Day 3 – A Bad Case of Deja vu

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But we’ll get to that part later since the Deja vu was at the end of the day.

Today we tried to figure out why we had no hot water…and got an answer. nothing major, just a switch they forgot to tell us about. Switch flipped…water heated. Life is good. Kirk can finally have a warm shower.

Grabbed the scooters, headed over to NAOK Yacht Club. Ah, a challenge. Yesterday was Sunday, sleepy, many things closed, not many people about. Today however, it is Monday morning and we have found rush hour! I love how things work here. There is what seems like a randomness to it all. What appears to be one lane is often two and even three sometimes. We just keep to the edge and most of the time everyone just goes around us. We get stuck in the traffic in town though and I lead the way through a maze of narrow alleys behind some other vehicles. Kirk pulls up beside me and asks if I know where I am going….I reply “baaaaaa” “Nope…just being a sheep!” A few wrong turns and we turn down a marbled narrow street. After a few moments I realize that we are the only motorized vehicles. We pass some police and they step back and watch us but say nothing. When we pop out into traffic again I say… “I’m not sure that we were supposed to be in there on scooters” Kirk concurs…. but no harm done apparently. We figure the police were looking at each other and saying “Gads, here comes tourist season!” The number of people is astonishing compared to yesterday. Tour buses galore and I deduce that some of it must be related to the two massive cruise ships in the harbour.

When we finally reached NAOK YC we found the Club Manager and asked about berthing for for the night. He said sure, no problem 33 Euros, electricity, water, WiFi (which won’t work inside the boat we discover later) etc included. A bit steep, but we want out of Gouvia marina.

We zip back to the Supermarket which is open today, grab some things we didn’t find in the small markets and head back for the boat. We return the scooters and put away our new provisions. Then we start to make sure everything is in order on the boat before leaving the dock. A bit of trouble with the mainsail causes us some concern but eventually we sort it out. Some issue trying to sort out the GPS and software on the Mac gives me some additional anxiety, but eventually that too is sorted out. I still don’t like it as much as the software I had on the PC, but it seems to be all that I can find that is as close as possible.

As we are preparing to depart a voice calls out “Who’s flying the Big Ass Canadian Flag?” Kirk says, “I am” and Peggy introduces herself to us. She is Greek but lived in Toronto for several years. Now she lives here delivering boats in the Mediterranean. She tells us of her adventures in Egypt and the difficulties with Arabian Port Authorities. She tells us of several wonderful areas that we must visit and starts pointing them out on the charts and in our books.

Then she is off and we are back to prepping to head out.

But then we hear thunder and see black clouds in the distance. And that gives us some cause for concern. I am having mild anxiety attacks….even four years later that storm is still fresh in my mind. Over the next half hour it seems that it is not coming our way so we decide to head for the Yacht Club. Out we head, we are finally underway.

The sea is calm, the sun makes itself known again, the clouds thin and all seems well in the world again. We pass the cruise ships and the ferries and round the Old Fortress. Two attempts to raise the Yacht Club on the radio fail and I try the phone. The telephone number clicks over to a fax machine and I get that familiar screeching sound in my ear. Well what now? Can’t raise the Club… Kirk decides to stick our nose in and check it out. I am almost prepared to say, why not anchor out here…there is another boat anchored…Peggy said it is generally safe… but decide not to. Into the marina we creep.

A 45 foot Elan and a 44 foot catamaran are just inside the breakwater with a space in between them. A fellow is on the bow of the catamaran and I call out to him assuming he is a club member. I tell him that we were here earlier and spoke to the manager and wish to come in. He says the space between is as good as any and gives us a bit of guidance and assistance and takes our stern lines for us, runs them through the dock rings and hands them back to us to tie off on the boat. He then pulls up the mooring anchor line and hands it off to me to run forward to the bow.

We thank him as this is our first run at this in four years. I have already decided that I like the people chartering boats in the Ionian better than I did in the Cyclades. They are friendlier and they offer assistance, it feels more like home in that respect.

Once safely moored we wander up to the office to look for Andros but the office is closed. We come back to the boat for a bit and have a conversation with our neighbour in the Elan. He is a Kiwi and is looking after the boat for its owner…Ed Jordan who used to be a Formula One owner. We chat for a bit and he asks us if we know anything about Mac computers…his is stuck in reboot mode. We suggest he remove the battery to give it a hard reboot. He comes back a bit later computer in hand and asks how the battery comes out. I remove it for him and restart it. He is happier for it and begins to wander about the deck of his boat trying to get a Wifi connection reminding us of the Verizon commercial…. “Can you hear me now?”

We decide to wander into Corfu Town and he says we should get together for a drink later. We agree and off we go. We spend the next two – three hours wandering through alleyways and convoluted streets. We see shop after hop flogging bright orange kumquat liquor and beautiful olive wood products like cutting boards (might have to get me one of those!), salad forks (maybe those too!), ladles (got one last time) and other odds and sods. Glittery trinkets in jewelry store windows, shirts, blankets, leather goods. Cafe’s and restaurants abound.

We head back to the boat to make dinner and potentially visit with our Kiwi neighbour for a drink. As we head back wee admire the darkening sky and a massive flash of lightning blazes across the sky. The thunder peals out for a prolonged time and we are glad that we are the baby boat again, squeezed in between two much taller masts! As we make it to the boat the first raindrops begin to fall. Our Kiwi friend notes that we have returned just in time and we all begin to close hatches and prepare for a bit of wet weather. The sky and the water seem to change to match and there doesn’t seem to be any dividing line between them. The rain patters down for a bit and then things start to lighten up again. Well that wasn’t so bad!

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We get on with dinner and I note that the wind has changed direction radically and that our Southampton neighbours wind generators are buzzing along at top velocity now where only one was spinning before. Our big Canada flag is snapping in the wind and the burgees have tightened up considerably. We pop our head out and notice that the water is starting to spray up over the breakwater. Hmmmm……

Soon after, all hands are on all decks and lines are being tightened…then more lines added…then more lines added. We add two more spring lines to the starboard side as the winds and waves start to pick up considerably. Ironically, we had read that this port was protected from all but winds blowing towards the southwest…guess what… oh goody, what fun! So much for that quiet evening sharing a drink with a Kiwi,,,who are we kidding…that wouldn’t have been quiet anyway! The winds pick up more and we wonder if our flags are secure. Rather than risk them we pop out on deck to bring them in. We have done as much as we can about lines and wonder if others are looking at us thinking “Those crazy Canucks are worried more about their flags than their lines.” Not true…but as I say, there isn’t much else we can do but see what the weather throws at us.

Andros shows up and asks how long we are staying. We reply that we planned on one night…but….it depends on the weather. He laughs and says this will be short lived and we should mind our spring lines. He had just come out to the boats to make sure that everyone was secure. Every boat had people on deck checking lines and adding more. We said we’d catch up with him tomorrow for payment. No problem, let’s just make sure the boats don’t start crashing into each other.

We start to count days…how many was it before we were thrashed in the Cyclades? Four? We are inside that, we are on day three and being bounced about in this small bay rather mightily! The breakwater is about fifteen feet wide and perhaps six feet above the waterline….spray is all over our back deck from the waves breaking on the other side. Hmmm….. a) I am glad we are at a dock b) I may be back to rethinking this “anchoring” in a bay thing c) I am glad we are at a dock d) I am glad we are using a mooring anchor rather than our own e) I am glad we are at a dock.

The wind is really howling now and dinner has been put on low, my shower has been postponed, and we pop our heads out every few minutes to check on lines and distances from our neighbours. Everything seems to be holding well but it is getting highly uncomfortable. Wonder how long this will last….

Dark settles in….still bouncing, but the wind seems to be lessening and visibility seems to be improving.

At about 9:30 pm the wind dies down and the charter flag (which we did not remove) hangs straight down. We are still bouncing and likely will for some time as the fetch the wind was blowing over was quite long and the lumps will take some time to diminish… but it is getting slightly more comfortable and it is nice to not hear the wind howling through the rigging anymore.

And so ends our first night off the starting dock….hopefully we now have the nastiness behind us and Poseidon was merely testing our nerves to see how we would respond to the memories of the Cyclades and the near beaching of our boat that time. We hope we are done with unpredictable weather patterns…. but we shall see… in the meantime…

I am glad we are on a dock!

And now I am going to attempt to shower….. will post some photos in the morning after I’ve had time to go through them and once the boat isn’t bouncing anymore!!!