A long day trip but worth it

Dawn in the Navarinos Sea

We lifted anchor at Pilos at 06:02, barely two minutes behind schedule and motored down the bay to exit the Navarinos Sea. About an hour later we were at the top entrance (if we had a catamaran we could have cut through the shallow passage but we’d be wedged into the sand had we taken Tara across that sand bar.

We ended up powering the entire way, with motorsailing a faint possibility for a few hours along the way. The wind finally backed enough to the west so that we could point the nose into Kolpos Lagana (Turtle Bay) on Zakinthos on starboard tack so we did get a little bit of sailing. The only good news on a long delivery day is that when you leave at 06:00 you arrive at 16:00 after 10 hours of powering, so there is still some time left in the day.

We did have a very nice treat about an hour to go into Zakinthos when we spotted a pod of dolphins and they played around the boat for a few minutes. Chloe was really excited as most people don’t get to see dolphins in the wild and in such crystal-clear water too. It was very cool when she saw one turn on its side to take a look at her and then power away. They’re so fast, with a couple of pumps of their tail they’re quickly hundreds of meters away.

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.

Leaving Pilos at Sunrise at the beginning of the 65 mile trip to Zakinthos

Shooting the gap at Pilos at Sunrise 

Off to Elafanisos

A panorama of behind the anchorage at Elafanisos

Elafanisos is a small island on the bottom of the eastern-most finger of the Peloponnese and is ringed by this unbelievable sand beach. The water shallows slowly and you anchor in about 4 meters of water and here's how we got there. 

The water is so clear that the dinghy seems to
hover in mid air behind the boat

Marina and I got up fairly early ... like 06:45, and started things moving with a parade to the holding-tank head. Then while I pre-flighted the motor Jess and Marina did a little skinny-dipping off the back of the boat. Chloe came up a few minutes later, probably woken up by the kettle's whistle and she had a dip too.

We readied the boat and away we went powering out of Gramvousa and once outside encountered some pretty big swell. There was a little bit of wind -- like 5 knots, so we motor-sailed in the low-8's which is a good thing because we had about 60 miles to go. We carried the jib the whole way making great time. I managed to grab a few winks on the bow cushions until my son came and told me to get the heck out of the sun, so I moved to my room and sawed a few logs for a couple more hours waking up when the engine rpms dropped because we were at Elafanisos. 

We dropped 30 meters of chain in 4 meters of beautiful white sand. We all hopped in the water and swam to shore. The beach at Elafanisos must be in the top 5 of Greece and maybe the top 50 in the world. After fun on the beach we swam back to the boat and had a shower, cocktail and prepared for dinner.

Some of us got a little more sun than we had hoped and others may have gamed a bit more than is appropriate but Ross soon led us in a game of keep away and he had a nice long swim with Chloe around the anchor. We settled down for a nice dinner on board and were expecting a bit of a rock and rolly night - but hey, you never know because the wind was abating.

Well, the wind didn’t quit and the boat was oscillating through about 40 degrees of motion – whoomph, whoomph, back and forth, rolling you around like crazy. It doesn’t seem to affect the kids or Marina but I end up getting up every hour or two when a big set of waves comes in to take a look outside to make sure everything is OK.

In the morning I resolved that we weren't spending another night there so we planned to go to Porto Kayio in the afternoon. Ross was pissed because he loves it at Elafanisos . We roused him out of bed, to the beach and did a little bit of SUP surfing and played keep-away with the ball. I walked to the cantina with Jessie and Chloe and had a Freddochino (did they steal the name from Starbucks or the other way around) and back to the beach where Marina and Ross were still SUP surfing. We swam back to the boat and got going to Porto Kayio, the wind was favourable so we pulled out the sails and had an awesome few hours fully powered up on a close-hauled course.