Preveza to Meganisi

After school ended we took the boat to the nearby town of Levka that has a bridge that turns sideways and opens up into a canal between the island and the mainland. While we were waiting a guy in a newer Beneteau 50 cut across our bow in his haste to make it to the queue -- I had to alter course 30 degrees to avoid. The bridge opens on the hour so you can lay off until about 5 minutes to. So when the time comes to go through the bridge, he waves us ahead -- wanting someone else to go first and show the way. Go figure.


There was lots of room and traffic was going both ways. Years of racing sailboats has given us a perspective of how "close" something is ... and a 6 foot miss isn 't even close in my book. For a lot of cruising sailors 6 feet is the same distance as a "coat of paint" or what we call a really close crossing. Going through the narrows we encountered another boat travelling the other way that wanted to go side-by-side with the boat in front of him -- basically leaving no room for us. Again drawing on our racing experience I aimed the boat directly at him -- and he quickly got the message and went back in line -- leaving me to chuckle at what a jerk I can be at times.



There's a great chandelery at Levkos and we bought yet another head pump -- the third. I had tried to make one out of the three we had dismantled. What a bad idea. Not only was it gross, disgusting work; it also didn't work out so I had to buy the new part anyway. Lesson learned ... there are things that you should just buy new and don't try to repair them .... and anything to do with a marine toilet is one of those items.


After Levkos there is a 2 mile long canal that's marked with what look like solar lights you buy at Home Depot for $3.00 each. I'd guess that one in ten might actually work -- but given the straightness of the canal that's probably OK. We spat out the other side of the canal feeling like a Salmon swimming the wrong way. As we have said before, Fridays are usually the day you return your charter boat. We probably passed 75 charter-boats returning to their base that day -- and most of the people looked like they wished they had more time to spend on the boats. Our final destination was Meganisi Island and a group of little bays where you can anchor and run a line to shore. The weather was supposed to get rough so we wanted to be well protected and these little bays are just that -- protected from every direction.


The charts we had bought from our friend Marcel were really high-level -- good for crossings, not so good for gunkholing close to shore. With a scale that would put half of Vancouver Island on one sheet we didn’t notice a shoal until quite late in the game. A 90 degree course change to port for a few miles made sure that we would miss the reef (actually we think it was much closer to shore than the chart indicated) and we went into a bay on the north side of Meganisi and dropped the hook and took two lines ashore in a very secluded bay.


We needed that protection. While the weather has been excellent on this adventure to date, we got a lot of rain and wind that day. As Marina said “it looks like the rain that goes up – just like in Forrest Gump”. But also like in Forrest Gump, the rain stopped suddenly and we went into the next town over – where we bought some provisions and had dinner. Ross ate Spaghetti, Jessie pushed sausages around her plate, Marina had lambchops and I had fish. I am still not quite used to the way fish is served here – when you order fish, you get a fish – scales, head, tail, fins, eyes and all. They season the outside, cook it in Olive oil and present it. My folks were not much into fish and while I like it (and we try to eat it more than once a week) it’s usually not my first choice – but I am trying. I haven’t eaten the eye yet – though I did scoop out some meat from the ‘cheeks’ this time. The other great thing about eating out in Greece is you can feed the cats. There are feral cats everywhere – actually I don’t think they’re really feral – they just live outside, don’t have a single owner, but they do have lots to eat and people tend to take some level of care of them. In Gaios we saw a poster from a group of people that provide for these semi-wild creatures.

I'll try to get Jessie to post some of the thousand or so pics she has taken of the Cats in Greece.