Where does time go?

Well... to start off with today / tonight a little bit of 'officialdom'....... As you know we left Croatia about the end of May and were a little dismayed at how much of our budget our almost 3 months in the country had cost us. We had to purchase a 12 months cruising permit at a cost of 1330 kuna (over $250) even though we could only stay in the country for 90 days. A marina was costing around 50 to 70 euro a night and we were even charged for picking up a mooring in Hvar (around $40). To add insult to injury, we have heard from cruising friends since we left that they were now being asked to pay 600 kuna a month for a tourist tax (around $120) and charges are being levied for merely dropping anchor in a lot of the popular anchorages. It almost seems to us that they are trying to discourage 'live aboard' yachties like ourselves! Many of the charter companies are also leaving and heading south due to escalating costs and red tape. We were also told that the police were sniffing around the marina in Sukosan trying to find some people who had outstayed their 90 day welcome.

Greece is a totally different ball game thank goodness. The problem in Greece seems to be that it difficult to get a straight answer. It only cost us about 45 euros to get permission to stay in the country for 6 months (although we think that we have to pay another tax after 3 months). Marinas are only slightly cheaper, however if you stay for an extended length of time (we got one month in Gouvia marina in Corfu for the price of 11 or 12 single nights) the price drops dramatically. Annual fees are less too. We have not been approached anywhere we have anchored to be asked for money and a lot of restaurants around the islands have put in pontoons for yachties to tie up to for free provided they eat at that restaurant. Tying up to a town quay has cost us nothing to about 10 euros, often with both power and water available and only a stones throw from restaurants, shops etc.

But....... the problem is that we are still not quite sure what we are supposed to do regarding 'the paper work'. We have what they call a transit log. We are officially supposed to get this filled in at every port that we visit, however in reality the rule of thumb seems to be that we get it stamped about once a month. We have actually asked for it to be stamped a few times and have been told that we don't need to bother, than when we get to the next port they asked why it wasn't stamped! You get the picture? We have been approached a few times on town quays (in Sivota and Gaios) by port police or their representatives and have had to pay a port charge (19 euros and 13 euros respectively), however quickly worked out that if we happened to be 'absent' from the boat at the time when they came round we escaped this cost. I asked Craig to get some clarification of what we were supposed to do after all the yachts on the quay were asked to front up at the port police office in Sivota and he came back shaking his head with even greater confusion. We were actually told that we only have to pay 'if we get caught'.

Even funnier in Preveza was the lovely picture card which was handed to Craig asking us very nicely to attend the port police office to carry out the formalities. We left that day anyway so we didn't bother. In Gaios (on Paxos) as previously mentioned, we sussed out that the fee collector came round every night around 8 to 9pm. We just happened to not be on the boat at that time after that! Ah, the camaraderie of yachties is a great thing, isn't it..... It's not that we deliberately want to do the wrong thing, more that we are not really sure what the right thing is. Also of note are the amount of people who ride around on motor cycles with no helmets on and families of 3 (mum, dad and the wean) whizzing along on one motor cycle, also with no helmets in sight. When we commented on this to a local we were told that there actually is a fine of 400 euros for ommitting to wear a helmet, however no-one enforces it! Very confusing for us simple people.......

Anyway, enough about paperwork and back to our story. After leaving Freedom behind in Gaios we headed over to Preveza on the mainland. We had a fantastic sail, probably one of our best so far, only motoring in and out of harbours. We arrived in Preveza to find a surprisingly quiet town quay and tied up stern to. There was the usual plethora of cafe bars and tavernas and Preveza was a lot bigger and noisier than we had anticipated. We met a lovely English couple (now, now Scottish people.... they do exist!) called Chris and Hermione who invited us on board for drinks and we headed off into town with them for a meal. What a lovely evening.

The downside of Preveza was the noise level. We were a stones throw from an upmarket cafe bar which turned up the music to about a million decibels, a level which it stayed at until about 3am. Across from the another end of the boat was a very larged grain carrier which seemed to spend all hours of the day and night unloading it's cargo. Poor Shirley got very dirty and dusty during the two days that we spent there and we left the morning that we were requested to report to the port police.

We then motored from here into an inland lake area (the gulf of something or other, Craig says!) and headed to Vonitsa. The gulf is about bigger than Moreton Bay in area and we were planning to spend the day wandering around exploring, however when we got to Vonitsa it was so nice that dropped anchor in a little bay to the East of the town. There was an arched bridged leading to a small island with the usual little charming church on it and we only about one kilometre from the town which was lovely and 'Greek' with very few tourists. The village itself has a lovely picturesque castle hovering above it and there was also a notable absence of the dreaded charter fleets. Most of the 15 or so boats in the anchorage were British and we got chatting to a lovely couple called Pete and Sue from Flore II (hope I have spelled that correctly!) who have spent a lot of time in the area and gave us a lot of local knowledge. We also had the delightful company of Graeme (Scottish!), Yvonne and her Greek friend from Be-Be En and Rosemary and husband from Carina (sorry, we have forgotten some names... Greek wine starting to kill off too many brain cells!).

This was a magical few days. We pottered around the town and swam off the back of the boat. We visited the castle and surprise, surprise, socialised and drank too much wine. The sad thing about this transient life is that you meet so many wonderful people and it is ultimately impossible to stay in touch with everyone.

On night three the wind got up just as were returning from drinks on Carina. Within about 10 minutes there was a stiff 20 to 25 knot north westerly blowing, 180 degrees different to what it had been when we set our anchor. We sat up for a while keeping an eye on things and Carina pottered around resetting their anchor for a while. We had already dragged the day before when Shirley had done a few 360's on our faithfully, but not immune, Kobra anchor. This was the ongoing problem with this lovely bay. The constantly swinging winds mean that no matter how well your anchor has set, it may pull out if the boat turns in a totally different direction.

In the morning there was a fairly rapid exodus and most of the boats left for a safer haven. We headed South to the island of Levkas as we wanted to go into the marina to check out our continuing problems with power generation and to get our diesel engine serviced. We motored back through the channel at Preveza. It was in this area that Anthony and Cleopatra faced Augustus Caesar (and lost!).

The island of Levkas is interesting. It is only separated from the mainland by a very narrow channel which was reportedly dregged by the Romans and Venetians. The islanders do not want a proper bridge to be built as it would affect their tax status as an Island so the bridge is an old ferry which opens in various ways depending on the amount of traffic going through. It opens on the hour every hour during day light in summer time. As you are approaching the area from seawards you look as if you are heading straight for the beach and it is only as you think you about to run aground that the channel opens up to starboard. Thank goodness for chart plotters! :-) We had about 20 minutes to wait for the bridge to open and by opening time there was a quite a queue of boats lining up. The cars cross the 'bridge' by driving up the boarding platform of the old ferry and off the other side and there was quite a convoy building up waiting for the boats to get through. At opening time the boarding platform lifts first of all and then the whole ferry swings aside to let the floating people through. It is the closest I have come to feeling like a celebrity and many photos were taken of the lovely Shirley by onlookers as we glided serenly past. Told you we should start charging! Not sure if it was my good looks (or Shirley Valentine's) or just that we were the first boat off the blocks.

We travelled another few hundred metres to the marina and tied up stern to. Within about 20 minutes the Volvo Penta (I kept saying Pentax until Craig corrected me!) engineers were on board doing our service. They indicated that they would return on Monday to have a look at our power concerns and toddled off after completing the required oil changes etc. Gee, I hate all this routine maintenance stuff but I guess it does pay.

We stayed in Levkada marina for a few nights, meeting a lovely lady (Tori) and her friend Paul in a souvlaki shop in town on the second evening. Tori had spent a few years living on the island and is one of those people who I am very jealous of who can fluently speak a second language. She was amazing and we extricated a lot of local knowledge from her too. If you get a chance to read this guys I hope that the rest of your travels were fantastic!

We are getting fairly street wise about where we eat (apart from my disaster in Gaios) and usually walk at least a few blocks away from the tourist strip and the water front. We also look for restaurants with locals eating there. In this instance we had walked through the gorgeous, bustling town of Levkas and had seen a small, very ordinary souvlaki shop which looked like the greek equivalent of a fish and chip shop. Craig had to persuade me to eat there (I am such a snob with such expensive tastes so I am told), however we had a fantastic feed which was really good value for money and couldn't finish everything (also where we met Tori and Paul). We managed to finish the alcohol of course and if I hadn't eaten so much I would have had to eat my words as it was the best feed we had had in weeks. Thank goodness I listen to Craig occassionally!

Leaving Levkada marina we headed in a southerly direction along the coast of Levkas, passing on the way the island of Skorpios which was owned by the Onassis family (may still be I think). I think the important bloke is buried there. Boats can anchor off the island as nowhere in Greece below the high water mark can be privately owned, however you may be challenged by big burly security guards if you try to go ashore. We pottered up past Nidri, a touristy looking place with water slides, sun beds on the beach etc, to a quiet bay with heaps of room for anchoring. Although we have been warned for weeks now about the business of the place in the summer we have really not found anywhere we have chosen difficult to get into and we are starting to think that the economic downturn etc may be having a detrimental effect of the Greek tourist trade. The locals are complaining too which is very sad for an area so dependant on tourism with such a short season.

I can't remember the name of this bay and as we are away from our pilot guides etc I can't refresh my old brain so I will inform you once we return to our girl! It was, however, just to die for! We recognised our new friends' boat, Flore II, as we were anchoring and decided to annoy them later if we got the chance. As is the norm in this lifestyle we ended up on board having a few drinks that evening and once again were able to pick knowledgeable brains on the local sites as Pete and Sue are old hands at this area. We pottered back to Shirley Valentine much later than planned with the usual warm fuzzy feeling that is induced by good company, good food and too much Greek wine. Dinner plans had been made for the following evening and we snuggled up in the lovely secure anchorage for a good nights sleep.

The next day we went ashore in the dinghy to the local 'yacht club'. This establishment is run by an Irish fellow who caters for the various needs of yachties. There is a massive book swap area catering to all tastes, a great choice of menu in the cafe and evening a washing machine which can be used at a very reasonable price. Boats can be left here on a mooring and will be taken care of if you have to leave for extended periods of time. What a great facility. We had a cool drink, pottered around the book swap and chatted for a while before exploring the other side of the bay.

Around the other side we saw an advert for a swimming pool which could be used free of charge by customers of the bar facilities. We scooted back to Shirley for lunch, grabbed our towels and went back ashore to take the generous owners up on their offer. We spent a lovely afternoon chatting, drinking cocktails and swimming in the great pool and headed back on board to get ready for our dinner date. As we approached, Sue was swimming towards us and announced that Pete had been unwell all day. We promised that we would catch up when he had improved and were starting to make dinner plans when the mobile rang.

News came through thick and fast that my mum had been admitted to hospital and that the family thought if may be a good idea if I could come home to Scotland to see her. I was assured that it was nothing too serious, but you still worry when you can't see for yourself so we quickly decided to head back to Corfu as we knew Gouvia was a safe place to leave Shirley and that it would probably be easy to fly to Glasgow from here. As we upped anchor, Craig was contacting his son in Sweden to ask him to organise flights for us (thanks heaps for that Kris!).

Going back through the Levkas canal was even more fun in the dark! The channel from the south is very narrow and is only lit by what looked like solar lights on sticks which had been easy to eyeball during the day but were now dangerously elusive. I was up on the foredeck navigating and Craig had to give up on the chartplotter as it was showing that we were aground at times. We timed the bridge opening perfectly at 11pm and were trying to raise them on the VHF radio (as per our pilot book instructions) just as the car boarding platform started to rise to let us through. As we were the only boat, the whole ferry did not swing and we were left to squeeze through an opening with only about a metre on either side. Great fun!

After a 14 hour trip we arrived in Gouvia Marina, Corfu around 11am just missing that days flight. We had a day to spare until the next one and spent this time tidying up the boat, packing etc for our trip to Scotland.

After an uneventful flight, including a very boring 8 hour stop over in Gatwick, we arrived home in Glasgow very late in the evening and my poor long suffering Uncle Iain picked us up from the airport after an extra trip as he had been given the wrong information about the delayed flight arrival time.

Mum got out of hospital the following day and it was good to be able to pick her up and bring her home with us. She is now on the mend and is settling into a new treatment routine which she is coping with admirably. We even bought her an I-pod to help while away the boring treatment hours she has to endure and she is becoming very high tech. One of the positives of these trips is that I get time to spend with my lovely family and to catch up with friends. It is always so enjoyable to meet 'Auld Aquaintences' and it has been great to spend time with my aunties, uncles, cousins, musical friends, Jean and Bob Henry (and Irene, Katie and Andrew) etc etc.

Now the interesting part is this...... Remember the TV sit com 'Benidorm'? Craig loved the show and we have every episode every made on DVD. He has had a notion to visit on an 'all inclusive' basis every since....... So, we were planning to visit the grand kids in Sweden on our way home and had organised flights etc to suit, but Kris and Linda would rather get toilets pulled out of their house instead. With a week to kill and Shirley tucked up safely in Corfu we have planned a weeks all inclusive stay at a resort in Benidorm! Can't wait. Hope it's not an anticlimax!

Leaving Glasgow early Friday morning and driving to Manchester via Stranraer where we are catching up with an old, dear friend. Flying out of Manchester early Saturday and back the following Saturday in time to make our flight back to Corfu in the afternoon (hopefully!).

We also have a busy social schedule coming up over the next few months. Our 'sailing' friend Kim is arriving from Italy on the 18th of August and then we are driving up to Athens at the end of the month to pick up Kathleen and Helen from Australia. They are leaving for Germany on the 22nd of September and we are picking up Maggie from Australia as they leave. Making me exhausted just thinking about it, but can't wait to see everyone! From there it will be preparing Shirley Valentine for over wintering and heading for home..... Where does time go?

Anyway guys... Craig wants to sleep (strange person that he is) and we have another busy day tomorrow so I will love you and leave you.

Till next time..... xx Lesley