Mike and Patty arrived at 11pm, after a super long travel day. Starting in Bolton New York they drove an hour to Albany, flew to Newark
and had a lengthy lay over. Then that evening flew to Rome, had a two hour lay over, then on to Athens. They had a four hour lay over in Athens, and then flew to Zakinthos. Here they took a taxi to our port which was another hour and twenty minutes. We felt terrible about the travel arrangements that were partly our fault. Originally when we told them to book through Rome, there were direct flights to the several Ionian islands from Rome. Ryan Air decided to cancel all their flights to the islands for whatever reason so getting to us was no longer as easy as we thought. Sorry Patty. Our new way of thinking for any visitors is to make all your own travel arrangements and only two weeks before arrival time. With a sailboat destinations and times don’t go hand in hand. The most dangerous thing for a sailboat is a calendar. I think it will be easier for us, and any one coming to book travel this way. It put a lot of stress on us to make a destination and date, and in the end doesn’t always work out for whoever is coming to visit. Anyway, they made it safely aboard Cadence and we were excited to once again have Patty aboard, and her friend Mike, who also had some sailing experience which is always a big plus.
In the morning we let our weary visitors sleep in and at the crack of noon we got in the dinghy and went to visit the blue caves and go for a swim. About a 10 minute dinghy ride away there were magnificent caves into the steep cliffs over head. The way the sun hits the water it makes the inside of the cave appear all blue. The water was magnificently clear and caves lit up a blue neon. We were able to drive into the caves a little way and in some places there were arches we could drive the RIB through. No wonder all these folks in buses were coming here each day
After getting back to Cadence we set sail, or motor I should say, as there was about 1-3 knots of wind. Again, love the med for sailing, all or nothing. We made our way north to Cephalonia, and the port of Poros. The town was a 10 minute walk from the port and seemed to have been forgotten about. A few nice seaside cafes, but all were empty and either the tourist business was dead in this town or just had not started yet. Anyway, not our problem so we enjoyed a nice swim just outside of the port. In the past couple of days the temperature here in Greece was ratcheting up. We were in the middle of a heat wave. Little wind, no clouds, and a lot of sun. We all wanted to be in the water as much as possible.
We left Poros for a short motor up the coast to a small anchorage, Sikidi, that we ended up having all to ourselves. The little cove happened to be extensively used in the movie Captain Corellis Mandolin. This is a true movie about an Italian soldier in WWII that was one of 39 survivors out of 3900 men that Hitler decided to execute. Morelli escaped by swimming across the channel from Cephalonia to Ithaca. Anyway, as we had internet and there was a sign on the beach mentioning this as the movie site, we did a fair amount of research on the film that we now must go see. Straight across the channel was the island of Ithaca and it provided for a beautiful back drop. We enjoyed a nice meal and a peaceful anchorage for the night. Patty introduced us to a new card game, spades, that would become our nightly entertainment while they were aboard. In the morning we had a strange attack on the boat. There must have been 30 bees all swarming around inside the boat. Patti and Mike were out of bed and assessing the situation. They woke me up and we decided it best to vacate. , I raised anchor and we motored north to our next destination.
Once at the north end of Cephanlonia we found some wind. Knowing Mike really wanted to see that Cadence was something other than a motor boat we sailed for a couple of hours across the top of Ithaca toward the mainland and then back to the town of Fiskardho. This is the only town that was not completely destroyed by the 53’ earthquake, apparently it sits on a bed of clay. As its so picturesque, it is inevitably a must visit for land as well as charter tourists, not to mention the many ferries shuffling people in and out daily.
That night we took a spot in Fiskardo and had a nice few days other then the mayhem you can read about in my other post. Patty Mike and Jess left from Fiskardo to the other side of the island where they would stay the night and catch a super early flight to Athens to spend a few days. All in all a great visit. I was staying in Fiskardo and waiting for Jess to return in a few days.
the fleet
