Welcome to Gaios

4

This morning a boat came in and tried to anchor off our bow. There is an entire bay…and they feel that the best place to anchor is about 30 feet off our bow. Seriously? Come on now!!

We chirp out “bit cosy!” They chirp back “You’ve never anchored in the South of France!” Nope! Regardless, apparently they decide that maybe they are a bit close and pull up and re-anchor a bit farther off.

We jump in the dinghy and head for shore. A short walk to the beach and we find a path. We follow it along the cliff edge until we pass the most amazing villa. When we come to the road above it we follow a trail until we decide we are actually on a goat track. We backtrack and try another trail….nope….another goat track. We haul out the book and find that what we are looking for is completely behind us…we turn around and LO! There is the lighthouse…plain as day if we had only actually looked left instead of right!

We walk up the road and round the corner to the lighthouse. We look down the cliffs and see a wonderful expanse below us. Must be a way to get there. The book refers to a goat track along the cliffs. Sounds sketchy, We poke our noses into a couple of trails and are rebuffed by thorny bushes. We give up and head back to the road…..until I see a small road heading down towards the sea. We follow it and eventually end up exactly where we want to be. Right on a gorgeous white pebble beach.

We wander out on the rocks a bit and enjoy the scenery. Finally we must tackle that hill to climb back up to the road. We pick our way back down through an olive grove and eventually find our way back to the town and our dinghy before heading back out to the boat.

At some point we realize that we are the only red trimmed boat we have seen. Seems fitting…. two Canadians on a red and white boat!

We haul anchor and head out for our extremely long haul……of 5 miles…..to Gaios.

When we locate the North entrance to Gaois (the South entrance has a depth of 2 m … we opt out) and enter it. The books clearly state that this harbour is chaotic and that anchor lines get crossed with all the charter boats that enter. It says that fuel is hard to come by since the Italian motorboats buy it all up. It says that the main quay is a zoo and that if you want a spot, go to the new quay around the corner where it is quieter.

We enter the North entrance and see a largely empty new quay. Always grateful for an opportunity to anchor without an audience….we go for it. And we execute a perfect Med tie. Really!

We hear a toot and think a siren has been flipped…until we see a massive ferry coming out from behind the small island. We seriously can’t even figure out how it got in there!!

We put on our shoes and decide to visit what is purported to be the chaos of Paxos at its finest. And we see nothing. In fact, where the books say that at tourist season there are nothing but jockeying boats crossing anchors and arguments for space…..there is one single lone sailing vessel alongside the quay.

So we agree that perhaps we will pull anchor and move around the corner to the main quay.It is a tight entrance, and there is little room for maneuvering, but like we said…it is largely empty and as long as neither of the other two ferries docked pull out…we should be fine.

We pull up anchor, sneak around the blind dogleg hoping that no other ferries will surprise us. And head for the main quay. We execute a perfect med tie (of course! No one is really looking!!!) and decide we are in paradise. We have somehow managed to dock absolutely dead centre in town. The main chapel is directly behind our stern….which should make for an early morning since tomorrow is Sunday…. Looking off the bow across the small channel is a tiny island crawling with goats. There is also a small floating structure with doors cut out of it. Eventually I see a duck jump on board…it’s a floating duck house!

We celebrate our arrival with a can of Mythos and laugh at the fellow standing three feet from our stern staring at us and the boat. We know we have nothing that identifies us unequivocally as a charter….but the Canadian flag and our white skin sort of gives us away….

I pull out the laptop and check for wifi. I can see that a free signal exists but I can’t quite connect to it. We slip into the town and look for somewhere to gab a bit. A short hop (literally… we can actually look into the back of our boat) from the quay and we order a gyros pita (gads I love these things here!) and see someone with a laptop at a nearby cafe. I pop back to the boat to grab Baby Mac. I catch a free wifi signal and upload a few things…check the Canucks score (how sad they lost against the Blackhawks) and check the stocks.

A small little tabby befriends us and after a few moments is firmly ensconced in Kirks lap. Eventually we must leave and find a few groceries. One we have those we stop at a bar literally just feet off our stern…for a glass of wine. Our little tabby friend reappears and hops back into our laps. We have nothing to give him so I run down to the store and buy a can of cat food. I open it and set it in front of him…..and he ungratefully attempts to bury it! So much for a good deed.

We hear the chug of a large single cylinder engine and see the tip of a boat come alongside the quay beside our boat. We recognize it from the sound before we see it. It’s Kapt’n Joba. A funny old boat we saw in Lakka. So there are three sailboats, and two power boats here for the evening. And us and the two powerboats are moored properly, stern to, while the other two sailboats are alongside. I suppose it doesn’t matter since the quay is virtually empty. It still seems funny that this place is so quiet since the books describe it as a chaotic harbour. We have beat the crowd once more. It may be simply because it is a Saturday and therefore a charter changeover day, and since all the charters start in either Lefkas or Corfu, we have fallen here at a time when the next wave of charters is just getting aboard. But again, there is a sense of anticipation in the air.

We set the cat food behind a lightpost later when we walk away. On our way back we stop at another taverna for some squid. Two cats check us out and I slip out to find the abandoned cat food can. When I return with it two little cats are grateful and devour the contents. The smaller, shyer grey cat miaows at us in a tiny little voice, hoping for more….but we feel good knowing he has a meal in his belly.

We take a seat at the cafe right behind the boat and make an attempt at ordering some wine. Interestingly, this is the first place where English has not been the primary language that we hear on the streets. The young fellow trying to take our order does not speak English…and we aren’t doing well at identifying wine. We tried to request some calamari, but apparently the kitchen is closed…only drinks…we get that much. Finally we give up and just say “Amstel” We know that will be understood. But then one of three boys who have been hanging close by and watching us gets into the action. He seems certain he can figure out what we want. He comes right up to us and says “wine?” We say “Yes!!” He runs over to an older woman at another table (we think she is the matriarch of the cafe). The boy comes back and says “White wine?” We say “yes!” He looks at the older boy serving and translates into Greek and then struts away thumping his chest to the other boys and thrusting his fist in the air! He is SO proud of himself for acting as a translator!

Back to the boat to watch the town centre light up with people for the evening. It’s funny to literally step from the sidewalk to the back of the boat and be sitting about 50 feet from the chairs and tables of the Tavernas. The places fill up with locals and the music and voices get livelier.

What a cool place. We plan on staying for another night. How can we resist….we are literally parked in the city square…. The plan was to head for the South tip of Lefkas next, to Vasiliki, but it is a long haul of over 50 miles and at our top speed of around 7 knots we have decided to break it up by zigging back to the mainland again. We are going to go to Preveza next and from there will travel down the outside of Lefkas and end up in Vasiliki before moving on South on the outside of Cephalonia and then Zakynthos before picking our way back up the islands.