Midi s Meanderings Part Four

Transcription

1 Midi s Meanderings Part Four 19 June 2012 Bog (hello in Croatian, believe it or not) Yes we are in Croatia at long last and, from the little we have seen, it is very beautiful. Since we last ed, we have been a few places and clocked up a few more miles and met more interesting people. We visited the island of Trizonia, in the Gulf of Corinth and stayed in another half built disused marina that had a lot of dead or dying boats in it. Even had masts sticking out of the water where a yacht had sunk some four years previously and had just been left there. We find these in various places around Greece where the structure if the marina is in place but no services although here the lighting throughout the marina came on at night. Crazy stuff. From here we headed on to Messalonghi, a strange place up a canal in the marshlands. The only real thing of note here was the 3 large turtles we spotted as we came up the canal but the water was very discoloured and also we managed to etch a large scratch on Midi s topsides as we left the harbour wall. We tied alongside the town wall and had Ross and Alison (English couple) and Alma and Fred (Dutch couple) over for drinks. Fred works in the setting up of oil rigs and such like and his first ever posting, back in the 80 s, was Marsden Point where he worked on the oil refinery, and he and his wife and children lived in Raumanga Heights, Whangarei for 2 years. He has since had more exotic postings like London, Russia and Singapore but remembers Whangarei fondly. Loved this little sign on the wharf

2 to let you know there is no rail to stop you driving in to the sea. On leaving here we headed on into the Ionian Sea sailing with a light headwind. I noted that the genoa was shaking a lot and on tensioning the leach cord which tensions the leach or trailing edge of the sail it came away in my hand. This runs right to the head of the sail and obviously had come undone at the head and runs up a seam in the sail. By the time we anchored the cord had worked it s way right out of the sail. Didn t really matter too much as we had little wind over the next few days. Making our way further in to the Ionian, we visited the island of Meganisi which was a beautiful spot with far more boats than we had previously seen. We caught up with our French friends, Jacques and Brigitte and went for a walk over to the next bay, Vathy, with them. I admired Brigitte s hat so when we got to the little town, she spotted a hat shop and it was hat trying on time. I love hats I think they are so beautiful on other people. Don t know what it is about me face too round or the strong nose I inherited off my Dad but put a hat on me and it looks like a pudding basin or a chamber pot. Mais non Brigitte exclaims as I plonk yet another hat on my head and with a little tilt forward and a little tweak to the side Il est parfait. Knew I should have got a pen then and drawn exactly where Brigitte had angled that hat, because now Brigitte has gone and without the French flair you guessed it Lesley s wearing a chamber pot! Jacques and Brigitte live in Aix-en-Provence and have a cottage in Brittany and have invited us to stay so I might just have to go to get hat wearing lessons. Then it was off to Nidri on the island of Levkada, sailing past the island of Skorpios where Aristotle and Jackie Onassis holidayed. Still owned by the Onassis family but of course you cannot go ashore there. Nidri was a handy little town as we found a sail maker to do a small repair on the genoa while we were there. It coincided with Jubilee celebration weekend too and there were English boats with their bunting up, playing suitably patriotic music. We had a meal ashore here and once again were told by our waitress that things were very quiet. She said the previous year by

3 this time they were packed out day and night but now almost empty. Next thing to tackle was the Lefkas Canal (heading on to Corfu). I don t think I like these canals much as there never seems like much room to manoeuver. As soon as we get in to the canal, Bruce decides he has to go to the loo and leaving me on the helm, he says just follow the markers. Well as soon as he is doing his business, the markers disappear! Never mind, I didn t set us aground but as we reached the part where the bridge opens, we were in a bit of a holding pattern behind ten other yachts and Bruce decided he was going to clean his teeth! Suffice it to say, I didn t let him go. This canal was originally dug out by the Corinthians in the 7 th century BC. The current canal was built in the early 1900 s by the Greek Government and runs mostly alongside the old canal of which you can still see the original walls. Next was the island of Paxoi and an anchorage called Lakka with the most beautiful clear water. Sailing to here after leaving the Levkas Canal was interesting. We set off with a light southerly (we are sailing northwards, that built to around 20knots. Great sailing but about 5nm south of the island of Paxoi the wind suddenly swung 180 degrees and we had thunder and the most torrential downpour! By the time I had managed to subdue the genoa and sort out the main I was soaked through, the rain disappeared, the sun came out and we were left with about 8knots of wind from the north. So we carried on under motor. This island used to supply Harrods with its olive oil so we were forced to buy some oil there. Yum. The small bay ended up with about 40 yachts in it which made it a bit interesting but was a very secure anchorage in a very pretty setting. After leaving there, we had intended to sail to Corfu but ended up just off the mainland in a stunning little spot with very clear water. Many day tripper boats coming and going during the day

4 and the odd charter boat but they all left when the late afternoon came and it was just us bliss. Then it was off to Corfu and our first anchorage at Petriti which did not have a lot to offer except that when we went for a walk ashore we came across an old Greek man singing as he strolled along the road and he stopped an gave me a lovely fragrant carnation as he continued singing to me. Never been serenaded before but a girl s got to take what she can get when she is on the wrong side of 50. I think he may have been a few centimes short of a Euro as well. Off to Corfu town, to check out of Greece, to be told by the lovely immigration chap there that we should never have been charged our 2400 Euro fine for overstaying in Greece. We knew that but it was good to have it acknowledged by an official not that we get our money back of course. Corfu town itself was pretty interesting. A lot of English influences there and indeed the cricket pitch is still in the middle of the town but they don t use it any more as too many cars would get damaged by flying cricket balls. I did not realise that Phill the Greek (called that by the anti-royalists or HRH Prince Phillip) was born in Corfu. We were anchored to the south of the town so had to walk across town to where we had to do the clear out process. So first had to go to port police to get a form from them then walk about 1km (it was very hot) to customs and immigration, then back to PP so they could stamp various things, then back to customs to drop off our transit log, then back to PP again to pay them 5 euros! You expect this in Greece and at least we had very helpful and polite officials this time. We headed further up the island to anchor so we could leave early in the morning for Croatia. We anchored in a bay called Kalami, smack bang behind a Kiwi yacht called Restless. We had the owners Roland and Consie and their guests, David and Maurice, over for drinks as they had just been to Croatia so we were able to get hints off them.

5 The next morning it was anchor up at 5.45am and motoring at first then sailing through the night to head to Croatia. The forecast was for southerlies, light on Monday and then building on Tuesday to around 30knots by late Tuesday. We had a day of motoring and sailing before the wind started to steady at around 12knots at 2230hrs on Monday night. The captain was asleep when the 1 st mate came down to wake him up as she was unsure about a light that was showing ahead. Well the captain woke up of a dead sleep, looked out the window astern and said the motor is running, we are motoring, what is going on? It was quite funny but I was completely disoriented and couldn t work out what the hell was happening! Eventually woke up properly, sorted out what the light was, a boat going south, maybe a fishing boat and got us sailing with the wind dead behind us, not the 1 st mate s favourite point of sail. The wind stayed at at around 12 14knots before building from late morning to around 25 30knots. We surfed into Cavtat in Southern Croatia hitting speeds of 15knots where tied up at the customs wharf at 1400hrs on Tuesday. We had decided that we would leave visiting Albania and Montenegro until after Croatia and as were sailing by Albania I was looking at the chart and it had things like Danger-minefield and Unexploded devices on it and I am thinking do I want to go there but Bruce assured me that all that had long been cleared up. We arrived at Cavtat, our first port of call in Croatia and did all the clearing in formalities which was much easier than in Greece. You do have to part with a bit of money (350 euros) but we knew that and we also know that you have to pay to anchor in quite a lot of places in Croatia but were not expecting to have to pay in our first anchorage. We had not been there long and we get a knock on the hull by a guy saying are you staying the night and if you are you have to pay me 10 Kuna (about NZ$2) a metre boat length to stay there. No hi, I am so and so, welcome to Croatia etc. A rather heated discussion then ensued between the Captain and him as to whether it was indeed legal for him to charge us. He got quite agitated and asked us where we were from and when we said New Zealand, he said everyone from everywhere else pays, except Australians and New Zealanders. We told him we had only just arrived in the country and would have to change some money the next day. So the next day we went to the Harbour Master and asked him if it was correct and he said no it is a free anchorage where we were anchored and to get his registration if the man came back. So when the guy

6 returned to collect his money we could tell him that we were not paying and he whipped out his phone and said he was calling the Police and we would be getting a big fine. It was all just a big con and we were so glad we had not given him any money. He actually got quite nasty so left us with an unpleasant feeling. Whilst we were on the boat we saw a Lagoon catamaran drifting by us and we thought there was no-one on board so Bruce set off over there and was able to help Loreen re-anchor the boat before her husband Rodney returned to the boat. They came over for drinks that evening and they were a lovely Canadian couple. Of course we updated them on our experience and then they had friends turn up in their motor boat. Well they had the same guy hit them up and their friend, Ronnie, told him he had been coming there for years and had never had to pay so ten he headed ashore and reported him to the harbour master as well so I think we may have upset his business somewhat. Next we anchored up the river beside Dubrovnik, outside the marina. The marina is not very big and probably would not have had room for us so we were happy to anchor outside for free and watch the antics as boats came in as it was rather windy. Boats were calling on their VHF s and asking the marina if they could enter and the marina would come back to them and say no, it s too windy, just anchor and enter when the wind drops. We saw a charter boat coming in with its genoa all tied up in knots and flapping noisily in the wind but the marina would not let it in and it had to go backwards and forwards until the wind died down and they could enter. The next morning we helped an English yacht get into the Marina as their motor had broken down. Our intentions were not truly altruistic as it meant that we were able to leave our dinghy in the marina as we had helped the boat in. Then it was off into Dubrovnik to visit the old town, us in the heat with thousands of tourists! Beautiful. Went up in the cable car to get a truly magnificent view of the town.

7 We are now on the island of Mljet (pronounced Milet) in a gorgeous bay where we have met Americans Geoffrey Palmer (he sailed in NZ so knew the significance of his name) and his Peruvian wife Janina. Geoffrey and Janina have been in Croatia for the past five years so have filled us in on where to go. Then two boatloads of their English/German friends arrived so as we were Nigel-no-mates, we are now sharing their friends as well. We are anchored off a National Park where we are so it was in to town yesterday to buy our ticket to enter the park and then off on a walk through the park to visit the two inland salt lakes (with a little stop to shed our clothes and take a dip in the lake) and take a little boat trip to visit the little island of St Mary in the middle of the lake on which there is a disused 12 th century Benedictine monastery. Just beautiful. Water polo is obviously very popular here and we have seen water polo courts set up in the sea, just off harbour walls. Well folks, life is tripping along just fine for us. The sun is shining, the sea water is warming up and we dropped the binoculars, and now they are monoculars, so if you thought we were one-eyed about our lifestyle, well now you are well and truly correct! Dovid jenja from Lesley and Bruce.