Alexanders in the Mediterranean: Pilos – Marina and I both like it ... Ross not so much

Pilos is the town located on the Navarinos Sea, site of an infamous sea battle between the Turks and the British where the Turks lost their entire fleet (something like 250 ships) to the British who did not lose a single vessel. The commander wasn’t revered in Britain however as he was ordered to bottle up the fleet but leave it intact so that the Russians didn’t dominate the area. The net of it was that the Russians gained a sea-port on the Med as a result of the battle ... kind of winning the battle and losing the war.

The entrance to Pilos is a natural rock wall that creates the Navarinos Sea

The Navarinos Sea is about a 3 mile round inlet that is sheltered from all sides, though the entrance is pretty shallow and the charts say that in rough weather there are breakers at the entrance – which can pretty-much ruin your day as your boat turns upside down in the wave. We got to Pilos after 10 hours of powering from Porto Kayio and no trouble at the calm entrance. We stopped near the town end of the bay and did some marketing as as we were pretty much out of everything. We bought 200 Euros of food and drew a pissed off look from the person behind us in line who had one slice of ham, one slice of cheese and a tomato. Food prices in Europe are about half of what we pay in Vancouver – pretty much the same in restaurants. As it turns out, 200 Euros of food is basically all four people can carry – oh and as part of our food buy we had 2 bottles of rum, a few bottles of wine, 6 litres of Heineken, a half dozen coolers, 2 litres of milk and 18 litrers of water. I tell you it is not the food that weighs a lot, it’s the liquids.

The Girls going back to the Boat with a dinghy full of Groceries

For whatever reason Ross has a mental block about Pilos. He basically refuses to get off the boat which generally makes him a bit of a grumpy bear. We didn’t do much swimming as the temperature of the water was about 20 degrees. Sheesh, we’re in Greece, not in Vancouver for heaven’s sake.

We (Marina, Jessie, Chloe and I) had a nice Greek breakfast – from 11-14:00 where we lazily sat, had a couple of coffees, some crepes and just sat there drinking water and juice. It’s lovely to sit at a restaurant or coffee shop in Greece, nobody bugs you, you can take your time and nobody cares.

On our way the anchorage near dusk

We had hoped to go for dinner but the wind and water conspired against us so we had another dinner on board – partly veg/vegan for Chloe with protein added for the rest of us. Then we played a goofy game with Chloe’s phone (Heads Up) which is a bit like Charades, and then packed it in about 23:00. We knew we had an early day next morning as we had another 70 or so miles to go to Turtle Bay on Zakinthos – a place we have been to before and seen many things ... except turtles.