Homage to Cephalonia

Not for Navigation

From Port Leone on Kalamos we sailed to Fiskardo at the N end of Cephalonia (see previous chart).
We motored for a couple of hours and then sailed the last couple. It was actually good to motor a bit as our low battery warning alarms were going off this morning. In fact our voltage is now so low that the chartplotter will not start up without the engine on.We have been sailing a lot more than motoring and have not had shore power to charge the batteries for a bit.
I have bought a solar panel but did not have the foresight to get the correct cabling sorted out, so that is a project for later in the year. I am hoping that this will allow us to run the fridge in perpetuity without the engine running. It doesn't stay cold long and the contents turn into a gooey mess pretty quickly in this heat.
We got to Fiskardo early afternoon and were lucky to get a nice berth on the town quay. When I say lucky, it was actually pleasingly well planned. Fiskardo is normally heaving, however being a Saturday, this is change over day for the charter boats and flotillas, so most of them had headed back to their bases. We snuck in.[ Margaret claims this was her clever and sneaky idea].
Fiskardo is a town which we have good memories of visiting many years ago. It has changed a bit but mostly for the better. It is bigger with more, and more up market, restaurants on the quay. However they have avoided big hotels entirely but instead have a thriving apartment rental market for visitors.
The town quay is mostly inhabited by owner /occupier UK yachts. This is OK but from a conversation with the harbour master, Mr Thodoris, they are taken advantage of. They have 2 day maximum stay rule during July and August but apart from that visiting yachts can stay as long as they want. He gestured to a boat that had taken down its sails and was festooned with cockpit tents and hammocks and was proudly flying a red ensign,"He has been here for 3 months!".
Another issue is Catamarans. These enormous floating behemoths are everywhere and they are unfair. They take up at least 3 times the shore space that an ordinary yacht does.
From our experience, they are crewed by 6 men who are always stripped to the waist, overweight and angry. Whether they are angry at being overweight, I am not sure. That they are always stripped to the waist seems an action of denial of their overweightness and their personal angst about this. They are also overly wealthy. A base model Catamaran rental is about £6k per week.
They also never sail. It is quite common to have perfect sailing conditions and see catamarans motoring all over the sea. Indeed some charter companies have gone the whole hog and taken the masts off them, on the basis that they won't be used anyway and given the charterers they get, it's probably safer.
I had an interaction today with one of them that reinforced my position.
Being in dire need of electricity I was delighted to see there was an electrical distribution box within my cable's length. I connected up to the boat and approached the outlet. The chap on the boat next to me (yacht) helpfully pointed out that only two of the four connectors worked and the other two were occupied, did I have a splitter? in which case he would be pleased to share with me.
Back I went to Giorgio's Box. While I had not seen a splitter as such I knew there was a range of bits of cabling and various connectors. I was delighted to find enough bits that fitted together in a Heath-Robinson fashion that would/might do the job.
So an hour or so later I went back to the electric distribution points to connect up. By this time my new friend next door was not around and the other boat connected was a 44ft Catamaran. The crew epitomised those previously described.
The head hincho was sitting in a deck chair not looking at me. "Excuse me" says I, "would you mind if I share your electrical connection", as I held out for inspection the combined efforts of Italian and Scottish cabling innovation.
Without a look in my direction he muttered something. "Beg pardon" says I. He turned his gaze towards me stood up to demonstrate the extent of his girth and worth. "You'll trip it" he says, and sits back down to reconsider the horizon.
The chap on the next boat along (yacht), then pipes in. "No it will be fine, on you go."
So emboldened by popular support from real yachtsmen, I removed his cable, inserted the miraculous invention, reconnected the everything, and yes, you've guessed it, the whole lot tripped.
Invectives completed, I found the Port Authority, who gave me the number for Mr Thodoris, who miraculously appeared and reset the trip switches.

Uphill

More Uphill

We went for another long walk in the midday sun today.  One of the problems with being on a boat is that you don't get much exercise. If you are beating to windward there is a bit of grinding winches to be done but we try to sail with the wind, not against it. So if you are on a single tack for the whole day there is not much physical work to do. We actually fight over whose turn it is to pull up the mainsail and furl the genoa. So going for a walk when ashore is pretty essential.

There does seem to be a Greek tradition of walking. I am not saying it is the same as the Ramblers Association (heaven fore fend) but they do have well marked walks and rights of way that are preserved against developers.

We walked a circuit up into the hills above Fiskardo, through a forest of Cypress trees, visited some ancient caves. Very effectively signed by little blue and white stripes on the rock every so often, just when you are getting lost. Excellent.