ANOTHER WEEK ABOARD JOSEPHINE

Well another week in Paradise ,
        We are very lucky to be on Holiday for ever and this a beautiful place to be we have stunning seas to sail around when the wind blows and lovely bays to anchor in and lazy around to keep cool dive in from the boat. I learn't a new way of anchoring that is to tie to a rock or tree which involves launching the dingy or jumping in and swimming for it and when there is only 2 of you jumping in and swimming is far easier.

         We are back in Agia Efimia ( one way to spell it ) where George our new best Greek friend is the harbor   master and welcomes us and we are waiting to pick our friends who are arriving later today no wind today and it is very hot mustn't grumble.

 The Quay at Agia Efimia.
                                                                         

Our friends are here for 10 days so may not write for awhile .

Bye for now Mandy and Ray 

CRUISING & HAVING FUN

ANNE AT THE WHEEL

ANNE & JIM TAKE IN THE
VIEW

Jim and Anne Cowan, Mandys brother and sister in  laws, joined us on Saturday 8th June .

We had a great week together and visited several   ports.









Anne and Jim had never sailed before but soon got into the routine of boat life.

We had glorious weather and were able to anchor and swim everyday. After lunch the breeze filled in to give some lively sailing.

ABLE SEAMAN JIM COWAN

                                                                                         
This area is an ideal cruising ground and we seem to have learnt the routine. lazy mornings, motor to a isolated anchorage, swim, lunch and wait for the afternoon breeze.

You can almost set your clock by the start of the wind at around 3pm. Zero to 20 knots plus in the space of 15 Min's.

DON'T DRINK & DRIVE !
note the glasses on the table

We have now been here for over a month and have rarely visited the same place twice.

We are continually discovering new places. We often say what could be nicer than this, and then the next place is !

VATHI MEGANISI LOOKING TOWARDS
THE ONASIS OWNED ISLAND  SKORPIOS

One of our favourite places is the small harbour of Vathi on Meganisi.

It is a small village but offers all we need in the way of supplies and Tavernas etc.

The photograph opposite shows the view we have from our mooring on the quay, with Skorpios and Levkas in the background.

ONE DAY NEARER TO THE NEXT
TIME

Ann and Jim left us on Saturday 15th and the boat seemed strangely quiet after we said out farewells. We greatly enjoyed having them.


Next week we look forward to Peter and Audrey Billingham joining us.

RAY & MANDY

Sami 38 15 N x 20 38 E

WHO SAID THERE IS NO WIND IN THE IONIAN ?

Sun downers in Assos 

I had told Mandy that the Ionian Greek Islands were very beautiful but there was never any wind.


Since we arrived some two weeks ago we have had two major gales.

Fortunately these were both well forcasted and we have learnt how to prepare for them.

After the first gale in Argostoli we left with a very pleasant SW wind and started a clockwise circumnavigation of Cephalonia.

At Anchor in Assos

Our first stop was at a delightful small village on the E coast called Assos.  This small harbour is not often visited by "yachties" as it is open to the normal NW prevailing wind.  Our gentle SWester gave perfect conditions and we had the harbour to ourselves.


The next day we continued round to Fiskardho, a crowded , touristy but attractive harbour.

We then the next day arrived in Eufimia and moored stern to the harbour wall.  The harbour staff here are very helpful, and they told us that it was going to blow hard from six o clock in the evening and would continue to gale conditions all night.

The weather sites that we looked at gave no indication of the wind to come. However we had learnt from the experience of the previous blow and listened to the locals.

The rumour of weather to come had obviously travelled fast as boats continued to poor into the harbour, which was soon almost full to capacity with maybe eighty to a hundred boats moored up.

The locals were correct and we had a real old blow. Josephine well tied up, fender ed and pulled off the wall was fine.

By two in the morning I think every skipper and crew were up and struggling.  One boat decided to pull off and then others mistakenly tried to follow.  The result was carnage, yachts with ropes around propellers, drifting into other boats, dragging anchors over neighbours, and some pounding the harbour wall.

Credit to the harbour staff who had got out of their beds and come down to assist and give what help they could. I suspect that they had anticipated the problem !

The next morning all had calmed down.  There was quite a lot of damage. Our next door neighbour on a large motor yacht had his beautiful teak bathing platform smashed.

We were fine but had little sleep.  As I said there is no wind in the Ionian.

RAY & MANDY
Levkas  38 49N x 20 42E