Will We Ever Learn …..

What goes up must come down … or in this case, what goes down must come back up. Every mile you travel away from your destination is a mile you need to come back home. After going the 60 miles to Levkas we came to the conclusion that we are travelling too much distance away from Corfu so we decided to head north again with the intent of meeting our friends the Fedaks at Gouvia marina on the 10^th of August.

Going North through Levkas Channel

We dawdled all morning not leaving Traquil Bay until 2pm, back through the Lefkas canal, fueled up with 200 liters of diesel and then past the floating bridge. We sailed the 5 or so miles to Preveza (where we are keeping the boat over the next year) and then another 10 miles into the bay to visit the site of Octavian’s vanquishing of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. We had a good sail but once we hit the point we needed to power … once we got to the site of Nikopolous we were at the edge of a salt marsh that smelled a bit like a golf course, and there were hundreds or thousands of white jellyfish.

Fish farms on the way.

 Swimming off the boat is one of the great pleasures of sailing in the med. The water is usually blue, clear and warm … plus generally free of jellies – except today where we had weed, green opaque water and hundreds of jellies. We amused ourselves trying to catch them with a bucket – surprisingly difficult – and then turned on the generator, watched ‘Finding Nemo’ for the ‘you have serious thrill issues dude’ line about the jellyfish and then went to bed early. We reckoned that we need to 1) get moving earlier, 2) go places a shorter distance away, and 3) make sure that wherever we end up is a good place for swimming.

The big drag about going the extra 10 miles past Preveza is that it caused us to go the extra 10 miles back. We dropped into Cleopatra Marina to pay our deposit and check the place out. We’re leaving on the 28^th of August and we’re scheduled to haul-out on the 27^th so we will need a very tight project plan to get us up and out of there the next day.

"Jellyfish Bay"...but a nice sunset with TK nearby.

Once out of Preveza we mostly motored the 25 miles up to Pargas, a neat little town on the mainland coast. It is broken up into two bays, the western-most is where you can anchor or med-moor to a breakwater. We chose to anchor because the breakwater seemed like it might have a rat or two looking to board a tasty Canadian boat. The harbour there is incredibly busy with watersports with several Malibu-type waterski boats going all day with wakeboards, waterskiiers, tubes, flying tubes (you’d have to be a bit nuts to do that) and paragliding.

Pargas with a full tripper boat coming by...music blasting.

The good news is that it all ends at dusk.

The town is in the other bay where the ferries and tripper boats go to. We pulled the dinghy up on the beach by the quay and went shopping for clothes and a place to buy some basic provisions – you know beer, wine, milk, bread, cheese – in that priority order.

BBQ Flame On!

We had a BBQ dinner which was excellent, especially the part where the  BBQ decided to "flame on"...thankfully all eyebrows are still intact.

TK arrived at about 10:30 in the dark, and asked us to put the strobe on so they could see us. We have a MEC Turtle light that we put on strobe – unfortunately there was a brighter strobe on the 2500 square foot swimming platform in the middle of the bay. Marina picked up the phone and asked Marcel – “do you realize you’re going towards a swim platform?” … the immediate alteration of course by TK confirmed our suspicions that he thought the swim platform was Tara. Once anchored we rowed over for a quick beer and to catch up on the events of the day … the biggest news was that they had come across a Sea Turtle caught in a net and Joost freed the turtle … way to go Joost. They also saw a pod of dolphins that were obviously looking for dessert so they came into the bay and had a jellyfish feast – not sure whether that’s the equivalent of a jelly-filled Danish, or a bowl of jello dessert … regardless, nobody on Tara sheds a tear when a Jelly meets its demise.

 

Pargas Town

The ancient fort at Pargas.

In the morning the girls from TK, Marina and Jess went to town and came back with a few dresses, and some baked goods. It was the last day on board for Anton and Sebastian – flying home to Prague and also it was probably the last time we’ll see Joost this summer. Joost and Ross connected a couple of years ago and when they got back together it was as if no time had elapsed. He is polite to Marina and me, and very kind to Jessie. He has a very quirky sense of humour and is a gentle soul … it was sad to have to say goodbye to him.

Occasionally they have fun together.

At around 11:00am we headed out to our next destination – a lunch stop at Nisos Mourtos and the nearby islands, then up to Ormiskos Valtou for the night. Valtou is quite a remote bay that indents about a mile in from the coast.

Not really refreshing to swim...

There are a couple of fish farms but little else. The water was a bit green and very warm – over 30 degrees C or 83.7F on our water thermometer. The girls took a dip while I made a couple of calls. There were a huge number of jumping fish all around … and we had no hooks, lines or fishing equipment. I am going to remedy that today. We could have been “Having Fish Tonight” (use Bruce from Finding Nemo’s voice for the right effect).

There were 5 or so boats in the bay, each with one old man on board. We were about to anchor 100 feet off the back of this guys boat and then he said we were going to drop on his anchor – if that were so he must have had 100 meters of chain out in 3 meters of water. I think he might have been concerned that we’d make some noise so he shooed us off to a different part of the bay. Judging by the condition of the boats – mostly older and in moderate to poor condition – this is where the grumpy old guys go to be alone. Definitely not on the agenda for a second visit … unless we have fishing equipment.