How to catch an octopus!

Hello everyone!

Well our adventure continues, although we are starting to count the days before we fly home to Australia. We have had another crew change and our lovely friend Maggie (from the Gold Coast) is with us now and we are all flying back to Oz together on the 29th of October. Maggie came to us partly to help her to address her fear of being on the water and I must say that she has definately earned her 'crew' stripes! She has had to deal with some pretty rough weather on the boat and has done so without any complaining and has taken everything we have thrown at her in her stride! She has to qualify for 'crew member of the year' without a doubt!

We continue to learn life changing lessons during our journey. Amongst the useless stuff we have learned, like how to sail our boat, dealing with 75 knot winds, storms off the Albananian coast for 12 hours, etc etc, we have leaned a lot of really useful stuff that I now wonder how I ever lived without. Stuff like.... how to catch an octopus!

It goes something like this:

1. Acquire a big plastic crab
2. Attatch this to a wooden board along with 2 enormous fishing hooks (Note: these can be bought premade from any fishing supply shop worth it's salt!)
3. Attatch a length of strong fishing twine
4. Pick a nice quiet town quay where you can stare into the cockpit of some unsuspecting yachties who you can instruct on how to catch an octopus (preferably with fairly clear water so that you can see the unsuspecting octopus jump on the plastic crab)
5. Throw the plastic crab contraption alongside the yacht, just missing their mooring ropes and worrying the **** out of them every time you do this
6. When the unsuspecting octopus sniffs around your plastic crab snatch quickly thereby stabbing the octopus with the enormous fishing hooks
7. Pull quickly onto the quay and quickly stab the octopus between the eyes in such a way as to convince the yachties that you are certifiably mad
8. Continue by slamming the octopus 15 or 20 times against the concrete / rock pier VERY, VERY hard (this stage can also be carried out by beating the octopus VERY, VERY hard with a large stick
9. After you have completed stage 8, continue by rolling the limbs of the octopus on the concrete / rock pier for a long time
10. Take the octopus home and get your Greek mama to cook it for you, leaving the yachties shocked and distressed on their boat, with nightmare material imprinted on their minds for the next few weeks!
11. Come back and repeat next time a new boat comes to that spot on the town quay!

See I told you. A life changing skill if ever I saw one!

We are currently at Katacolon in the Pelopenese, the furthest south that we have been this year. We came down here as there is a train very close to the quay which takes you directly to Olympia. We were promised a 'marina' but after a 74 nautical miles trip to get here we had to anchor out when we arrived at 2am as we couldn't quite work out what the deal was when we did a 'reccy' round the 'marina' which looked nothing like the picture in the pilot guide. In the morning we came in and did a stern to moorning with our anchor on the town quay and were helped to moor by a lovely man named Stan who is American and was on his yacht. The weather that day was wet and windy and just as we arrived back on board from dinner there was a rather spectacular storm. One of the locals advised us to move around to where the ferries dock as there was more bad weather forecast. We did this the next morning with the assistance of Stan and some other friends, Tim and Katie (who are Australian) and soon we had all the boats side to in a more sheltered position. This proved to be fruitful as the following night and day brought some really nasty storms and rain (also hail!). We had a quiet day aboard and did a bit of hibernating which bored Craig to tears. Just a note for anyone planning to visit: the 'marina' berths were removed for repairs a few years ago and have not been replaced due to (surprise, surprise!) some Greek government red tape. The locals are not sure when it will be up and running again.

This morning Maggie and I boarded the train and went up to Olympia which was amazing. Craig stayed to baby sit Shirley Valentine and did some blue jobs like trying to fix our VHF radio (again!). Bloody thing never seems to work. After a day pottering around looking at the ancient ruins and standing in the spot where they light the olympic flame for every olympic games we did some souvenir shopping and returned on the train to Katacolon (3 euro return trip!) to find that the weather is not looking good for the next few days. We are now contemplating going back to Messolonghi a bit earlier and doing some road trips as we are getting a bit fed up with bad weather. Even the locals are complaining. We are getting the boat pulled out on the 27th of October so we have to be in Messolonghi around the 25th anyway.

Anyway, I have a new favourite place! If I ever do a real 'Shirley Valentine' I will be going to live on the island of Meganisi in the Ionion. It is just one of these places that get under your skin and I could quiet easily run away to there. We visited Port Atheni on Meganisi with Kathleen and Helen on board and this was where Craig and Keith scrubbed Shirley's bottom before the Ionian rally. We had vowed to return as we hadn't really had a look around and were not disappointed. We anchored first of all at Port Atheni and walked over to Katameri which is an extremely traditional Greek town with all the resident ladies in traditional clothing etc. It is such a peaceful place! We also walked round to Vathi via Ampelaki Bay.

From there we went to Kalamos (on Kalamos) where Craig and I did a big walk up to a church on the hill with spectacular views and where 'friendly George' comes to take your lines. Then to Port Leoni which is the site of another deserted village. We went ashore and had a walk around the old buildings, including an old oil press. I love these places! Then on to Sivota on Levkas where we were enticed to tie up outside a pontoon owned by Stavros who owns the adjacent taverna. We were a little concerned about the length of the lazy lines and our concern was realised when a storm blew up and we started to slam against the pontoon! Turns out the pontoon is designed for 6 metre boats only! We took off and were soon snuggly moored outside our old favourite, the 'no problem' taverna. We stayed there for a couple of days and then decided to return to Meganisi to try to catch up with some friends of ours (Mac and Barbara) who own a house there.

What transpired from there for us was a lovely, gradual enveloping into the extended family of expats and locals on Meganisi. It goes like this:

We met Mac and Barbara in Sivoto in August when we had Kim on board and had promised to visit at some time in the future. When we had walked to Vathi from Port Atheni we met Irene and Chris who have a share in the same boat as Mac and Barbara. They told us that Mac and Barbara were still on the island. When we returned to Vathi by boat we tied up in the marina and were met by a lovely young lad called Yannis who owns the marina. The same night we were sitting on a British boat (who we were chatting to as we had found a fender of theirs in August and were now returning it to it's rightful owners, as you do!) and we saw Mac and Barbara on the pier. After big hugs and kisses we were invited for drinks the following day.
Are you with me still?

After a lovely afternoon with Mac and Barbara, we were leaving as some other friends of theirs, Filia and John (from Brisbane!!!) arrived. They are building a house in Ampelaki Bay on Meganisi and asked us if we would mind taking some documents home to Brisbane for them to deliver to John's brother in law who is building a catamaran in South Africa which he is going to sail to the Ionian. We were also asked if we could talk to this brother in law about sailing over here. As we have friends, John and Jenny, who also live in Brissie and who are also building a catamaran we agreed to try to get these people together when we get home.

Have a breath! Yannis at the marina was surprised when we turned up back at the boat with Filia and John as he also knows them and we seemed to go up a notch arriving in Filia's company as her family are from the island and everyone thinks very highly of them. OK, sorry not finished yet! Mark Norfolk (who fixed Mac and Barbara's electronic gates for them) was also introduced to us..... and yes, he knows everyone too and ended up coming onto Shirley Valentine to help Craig fix some electrical problems. We had dinner with him one evening and Maggie and I fell in love with his gorgeous dog, Red. What a beautiful island!

Anyway, this is just an example of the ongoing friendship which we continue to find on our travels. The beauty and warmth of the places and the people that we have visited and met will always stay with me. This journey has been amazing!

Well, better go and see what the skipper is up to. He's not very happy about the weather forecast so we may have to have a group discussion this evening about our next move this evening. I am just upset as my suntan is melting fast!!!! Yes, I know I am shallow, but it is called a high call problem!!

Talk to you all soon!!!!

Love from all on Shirley Valentine (especially Maggie, crew member of the year!!!)

Meteora and The Celebration Dinner after the Ionian Rally!

Captain Crash and the Cauldron!

Hi everyone. As usual I have left it far too long to blog and thus have way too much news to impart, therefore rendering me confused as to where to start!
I think I will start with a little 'boat bollocks' which those of the maritime persuasion may find a little amusing (and maybe useful!). This incident in our lives has given Craig ammunition that women should definately not wear bras on boats.
To cut a long story short, we had been searching for our flux gate compass on the boat for 7 months. Our commissioning agent had been unable to find it and subsequent searchings by ourselves had had a similar outcome. A flux gate compass is made up of coils of wire that provides a reading in electronic form which can be digitised and used by the ships autopilot for course correction. We had noticed some wild variations between our flux gate output and our normal compass and were concerned that wherever it was positioned it may have some metal objects nearby causing the discrepancies. If only we could find it!
To be honest, I wasn't really sure what I was looking for so wasn't much help. Our friend Steve (who conveniently comes packaged with oodles of experience and is currently the skipper of Zanetia) got in on the act and we were still scratching our heads. We started to think that the occassional wild swingings of the autopilot were a raymarine fault which we would have to have corrected. Kathleen, however, came to the rescue when she located a small black box in one of the cupboards in the forward cabin! We had found the offending flux gate!
All metal objects in the cupboard were removed and things seem to have improved. When the girls left the boat, I duly returned all my underwear to their home, making sure of course to not place any metal items into the cupboard.
A few days later I was rummaging around in the cupboard trying to find something and the autopilot started to swing wildly again. Craig reported a 60 degree discrepancy between the compasses and starting to adopt that patronising voice. You know the one..... "What have you done now!!!" and words to that effect. It turns out that the wires in my bras had been responsible for the problems all along! Ah well, looks like saggy boobs coming on..... That's a new one for the manuals, isn't it? Along with checking that pots and pans, electronic equipment, cockpit speakers, beer cans etc etc have to be kept away from compasses, Shirley Valentine can now add bras!
Back to our trip. We had an enjoyable but busy time with Kathleen and Helen. The day we picked them up from the airport at Athens we headed to the Acropolis in Athens by bus from our hotel. Although it was very hot and sticky, the girls coped very well as we trecked around the ruins. We returned to Shirley Valentine in Messolonghi that night in our hire car amidst a few raised eyebrows from the girls about the driving in Greece. One memorable character was 'hat man' who was travelling along on his motorcycle at about 130 kms with a straw 'pork pie' style hat on. We could not believe that it would stay on! He did occassionally adjust it but it stayed put. The funniest part was when a policeman on a motor cycle overtook him and took no notice of the lack of helmet! (There is a 400 euro fine for not wearing a motor cycle helmet in Greece but no-one seems to police it! I think that they could solve all their economic problems just by policeing this one small part of humanities failings).
The following day we still had the hire car and decided to head to Delphi to consult the oracle. We had a lovely drive up the mountain and lunched in Delphi town before heading to the archeological site. We wandered around making it right to the stadium at the top and had a gander at the area where the oracle is reported to have been positioned.
After our meanderings we headed for the museum which houses a multitude of ancient relics found at the site. One such item was a massive bronze cauldron on a metal tripod (about 2700 years old!). This was situated on a platform in between two large glass cabinets, also full of ancient bronze relics. Craig was standing between Kathleen and Helen gazing in awe and was so overcome that he stumbled on the platform when he turned and fell, heading straight for the bronze cauldron. Remember that this article has survived for 2700 years! Craig hit the cauldron and it toppled, in turn heading for one of the glass cabinets. I could feel a Mr Bean moment coming on. I am now convinced that Craig has missed his calling as a world cup goal keeper as he somehow managed to catch the cauldron before it hit anything else! He pulled it roughly back into place and stumbled away with a VERY red face. I pretended that I wasn't with him and so did the girls. Poor Craig. Every tourist in the place was staring at him and one guy came over and whispered 'Just keep walking mate!' into his ear. I thought Kathleen was going to have an accident she was laughing so much. I am sure that if you visit Delphi the cauldron will now be safely ensconsed in a glass cabinet! We christened Craig 'Captain Crash' and this title lasted for a good few days.
After returning to Shirley Valentine we recommenced our travels and visited some old favourites and some new ports of call. One place of interest was Sami on Cephalonia which is very close to where parts of Captain Corelli's Mandolin was filmed. We visited some caves (Mellisani and Drogarati) which were very pretty, but not the most impressive caves we have visited with Drogarati in particular having been seriously altered to facilitate tourists. We lunched between Sami and Eufemia in a restaurant where the cast and crew of the movie used to hang out and saw many photos of Penelope Cruze etc looking very normal and relaxed in the beautiful surroundings. Our waiter (George) was incredibly helpful and filled us in on the history of the area. Most of Cephalonia was destroyed by the earthquake in 1953 with only Fiskardo remaining mostly intact, apparently due to the clay / rock bed that it is built on.
Another highlight in Sami was Kathleen and I's water devining skills. We had been told that there was water on the quay which was littered with man hole covers but nothing obvious jumped out to meet us. Craig took off to the port office and Kathleen and I, equipped with any type of implement that we thought might act as a jemmie set off along the quay, prising up cover after cover. After about 5 attempts we struck gold!! We proudly filled the tanks and sat back feeling very proud of ourselves! Craig actually heard the news by despatch at the port office and after we were finished all the boats at our end of the quay took advantage of our find. Just shows that girls can accomplish 'blue jobs' quite effectively.
Kathleen took to the boat like a duck to water and was soon taking the helm and pulling ropes etc etc on cue! Pity she's looking at buying a motor home! She would make a great crew member.
We also had a very memorable road trip to Meteora where there are about 16 monasteries built on the top of limestone pillars, 5 of which are still 'working' monasteries. The only downside for me was how touristy everything was and the monasteries seemed to lack the quietness and solitude that you would imaging finding in these sorts of places. The lodgings that we found were adorable (the Koka Roka owned by Maria and Albert) and were situated right at the base of one of the columns. We met a lovely young lad called James who is an archeology / anthropology student from New Zealand who seemed quite happy to spend time pushing old ladies up the hill. He was great company and full of useful information. We really enjoyed our time with him. The walk up to Agios Stephanos was amazing and we then visited two more monasteries by car. The area is amazing and well worth a visit to anyone who happens to be in this part of the world.
After our return to Shirley Valentine, we had the priveledge of once again spending some time with Keith and Sue from Broke Aweigh. Many hours were spent discussing tactics for the 'big race'. The boys even tried to convince the pink people that maybe we should all sit on one of the boats doing our nails while they put in a 'real' attempt at winning the race, but Kathleen and I would not be put off. Well, we had bought the T shirts, hadn't we!
The day of the race dawned and after the blue people scraped Shirley Valentine's hull (thanks for the help Keith!) at Port Atheni on Meganisi, we headed for the start line. Let's not do a long post mortem of the race, but the short version is that about 35 boats got out of the Meganisi channel before the wind died. The fleet was split in two, with the frustration for us being that we were well up the fleet going over the starting line and were almost at the front of the masses of boats that were becalmed. Poor Kathleen was determined not to retire, but when we had spent over an hour looking at the same rock (and going backwards at one point) we had to call it quits. We didn't think they would keep the line open till midnight! We did have the pride of knowing that we were one of the last boats to retire however (Broke Aweigh and our friends, Chris, Hermione and family had retired hours before us), but this then left us with the problem of where we were going to moor in Sivota post race.
We had had a visit from Steve and Sarah from Zanetia during the race who came to snigger at us in their dinghy. As we pottered into Sivota we were amazed at the amount of boats crammed into the tiny harbour and our hearts sank. We then saw Steve waving at us and were soon snuggly tucked up alongside them on the quay. Isn't it great to have friends in high places. The highlight of the race for everyone was a 10 year boy in a topper dinghy who was one of only 35 boats to finish the race. He was given a standing ovation as he entered the harbour after about 5 hours of sailing. Please note that those who got wind had been out in about 30 knots so this little kid was one brave lad. I think if the committee had closed the line before he crossed they would have been lynched. We had a great party that night and had dinner ashore at our favourite 'No Problem' taverna.
We caught up with Steve and Sarah again in Nidri and spent a very special couple of days getting free tuition on many aspects of boat management and maintenance. Have lots of whipping to do now! Congratulations on your wedding plans guys and thanks for your time and expertise and your company!!!
Anyway, Maggie is now with us and we are winding down again. Our trip to Athens to do our crew change was uneventful this time around and everything went to plan. We stayed in the Holiday Inn near the airport again and managed to gate crash Maggie's room which saved us some dollars.
Are sitting snuggly in Fiskardo at the moment where we have once again had torrential rain and some minor storms. The weather this morning is more settled and we have our usual high class problem of whether to stay another day or move on. Most of our friends are now on their way home. Broke Aweigh is back in Messolonghi preparing for winter and Zanetia is heading back to Croatia. We are planning to head to Messolonghi to prepare for over wintering around the 25th of October. We are pulling Shirley out of the water and have had fun learning how to 'pickle' our water maker etc. If anyone knows where we can buy 'fids' in the Ionian we would be glad of this information. May even be a coldie in for the informant!
Being beckoned ashore for coffee so should probably make a move. So looking forward to catching up with everyone at home in November! Will be in touch soon....

xx
All on Shirley Valentine

Crew changes and a change of season.

G'day, G'day, and how're you going? For the uninitiated this is the first line of a popular Australian song. I can't remember any more than this and have been driving everybody mad singing it over and over again, so if anyone can inform us of the next few lines we might feel slightly fulfilled! I think it is the presence of so many Australians on board that is doing my head in.

Anyway, down to business. We left you at the end of the last blog with Kim on board and heading to Messolonghi to leave Shirley while we travelled by car to Athens for our crew change. We had a lovely, if somewhat rushed visit with Kim and the poor soul kept begging to stay in her favourite spots for just one more night. In the end, we actually got our days mixed up and arrived in Messolonghi a day early. After lazing around for the day (as we had been told Messolonghi wasn't much chop!) we headed into town to get a meal. We had spent the day watching the bulldozers move earth around in the marina and kicking up dust which was settling very uncomfortably over poor Shirley Valentine. We found, to our delight, a lovely Greek town which is little affected by tourism. We had a lovely meal at the 'Egg of the Rooster' (honest!) restaurant which had been recommended by a few friends. It definitely lived up to expectations.

After dinner we headed off to Labrina's beauty salon where Kim had made an appointment for some waxing to be done and had booked me a manicure and pedicure (quite a treat after so long on board). We arrived to find a very modern well equipped salon and settled in for our treatments. The set up was the usual Greek family affair owned by the mother and run by the daughter and her other employee, Vee Vee. I came out of my manicure and pedicure with extremely bright pink fluro finger and toe nails and my feet had been thoroughly checked out for foot rot etc by the mother who turned out to be a doctor. I felt thoroughly cleansed. Craig turned up to pick us up and joined in the round of baklava and coffee which was going round. When Kim appeared she looked a little bemused. It turned out that she had been having her bikini wax done and whilst lying back eating baklava, her wax was being carried out by Labrina with the mother (who reassued Kim that everything was OK as she was a doctor!) paying very close attention to make sure that Labrina did a good job! Kim reckons it is the most thorough bikini wax that she has ever had and I am sure the memory will stay with her for ever.

The following day we had to leave for Athens, but first we headed round to the nearby mud pools to have a bit of further 'treatment'. You arrive at the area to see mainly elderly Greek locals in swimming costumes covered in black mud and wandering around waiting for it to dry. Basically the mud is sitting is piles on the rocks which you scoop up and plaster all over yourself. After letting it dry, you then float in the warm water to wash it all off. Very sexy! It is obviously supposed to make you feel better, but it just made me feel very smelly really. It took us a good few showers to get rid of the sulphurous smell but was very good fun.

We left for Athens in our hire car around lunch time with our directions from Google maps somewhere in our possession. Craig had booked a hotel from Wotif.com which was apparently 'reasonably priced'. To cut a long story short, we got hopelessly lost. We got so lost that the gentleman that we eventually asked for directions couldn't believe that we had actually managed to get to where we were! We managed to get to the Athens area eventually and then the task of finding the hotel Marina began. We were driving through what looked to be a ghetto area, with pimps, prostitutes, drugged up looking people and police in flak jackets on every second corner and I was starting to feel a little alarmed. Kim was insisting (after Craig's failed navigation attempts) that she was going to make her own way to the airport in the morning and I was really worried about her hopping in a taxi in the wee small hours by herself in this area. The straw that broke the camels back was when we finally found our hotel and noticed the large sign which announced that rooms could be booked by the hour! Call me precious if you like, but I refused there and then, point blank, to stay in the hotel which we had booked and we headed off towards the airport on the other side of town and were soon snuggly tucked up in the holiday inn on Attica Avenue. OK, it was expensive, but was a lovely way to finish off our week with Kim.

The following day we pottered around the coast near Athens in the hire car around Glyfada and up to Cape Sounion where we visited the temple of Poseidon.

We overnighted again in the holiday inn and got up at sparrows fart to pick up Helen and Kathleen. It was lovely to see them come through arrivals and it seemed so surreal to actually have them here. We took them back to our hotel room for a freshen up while Craig and I had our breakfast and then headed back south to our lovely, but sadly extremely dusty and dirty, Shirley Valentine.

Anyway, more about Helen and Kathleen's visit to come in the next episode. I have the usual feeling that I should actually include something about boats and sailing in a blog about sailing around the med. We have a few more lovely phrases in our vocabulary thanks to Mac and Barbara from Meganisi and Keith and Sue from Broke Aweigh. First of all we have 'Boat Bollocks'. This is used when the men are talking ad nauseum about amps, volts, sails, engines, anchors, hulls, keels etc etc etc etc. The women raise their eyes to heaven and loudly declare 'enough boat bollocks'. In retaliation, Craig has his own 'beauty bollocks' reply when we are talking about important things like moisturising etc etc.

We also have the phrase 'high class problems' which describes the stress caused by having to make really important decisions regarding which anchorage we will traipse to the following day, which taverna we will dine in that evening and whether we should have a swim before or after having a nanny nap.

Finally, we have 'blue jobs and pink jobs'. This one is fairly self explanatory and successfully delineates who should handle probems with the head etc without any arguement. The problem comes with shared tasks which we have since christened 'purple jobs'. I tend to confuse things as I quite like to have a hand in some of the 'blue jobs'. Craig is always being told how lucky he is to have a woman who is interested in handling the boat, however he seems to find this difficult to come to grips with!

Any boat bollocks session would obviously have to include the latest with our Shirley. We have a huge problem with her very dirty bottom at the moment, acquired we are fairly sure, due to the amount of time she has sat about in marinas waiting for us this summer. Our speed is very reduced and as we have signed up for the southern leg of the Ionion Rally on the 16th of September Craig is very concerned. Us girls have decided that scraping the hull is definitely a 'blue job' and are psyching Craig up to get the deed done before we race. So far, we have had a few excuses and I think we may be at the back of the fleet.

Apart from our filthy backside, other maintenance issues continue to be minimal. We had to have our outboard repaired as the gear lever had stuck and the stop button was stuffed (we were stopping the motor every time by turning off the fuel about 100m before we arrived at our destination and had got this down to a fine art!). We are coming to grips with food storage and the use of the fridge on board and I have stopped freezing my vegetables as much as I used to. We have also found out (thanks to Keith from Broke Aweigh) how our cockpit shower turns on and off. We continue to be frustrated by the variable winds in the Ionian and spend more time than we would care to under motor. Another 'high class problem' is that the zip on our dodger is broken. We are already thinking about minor adjustments that we want to do to the boat during winter time. Nothing major, but apart from a very thorough scrub down below, we may add some 'D' bolts for tethering to in bad weather and are thinking about purchasing a cruising chute. We are also undecided about a wind generator. All in all though we are still very happy with our decision to purchase our Bavaria 38.

It is pouring with rain tonight and this is the first time that we have seen serious wet stuff coming from above since we have been in Greece. We travelled over from Vliho on Levkas this morning and went through a few storm cells so it looks as if the season is definitely changing. We are sitting on the town quay at Fiskardo on Kephalonia and have found a few 'blue jobs' for Craig to do in the morning due to a few minor leaks discovered during the downpour. Nothing that will sink us but enough to be annoying. Guess the 'pinkies' may have to go shopping whilst the hard work is being done. We had a meal tonight at the restuarant situated about 3 steps off the back of the boat and I had the best Kleftico so far.

Well, enough for now. I still have a few stories to share which should bring a smile to your faces, but that will have to wait.

Talk to you all soon.

xxxx

All on board Shirley Valentine

Benidorm Photos!

The most expensive free trip ever!

OK. So we got some REALLY funny looks and responses when we said we were going to Benidorm, but it turned out to be a fantastic week. As I indicated in the last blog, Craig wanted to visit as we had watched and enjoyed every episode of the sit com. We ensured that we went 'all inclusive' when we booked our on line, last minute package deal with a company called Beach Sun holidays and set off in a hire car for Manchester, where we stayed over night and headed to the airport at 04.30 in the morning for our much anticipated flight. The only drama of this stage was that Craig left his sunnies in the hire car and I had to run up and get them, returning with only minutes to spare!
Arriving at Alicante airport we were herded onto busees for our "45 minute" trip to Benidorm. We arrived at our apartment block (we had discovered that this was actually a 10 to 15 minute walk up a dirt track to where we were to get our 'all inclusive' part of the package on the day before we left Scotland). THREE hours later, hot and bothered, we checked in and found a spacious, clean but fairly basic apartment. We had, however, very good views over Benidorm however.
In due course we pottered up to the Flamingo, Benidorm where we were to be fed and watered 6 times a day for FREE for the next week. We checked in and were provided with our lime green fluro wristbands to confirm that wee were bona fide users of the restaurant and bars. There was food of some description available all day, except for an hour or two here and there and we could eat and drink until midnight and start again at 8am (for FREE!).
We spent the next weeks wandering around Benidorm and lazing by the pool (wasn't game to put my head under the water though!). There was a cast of thousands around the pool with skin colours varying from chalk white to burnt pensioner. The first thing we realised (with great glee!) was that the sit com is actually a documentary. Let me just say the "Sticky Vicky" is real and I'll leave it at that. Her daughter is also learning her Art! We also saw the guy from the 20 foot high bike that he rides on with stilts with a tin foil suit on advertising local amusement parks etc, went to the Benidorm Palace, Benidorm island, Tabarca island off Alicante and a FREE bus trip to some markets north of Benidorm.
There were also fantastic markets around the corner from our apartment block where we bought a few tacky souvenirs (made in China of our course!), some Benidorm hats and some 'I love Benidorm' beach towels. Everything was very cheap. We had been told that the old town of Benidorm was nice but it actually turned out to be street after street of tourist type shops and was a bit of a disappointment. There was tattoos and English pubs everywhere (most of which were affliliated with some football team or other!). We also found the apartment block where Benidorm, the series was filmed. Don't worry, we returned to our 'all inclusive' resort to eat for FREE most of the time!
The highlight of the week was the FREE bus trip that we signed up for. We were worned that this would include a 45 minute 'presentation' but not to worry as it wasn't time share. We were first on the bus and spent the next half hour wandering through Benidorm pickin up other wood ducks like ourselves. The bus trip itself was pleasant (apart from the little old lady coughing her guts up regularly across from us!). The hostess was English and had live in 'Beni' for years and it seemed that she was trying her best to persuade others to do the same, telling everyone where the best housing estates (where the English live), English schools, markets etc were along the route. Very tempting (not!).
We arrived at the 'showroom' after about 2 hours on the bus which we spent winding through pleasant country side. We were ushered to our seats and offered champagne or orange juice (guess which I picked - I needed a drink!) which was all included in our FREE trip! We then had to endure one and a half HOURS of the presentation which was basically to try to suck us in to buy a reflex foam mattress and merino wool underlay and blankets which were (of course!) only available in Benidorm at this special price. I must say that the presentation was extremely well done by a very entertaining lady. We're not sure if there were plants in the audience as a few people 'already had the products' and were waxing lyrical about how wonderful they were. For their efforts, the company got around 5000 to 8000 pounds of sales from a busload of about 25 people. Even a lady who had deliberately left her credit cards at home was reassured that the company trusted her so much that she could gave the goods delivered to her home in the UK and THEN pay for them! Poor soul, she was a really reluctant buyer! I heard a comment getting back on the bus that it was actually the 'most expensive free trip ever!'. We were herded back onto the bus and headed for the coastal town of Moraria where it started to bucket with rain on our arrival and the markets quickly disappeared. We spent our time there sheltering in an English run cafe eating the most expensive, worst tasting baked potatoes I have ever been unlucky enough to be served up with. We had a pleasant bus journey back to our hotel arriving 4.30pm and headed off for some much needed FREE alcohol.
The Flamingo Benidorm had a plethora of free activities for us to partake in such as karaoke, bingo, free magic shows, a game called opent the box, water polo matches etc etc. It was so exciting! I even got my photo taken with a python around my neck. The Miss Flamingo contest had attrated a large audience of testosterone laiden males who no doubt expected a trail of beauties pirouetting around the stage, however it turned out to be 4 fairly average women playing party games such as seeing how many pairs of mens trouseers they could collect in a bag in fivve minutes. I had a table full of young, cute, Spanish guys in front of me who all willingly gave up their daks in the spirit of the occassion. Awe inspiring!
The other excitement towards the end of the week was that our travel company went belly up and we had to pay an extra 190 euros to finish our holiday. We weren't sure if our airport transfer company were going to honour our agreement, but they duly turned up to take us back to the airport for our sad departure from 'Beni' (I think the legal discussion that Craig had with them by telephone the day before may have helped). What a great experience Benidorm was, but not sure if we will be tempted to return. Feeling grateful that we had escaped the pick pockets we boarded our flight to Manchester, where we waited around for our 5.30pm flight back to Corfu and Shirley Valentinne. The easy jet flight (surprise, surprise) was delayed and we got back on board around 2am. What a long day!
We hung around Gouvia marina for a few days waiting for our friend Kim to arrive by Ferry from Italy and did the usual household chores in preparation. Some nice person had disconnected our shore power and our fridge was a blob of mould, so that had to be cleaned up too.
We have had a lovely week with Kim pottering around Paxos and Levkas and are heading over to the mainland today. We have had the priviledge of catching up with some old friends and have enjoyed the company of Maree and Sandy (and Tracy) from Freedom, Steve and Sarah from Zanetia and Keith and Sue from Broke Aweigh (who are very annoyed about being mentioned in a blog about Benidorm!). It's so nice to be back on board.
We are heading to Messalonghi for the 27th of August and driving to Athens on the 28th to drop Kim off and pick up our next seet of visitors, Kathleen and Helen. It is lovely to have friends on board!
Well, gotta go and do some sailing. Will keep you updated very soon! Take care everyone....
PS. I have received some feedback that the comments section of our blog doesn't always work. If you want to comment or contact us, feel free to e-mail us at lhardy61@hotmail.com.

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