Monday 28th May – Pera Pigadhi Island, Ithaca
Quite an eventful day yesterday, woke up in Kioni and walked down to the 3 Mills Restaurant to use the toilet to find the village suffering a power cut so had to go in the dark. Fortunately I remembered the layout from the night before but it was pitch black in there. Chatted to Christos who works there afterwards, he was interested in the boat asking how we had arrived and where we were going and was interested to know if others would be following suit.
The restaurant is named after the ruins of three old windmills on the point as you enter Kioni bay. It is a really pretty little anchorage and a nice place to spend a couple of days.
A fishing boat pulled in next to us as we were packing up, it had been out Swordfishing all night using long lines up to a mile or more in length with hooks each baited with a small fish. They had only caught one fish all night whereas, a few years ago they would have expected to have got around 100 kilos a trip.
We set off just before 10:00 and motored out of the bay then set sail south east along the coast, hoisting the spinnaker for over an hour and half until the wind came round too much to fly it. Back out with the genoa but a bit later it died away completely so we motored in to Sarankiniko Bay. The cliffs around the entrance had fantastic colours and contortions with all manner of folds and faults. We anchored off the beach at the top of the bay and had lunch on the rocks. We were thinking of staying but the best place had already been bagged with a tent although it appeared disused with a bit of rubbish around. Just as we were preparing to leave it started to rain so we sheltered under the olive trees. Then it really began to rain, it absolutely threw it down. As we were standing there in the pouting rain getting soaked we heard some whistling and shouting and could see this couple waving to us from what looked a semi derelict house up on the hill. We made our way up the beach and hillside and were met by a chap with an umbrella and followed him along to a house.
The house was great, what looked like work in progress was actually the patio, the main part of the house was hidden from the beach behind it. Margaret and Matthias have lived there for over 20 years having built and extended it themselves whilst they visit from Germany each year. Matthias made a very welcome cup of tea and snack as we sat and chatted whilst the thunder and lightning rolled all around us. At times it was so loud we almost had to shout to each other with the rain hammering on the roof.
Margaret is an artist and carves objects from wood and stone she finds and showed us a couple of really nice pieces she had done.
Our thanks go to Margaret and Matthias for their welcome and hospitality it was much appreciated getting us out of the torrential rain and made what could have been a miserable hour sheltering under the trees into a mini adventure, what travelling is all about.
When the storm finished we went back down to the boat and bailed out about 2-3 inches of water, it was a downpour and a half but then the sun came out and it was a lovely afternoon.
We motored on down the coast to Pera Pigadhi island and tied up to a small quay for the night. We and were a bit apprehensive as the locals call it Rat Island as there supposed to be sightings of particularly large rats there. We didn’t see any but moored off the quay on long lines just in case!
Quite a rocky nights sleep in the swell and wind, it did die off for a bit but by 06:00 was blowing a steady Force 4 with gusts of force 5 and pretty much kept it up all day. For a change I managed to tune in to the weather forecast and decided to stay put for the day, hopefully it will drop off tomorrow.
We treated ourselves to a “Wayfarer pre-packed breakfast” this morning, beans, egg, sausage and bacon a real change from salami and cheese, felt like a typical Brit on holiday abroad!
We explored our island, doesn’t take long firstly, because it is so small and secondly, the undergrowth is really thick so limits how far you can go. We did have a great view from the other side though out across to Kalamos, Kastos and the Greek mainland to the north east. It seems a long time since we were there last week.
Just across the channel from the island to Ithaca is a bay with a rocky gully leading up to crags called Raven’s Crag. Legend has it this is where the goddess Athena led Odysseus to meet a swineherd in Homer’s Odyssey. There is a spring where the pigs were led to drink and feed on acorns to make them fat. Just beyond the spring is a cave where the swineherd was supposed to have lived. If it is too windy to carry on tomorrow we may just move the half mile across the bay and anchor up and explore the valley.
We do feel a bit remote here, one boat sailed past just before 09:00 and if you climb the hill to the top of our island you can see two more yachts anchored in a nearby bay on Ithaca but that’s it apart from the gulls and hooded crows.
Viv was adopted by a beautiful big Swallow tail butterfly in the afternoon that sat on her finger feeding off the remnants of her jam sandwich for lunch.
I had a paddle in a rock pool this afternoon soaking my feet letting the shrimps give me a pedicure lovely until about eight of the large centipede type things came out to join in. I dropped a piece of broken winkle in and the shrimps started to gather round and feed on it. Then one of the centipede things came up and just opened a large mouth at one end and swallowed the whole thing. It put me off my pedicure, some of them are big enough to swallow a whole toe!
Tuesday 29th May Pera Pigadhi to Andisamos Bay, Kephalonia
We set off really early as the wind finally dropped in the early hours of the morning when it started to rain, overcast when we got up but not raining although tent still very wet when we packed it up.
Motored out south between our island and Ithaca, then out to Ioannis Point before turning south west towards the bottom tip of Ithaca. We were considering stopping over at Andreas Bay on the bottom tip of the island and motored in to suss it out. However, already 4 yachts in there who had bagged the best spots last night and no where really to camp on the beach. So in view of cloudy cool conditions decided to push on to Kephalonia.
Once back out of the bay set sail in gentle Force 2-3 from north west making about 1.5 – 2.5 knots until about and hour later the wind dropped off to nothing. Motored into Andisamor Bay and anchored up off the beach. This is a small bay just to the north east of Sami. The book describes it as a quite anchorage but it looks like they have built a new road in the last few years and now there is a bar (where we had to sample the beer) and a sailing school is starting up. However, we have anchored up at the other end where it is quiet and deserted.
One minute we can be sitting in the boat and then it starts to rock in a big swell for no reason until we realize a ferry has passed about 15-20 minutes ago in the main channel between Ithaca and Kephalonia.
After a bit of a cloudy start and a touch of rain the clouds cleared in the afternoon to leave a lovely sunny day. We swam and watched the fish around the eel grass and rocks then cooked on the beach as the sun went down. After dinner we walked up to the restaurant at the other end of the beach but it was just about to close but let us buy a half litre of wine. There was only us and the staff there so we sat and chatted until they left then shared another carafe of wine with Guiseppe the owner until gone half ten. Viv and I then had to walk back along the beach in the moon and starlight and get into the tent moored at anchor off shore with the bay deserted except for us and a Scops owl boob boobing on the far side.
We will stay here tonight at anchor and probably head for Eufimia tomorrow and then explore the coast of Kephalonia and Ithaca to the north before returning to Sami next week to meet Gareth.
