We had good enough weather to sail up the West coast of Kefalonia to Assos, a route normally quite breezy with the prevailing winds and hence not often sailed but was perfect for us on the day. We stopped for lunch and a swim in a sandy bay surrounded by white cliffs before heading into Assos. This was a beautiful little town, often visited by tourists by car/bus, and we felt privileged to visit by boat and get the perspective from the ocean side. We berthed stern to the rocks and had a walk/beer ashore.
Assos
This bay was close to Fiskardo, a popular spot that we knew we had to get to early to be able to get a berth. Arriving there at 11am, we had our choice of rocks to tie to and, once secured, sat back with a beer. Fiskardo was supposed to be a beautiful spot, and it was, but we were definately spoilt by our visit to Assos. Watching the charter and other boats come in to moor was entertaining and it wasn't long before we were having to render assistance. All in, we rescued one drifting dinghy from the middle of the bay, recovered a hat, helped a family get their shore lines sorted, pushed a boat off our anchor chain (which had found its way between his hull and rudder!), pushed another away that was in the process of doing the same, rescued a Sadler 36 yacht that was moments from hitting the rocks and cut a line free off the same boats propellor. A very busy and highly entertaining afternoon, but we won't be back in the charter boat season!
Fiscardo fun!!
We were headed North to drop Andy at Corfu and decided to do a long day's sail up to Paxos to meet our friends on Dash, regulars here will remember we first met them at Easter on the other side of Greece. Having eaten all of our Mahi Mahi catch (yummy) it was time to put the rod out again. We caught a small swordfish and made the critical error of visualising it on a plate before we even landed it! Unfortunately instead of using the gaff to bring it aboard we tried to use a net which wasn't large enough and it got out and swam off. Pasta for dinner then.......
Gaios
We met Dash in Gaios, a town with a narrow strip of water between the town and a small island where one can berth stern to on a quay. It was great to see Dash again and have a meal with them. In fact we buddy boated with them for a few days sailing to bays on the mainland. They were on their way south, but we are hoping to meet again in the Ionian next Easter. We were sad to have to leave them but we had to get up to Corfu to drop Andy Provan off. By this time the weather was getting much cooler and the predictable wind sequences had vanished, we motored a few hours across to Corfu, anchored in the bay and sat out a rain/thunderstorm overnight. Being very nervous about lightning, we were kept up for a large chunk of the night, but thankfully the storm passed a few miles away. Andy left us in the morning and we stayed in the bay, with a misbehaving outboard engine. This had failed us whilst on the mainland, cutting out as we approached the dock on the way to dinner, the cause of which was forgetting to release the breather on the petrol tank, or so we thought! Despite opening the breather, pumping more fuel in and swearing at it, we ended up rowing back to the boat in the dark. Several days later, after Andy had left us, Nigel opened up the engine, stripped the carburettor off and found water in the engine. A quick taste confirmed it was salty, wierd. After this discovery we poured all the fuel out into clear water bottles and watched as a whole litre of water separated out from the petrol, 20% water content! Its a complete mystery as to the source of this water but we had topped up the dinghy tank with 2 ltrs of fuel we had stored on board the day before it cut out. Anyway, problem found, a good clean, some more swearing and it finally ran sweetly. Decision made to scrap all the fuel we had onboard and a refill of our containers and we were back to a sustainable position - just in time for our next guests to arrive!
We had the usual task of checking in to do, a task that we had to do twice this time as the official wouldn't accept a changed crew list until the new guests were actually on board. Cue a second 40min walk there and back the next day. Every small task (admin, shopping for food, getting fuel etc) as a livaboard seems to take half a day at least.
Carburettor cleaning
Thanks Andrew, we enjoyed having you onboard and Amanda particularly enjoyed not having to swim the lines ashore!
Next week, cruising Corfu with Paul and Tracy, friends from Whitstable YC.