On the Road

Two weeks from now Marina and the girls arrive in Chania Crete – about 300 miles away from Preveza, so it’s time to get a move on. But there are things to do, like go to Lefkas to get stove parts and we decided to do a motorcycle ride on Lefkas to use Ross’ new motorcycle license.

Ross on his Yamaha 650 with the twitchy throttle

Matt riding his Honda Transalp 650

We ended up needing to stay in Lefkas a little longer due to a slight stove difficulty (previously blogged about) and waiting for a part from Athens. During this layover we rented a couple of 650cc motorcycles. The pavement was slick and we had minimal safety equipment (basically a crappy old helmet, not likely Snell certified). We rode about 60kms around Lefkas with minimal issues other than Ross dropping his bike on the pavement at 1kph by locking up the front wheel at zero speed. I was looking in my rear-view mirror and saw him straddling the bike on its side … bit of a heart in the mouth moment. He picked up the bike, walked it to the side of the road and put it on its stand, took a few breaths and we rode away.

Ross having dinner at a pretty good Italian restaurant in Nidri

We did one night in Elia bay on Meganisi and then onto Vathy for fuel and provisions – the store had a bigger sign saying “Boat Provisions” than the store that actually had  boat provisions. They did have toothpaste and beer though, two of the things that we were missing.

Nice to see Tomskii on our AIS display

From Vathy we had a long day to Kallithea on the Peloponnese coast and then into Pilos. Whe we were at Kallithea I emailed my friend Marcel and he said they were in the Navarinou Sea … wait a minute that’s Pilos – our next port of call … so we had a terrific reunion with Marcel and Lena our Dutch friends.

At anchor in Methoni

The ancient Venetian ruins in Methoni

Ross looking very stressed in heavy weather

For the next couple of days we hung out together in Pilos, then Methoni, Elafanisos and then we parted ways with us going south to Kithera and into Chania Crete, and them heading north towards Corfu where Lena is flying to Holland on the 11^th.

With this tiny amount of jib up we were consistently doing more than 9 knots boatspeed on our way into Chania on a beam reach. Hold on ......

Ross and I had a very fast trip into Chania – mostly 10-15 knot beam reaching (translates to 7-8 knots of boatspeed) until we got close to Crete when it became about a 35 knot close reach. We hit 11.2 knots in flat water which is like going 160Kph on the Coquihalla in a Winnebago. We pulled in most of our sails and kept going 9-10 knots for the last 20 miles into Chania. When we got there we thought about going stern-to but with a 20+ knot cross wind, not a chance. We pulled in side-to and that’s where we ended up for the next three days

Tara tied up in Chania

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