Paxos ... Again

The island of Paxos is about 20 miles south of Corfu in the Ionian sea and provides anyone that goes there with some of the nicest water you’ll find anywhere. Our first stop was Lakka, a small bay that gets quite congested.

The water is turquoise blue and clear to more than 10 meters deep. We anchored early in the morning after having left the Isla Muertos pulling up our anchor right at 09:00. We had dropped our anchor just over another boat’s the night before and we promised to leave by 9 so we did. We aimed the bow at Paxos, only a dozen or so miles away and motored slowly. While Ross slept, young Matt came up on deck .. looking a little worse for wear. He did his part for the animal kingdom making sure the local fishes were adequately fed.

Anchoring in Lakka can be a challenge, not because of the environment but rather the enormous number of boats that are there. A good idea is to tie a long rope to shore but we decided that we would anchor in the middle. We had to ask someone that anchored too close to us to move a little forward as we were expecting 20 knot winds that evening, and thankfully he obliged.

We went in for a traditional Greek dinner at a local Taverna and had a great time while Marcel stayed on TK and watched over our boat.

Dinner out in Lakka

Thankfully we only got within a few meters of other boats so he didn’t need to intervene. His boat continued to be in some weird current area and was not staying synchronized with the rest of the boats in the harbour so he ended up staying up until 04:30 to make sure things were OK.

The Tarzan Rope Swing off Tara



Rope burn when the Tarzan Swing rope gets stuck.

The next morning we had a short trip scheduled to Gaios, a total of 4 miles away. We powered out of Lakkas, raised the spinnaker and sailed into the bay at Gaios. We had a slight hitch in taking the spinnaker down so there were a few tense moments as we entered the harbour flying the spinnaker .. but we managed to put it in the sock just in time.

The spinnaker in it's snuffer.

Ross hooking up the lines for a jibe.

Gaios is a city built around an island and you go stern-to the quay with your transom facing the main drag. It’s a lively city with many bars and taverns – so we had to sample a few. One crazy thing … wifi everywhere but my Vodafone stick won’t work in town … go figure.

We need to get in that hole...in reverse.

The view from the shore.

The view waterside...no problems getting in!

After Gaios we decided to visit the caves on the back of Paxos and the beaches at Antipaxos.

Our crew at left in the dinghy...soon to disappear.

We approached the caves about mid-island on the west side and there were a number of boats already anchored and also a number of tour boats coming and going. We decided to leave Marina and Jess on the boat instead of trying to anchor at the caves. There were a number of boats there already, our charts were a little vague, and we remembered watching a guy not able to get his anchor free for the rocks for about an hour. I took the rest in via dinghy and they hopped in and swam around. Ross and Matt spent most of their time diving and seeing if they could touch bottom some seven or eight meters down. They regularly came up to the surface with rocks and pebbles.

We threw our anchor out in Antipaxos and sat at anchor for the day … what a wonderful place to visit. The kids swam to the beach, Sarah and Mike climbed the stairs to the taverna on the cliff and came back raving about the view. Some of us sat on the boat swimming, sunning and reading. It was very relaxing.

The boys at the end of the boom...hope we dont' tack.

At around 5pm we left for Pargas about 10 miles away, pulling into anchor then swimming and diving off the boat and the swim platform. Another BBQ on board and we were done for the night.


The girls chilling at Pargas