You went how far to get up your hair cut?

As we waved farewell to Terri and Iain, we were undecided as to what to do next. The only constraint operating was the need to have J ready to catch her flight to Dublin on 20 May, for Jessie’s First Communion. That gave us about ten days to do as we pleased. What to do? Where to go? Oh, decisions decisions. Never been good at that sort of thing…..

 

Rampage on the southern quay in Gaios, heading south.

 
J had been hankering for sometime to visit Angela, her hairdresser in Nidri. The forthcoming festivities in Ireland clearly required a fresh hair do. So suddenly that was the plan. Sail south to Nidri, J has a hairdo, sail back north again to arrive in Corfu about 19 May. No worries. Easypeasy.  
We’ve been lucky with wind so far this year, getting quite a lot of sailing in. That continued as we headed south: we sailed most of the way to Gaios, staying there three days before aiming to get to Nidri in a single hop. Didn’t work, as we picked up a strong easterly which combined with the autopilot packing in made us head into Preveza instead, but we carried on to Nidri the next day. 

 

Anchored off the boat yards at Preveza, heading south.

 
J got her hair cut, we bought meat from Eleni the butcher and new hinges for the aft loo seat from George. Much time was also spent looking at the weather forecast, which is usually getting quite stable by this time of year: no wind overnight and morning, north westerly building to a peak by late afternoon, dying away by about seven pm. Unfortunately, it has yet to settle down properly, so having looked at the forecast we decided to start back north after only a day in Nidri.  
Again, good sailing with southerly winds to Preveza and then on to Gaios. We were lucky to find a space on the northern quay as the southern part of the quay get very rolly with a swell coming in with a southerly wind. The next few days were spent there, enjoying the unique little world that is Gaios: slightly tarnished hippy mixed with the usual Greek relaxed attitude to everything, overlaid with the holiday feeling that comes from being a favoured tourist spot.

 

The Skipper, spuds placed in bbq to cook, adding to the slightly tarnished hippy appeal of Gaios.

 
Watching the weather is, of course, a yachtie preoccupation. Because the northern quay has no mobile phone coverage (it sits under a cliff, cutting the otherwise good signal), this meant we had to endure the hardship of visiting a bar for drinks every day, just to get wifi access look at the weather forecast. No, really, this is important. Didn’t look at Facebook much at all…… The forecasts showed a bit of unsettled weather due to come through late Monday and Tuesday, so we decided to head for Gouvia on Monday to ensure we didn’t get stuck in Gaios by the winds.
Work on odd jobs continues as always. I traced the autopilot fault to some damaged connections between the electronic compass and the course computer: because the computer couldn’t tell where we were heading, it couldn’t steer, so it sulked! Thankfully, it didn’t take long to fix. Sailing without an autopilot is, of course, quite feasible but it becomes a bit boring after a bit. It is also quite difficult to manage the boat with only two of us in anything other than the calmest of conditions, as the need to have someone steering all the time means everything takes that bit longer than when both of us can work at something.  

 

The Blue Bar, Gaios, Paxos. Our favourite wifi spot.

 
So that’s us. Parked up in Gouvia Marina for the next month (cheaper to pay for a month once you’ve been here longer than about twelve days). J flies to Dublin tomorrow, I have a list of jobs to stop me fretting whilst she’s away and then the Dublin Crew arrive on 27 May.

Oh, and we did round about 170 miles for J to get her hair cut…..

New crew?

Well, our launch nearly didn’t happen, as when I tried the engine before we were moved to the sea, it wouldn’t start. Battery knackered. Rude words. Luckily, the yard has a well stocked chandlery on site who just happened to have a suitable battery….. Never fitted one so quickly! 20 minutes from discovering the problem to having the trailer take Rampage to the travel lift!

  
Our first night back afloat was spent in the anchorage near Preveza town, all of 15 minutes away from the yard. Despite a dire weather forecast, it was a quiet night with little in the way of wind. We took the opportunity to give the outboard motor a decent test: it is an old two stroke one that is much easier for J to start than the four stroke. If it hadn’t worked properly, we could have gone back to the yard to pick up the other one, but it was fine so the following morning we set off for Corfu with an overnight stop in Gaios. We arrived in the anchorage south of Corfu town two days later and spent the night there, intending to pick up Terri and Iain by dinghy. Once again, however, the weather forecast was giving significant winds from the south. It wouldn’t have been dangerous to stay in the anchorage but it would have been uncomfortable, especially making a dinghy transfer, so we decided to go to Mandraki Marina which is tucked in under the castle, using the Venetian quay as part of it’s structure.

We picked Iain and Terri up from the airport, doing a shop on the way there and taking a taxi back. The driver breezed through the gate to the Citadel and took us right through to the Marina entrance: quite a treat to be driven along through the tourist pack as if we were some sort of dignitaries and quite an impressive arrival for our guests.

  
We set off the following morning for our week with Terri and Iain; we went to Petriti (lovely supper in the Leonidas Taverna and a geocache walk early the next morning), Gaios (two days there, one spent exploring the island by car, including meeting Bern and Al of Sanuk in Lakka), Platerias (met up with Steve and Tanya of Corfu Sea School and had a splendid session putting the Greek economy right) before we returned to Mandraki Marina for their final night aboard.

The week was all too short but we did get in quite a bit of sailing: Petriti to Gaios, some of the way from Gaios to Platerias and a fair chunk of the trip from Platerias to Corfu – this last with the cruising chute. Not bad when we often go days later in the summer without any sailing at all . Terri and Iain both joined in with the business of sailing the boat, Terri in particular learning to tie knots and fiercely claiming ‘her’ bit of practice rope… Indeed, they learnt so much we felt moved to present them with ‘International Certificates of Nautical Incompetence’ as their parting gift from the boat. There was lots of laughter, much chat about the election, (not much laughter there,) and they also got us swimming far earlier in the year than is our normal practice. They didn’t manage to dodge the geocache walk but did skillfully avoided being inveigled into any games of Mexican Train, Rumikub or Quiddler!

  
We are now on the quay in Gaios, in the town as opposed to our normal haunt on the northern quay. It is quite busy with work going on putting final touches to bars and restaurants as the tourists begin to re-appear. There are a number of new ventures here this season, including a laundry room and a mobile phone shop, which should make life more sustainable for the likes of us yachties.

Finally, a word on the Greek economy and the potential for a Grexit (Greece leaving the Euro Zone)….. Like everyone in the country at the moment, we are keeping a close eye on what is going on in the world of high finance. Greece seems to be edging closer to an exit from the Euro Zone; the worry for us is that a financial crash could lead to problems getting hold of the basics like food and fuel, along with a possible freeze on ATM withdrawals. We have therefore taken to keeping more cash on board than normal (no, I won’t say where we’ve hidden it) and topping the fuel tank up more often (we usually let it get down to ¼ full before refuelling, now we tend to top up at about ¾ full). These two things combined give us the opportunity to do a runner if required, although I have to say that the likelihood of needing to do so seems remote to me.