoyable evening.

A couple of days later after much deliberating, Mark is biting the bullet and making his much talked about Pork Pie. He’s been into town and bought the minced pork and sets about covering the boat with flour and all the other ingredients he needs for his masterpiece. Well you can see from the picture, it looks like a Pork Pie, and it will be admired as a Pork Pie for a few days…..

The last Race

The last race of the winter series and the weather forecast was for increasing winds and maybe rain. We set out clothed for wind but not rain – this might be a mistake but no time to go back and change now we’re already pushing it for time. We get down to the race area before deciding on the jib because the wind is building all the way there. At the start area it’s already around 15 knots so we opt for the smaller jib. We get organised with the main up and run up and down the start line to get a feel for what we’re in for – it looks like it’s going to be wet and lively, wind up to 18-19 knots, that’s a lot in a little J24. We’re off heading down the coast to Nikiana, the windward mark. It’s hard work, the wind is still building and it’s a case of just holding on up on the rail trying to keep the boat somewhere like level. As we get closer to the mark for the first time there’s animated discussion as to whether we’ll hoist the Spinnaker, or if the Spinnaker will even hold out in this wind!! Well the helm is just as much a dare devil as Mark so ‘up it goes’. We all hold on for dear life as we hurtle back up to the upwind mark, it doesn’t take us long to get there and now we have to get the dam thing down and try and keep everyone on board. Some boats had given up and gone home, others are struggling to keep going. We round the mark and head down to the windward mark for the 2nd time and down comes the rain. And it rains and rains and rains so visibility is reduced considerably. More boats give up and go home – but not us!! Round the windward mark, now we’re in winds of about 22 knots and still we hoist the Spinnaker – this time we take off like a scalded cat, the whole boat is humming – Mark and Tony(helm) are whooping, the girl on foredeck with me is looking scared and the pit man can’t believe he can have any more fun. The waves are up along with the wind and we’re flying down them reaching speeds of 13 knots!! Out of control or what. We keep this up to the point we all think it’s going to go completely pair shaped or the spinnaker is going to blow out so we decide as we’re still all on board it might be wise to take it down. We’re not far from the upwind mark by now and round it going like a bat out of hell and back down for the last leg. As often happens when sailing here we get nearly down to the mark and the wind dies completely and we really struggle to get round but just as we do the wind picks up again and it’s on the beam for half the leg then on the nose for the last ½ mile and we are wet all the way down to our skin!! We cross the line in 2nd position with half the fleet having retired. What a way to finish the series.

A night of entertainment

Described as off the wall entertainment complete with a four course meal aboard a 97 year old herring boat. Well if nothing else it will be different was our view. And different it was. The main saloon/galley area of the boat (fish hold) is theatrically set complete with stage lighting. The hosts/entertainers are French, Dutch and South African.

The captain wearing large leprechaun ears floppy hat and Dutch clogs welcomes us aboard for the evening. He rides his bike around town similarly attired! We all sit around a very large table, decorated with a model of the boat with its bow decoration of crossed knife and fork (yes the actual boat is decorated with a large knife and fork on the bow). Ouzo and wine is served immediately to get everyone in the party mood. The first course is introduced with a long ‘blow’ on a very strange trumpet like instrument; following it was a short “scary” movie depicting ‘the attack of the giant kittens at sea’. The ‘special effects team’ (read captain and assistant), covered the model ship with tuna fish paste to encourage the kittens to crawl all over it and eat one of the cast (bread person again with the paste trick). Sounds naff, it was but funny. The next course is introduced by a short act with female finger puppets throwing themselves out of the windows of a tall suitcase – not quite sure why other than to provide an excuse for the first of the entertainers to show himself in a dress, which he continued to wear for the rest of the evening (worryingly comfortably). That course eaten, the next was introduced by a French street performer/acrobat standing on his head, then on his forearms allowing him to pick his nose while he’s upside down. The dinner was rounded off with the Frenchman and his piano accordion performing a sketch with the captain seductively dressed in a slinky long red dress and finishing off with a clog dance. Sounds bizarre??? – then my work here is done!


Read more about the interesting history of the Ship of Fools

More pictures of the evenings entertainment

Four men and one women in a little boat

You might remember that I mentioned we were going to be doing the ‘Round the Island’ race on the J24, well we completed that marathon last weekend. You might also remember I described the J24, as a race boat with NO creature comforts, so it did turn out to be a bit of an ordeal!!

We started early Saturday morning in gloomy weather, with a forecast of rain and winds up to force 5. At least we'd be going fast if the forecast was right. We motored up to the top of the island through the floating bridge and got ourselves ready for the start. It was going to be a spinnaker start - always interesting.

We got away pretty good in light winds and were soon up in 4th place. After a couple of hours the wind died, then we got very light wind, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died - get the picture - it was like that for the next 14 HOURS!! We had spells of lovely sunshine but mostly cloud, not overly warm as you’ll see from the piccies, we’re all in wet weather gear. We rounded the bottom of the south west tip of the island in the last of the daylight and sailed agonisingly along the bottom of the island to the Meganissi Channel. North now up the Channel and we did have some wind for about an hour, enough to get us up near Nidri. From then on it was painfully slow all the way to the finish and Ligia. We crossed the finish line around 3 am Sunday morning. I for one had lost the will to live by then and just wanted my bed!!

How did we do?? Surprisingly well, we crossed the line in 4th place and thought we probably would get 3rd on corrected time. We were right, we did get 3rd, we were only 17 seconds behind the 2nd place after 16 hours of sailing. Frustrating or what!

It was definitely one of those races best looked at after the event but needless to say we won’t be doing it again on that boat.

Have a look at the piccies from the race here

Pictures of the Summertime refit here there are a lot of pictures in this slideshow now and it takes a while to load so you'll have to be patient :-)

Autumn in the Marina

Although you wouldn't know it by the temperatures, (in the mid to high 20's every days for the last 3 weeks) Autumn has arrived in the Marina. Within the Marina all the flotilla boats have been put to bed and the busiest place is in the yard. Lots of boat owners are doing all those little jobs before the weather really changes and they feel more like spending time in the pubs.

The flamingoes have arrived from wherever they have spent the summer along with the pelicans, herons and cranes. It amazes me the variety of bird life around this island.

Autumn was also celebrated with a pontoon party, where all the new comers had an opportunity to meet each other and those of us who have been here one or more winters.

We're busy everyday on Summertime and work is visually leaping ahead now after seemingly many hours of work that is covered up. I'll be putting a link to the Summertime slide show at the end of each of the entries from now on if for anyone interested in seeing what we're up to when we're working.

Today (Sunday) we had race practice on the J24, the boat we'll be crewing on for the winter series. We're a United Nations boat, 2 brits, me the Kiwi and 2 Swedes. Our first race is round the island next weekend, which could turn out to be a rather cold as it will take us a minimum of 12 hours to complete and probably longer. The boat has NO toilet, NO sleeping room and NO means of heating water or food - watch this space to see how we managed to survive the ordeal!!

Monday is the start of the Marina radio net which I've volunteered to do once a week. it helps keep everyone abreast of whats going on in the social scene in the Marina. So with my keep fit and daily cycle rides around the lagoon I'm having a busy time.

Pictures of autumn in the Marina here

Pictures of the Summertime refit here there are a lot of pictures in this slideshow now and it takes a while to load so you'll have to be patient :-)

Ionian Regatta

The reason we were keen to get back to Greece before the 18th of Sept was because we had the opportunity to crew on a 52ft Dufour in the Regatta. The Regatta itself was over 3 or 4 days but we were only doing the last day, the longest race. From the top of the Meganissi channel, round Sparta Houri and across to Sivota. We got down to the start line, downwind start so we sailed across the channel a couple of times to decide where our best start place would be. Like all things to do with boats and especially racing it doesn’t always go to plan. The first group set off and we were on our 10 minute countdown. Within 5 minutes of the first group crossing the line the wind started to die and continued to die until there was none!! We sat in a windless hole for nearly ½ an hour on the wrong side of the channel while boats on the other side had some wind and slowly crept forward leaving us in nearly last position L. There were 130 boats in the race and when the wind finally did come back we had a lot of work to do. Did we do it. Course we did, from nearly last we managed to pull out all the stops and charge across the line a credible 8th. Of course on handicap we would have had to finish an hour before any other boat to get a place but we had a good day and a great evening to follow and an even greater hangover to recover from the next day.

More pictures of the Regatta here

Back to Greece by land and sea

We had the great idea of driving back to Greece and spending a week in Lake Guarda and Venice before catching the ferry from Ancona to Greece. Like lots of good ideas, that went to wall due to all sorts of problems which kept us in the UK (to lengthy to go into here) way beyond our original plans. It got to the point where we had to go by the quickest route because we wanted to get back for the Ionian regatta on September 18th.

Our first intended departure date was around the time of the Channel Tunnel fire (we were going to go that route); a few days later we were really ready to go and of course Dover and all the surrounding motorways were in chaos trying to deal with the backlog of the Tunnel closure. So we opted on our morning of departure to catch the Hull - Zeebrugger ferry. A good choice in that Hull is only 1½ hours from where we were and it’s an overnight so we could get a good night’s sleep before driving most of the way across Europe to Italy. Typically the weather was clear and sunny the day we left unlike the grey skies we’d had for most of the 8 weeks we were there. Departure from Hull is via a lock, leaving very little room either side of the Ferry and quite an experience. The journey was uneventful and we arrived in Zeebrugger at 10.30am local time to lovely sunshine.

That day we drove around 900 miles across Belgium, the top north east corner of France and the entire country of Switzerland! The weather in Switzerland was grey, raining and very little visibility which was a shame because it can be quite dramatic driving in that part of the world. Our route took us through the 17 kilometre tunnel through the Alps, a real experience!! We spent that night on the Swiss – Italian border near Lake Como. Next morning, still grey and showery we set off for another 4 hour drive to Ancona. Still grey and showery by the time we got there. Another overnight ferry to Igoumonitsa, arriving round 9ish on morning of the 16th. And guess what – IT WAS RAINING!!! We’re beginning to think we’re jinxing the weather it had followed us all the way across Europe. The Sunday before we got back it was 30 degrees and sunny. Still, it’s nice to be home.

More pictures of the trip home here