Meanderings

Paxos`- Palairis- Kastos - Vasiliki - Fiskardo

So we have turned into feckless, purposeless Mediterranean wanderers. Going from port to port wherever the wind direction seems most propitious.
Fram Palairos we had a gentle meander S to Kastos. A pretty little village on a small island with not a lot going on. It was evacuated in 1977 due to typhoid but has been re-populated since.All the islands seem to have slightly different insect populations. There are several, antipaxos, Scorpio for instance, which are heavily populated by wasps. Mogonsisi on Paxos had a huge population of large bright red dragon flies. Kastos had large numbers of bees that seem to forage on the mainland. On sailing down the coast of Kastos there were dozens crossing our path at right angles. many of them would stop and alight on something yellow, clothes peg, hand bearing compass, realise it was not a flower and then fly off towards the mainland some 7-8 miles away.
From there we headed W to Vasiliki. The weather seems to have changed somewhat with brisk early morning E and SE winds turning into more gentle NW breezes in late afternoon. The temperature has dropped by several degrees compared to early September but still suitable for sailing in shorts and shirt, though occasionally a fleece is needed toward the end of the trip.
Vasiliki is a strange place. It lies at the head of a large bay about 3 miles deep with steep mountains on both sides particularly to the W. It is known as one of the top 10 windsurfing spots in the world due to highly predictable winds and undisturbed water. Each afternoon during the summer season there is a cross shore NW wind varying from force 4-7 until sunset. And that is exactly what we experienced.

Mountainous bay of Vasiliki

Unfortunately as windsurfing has reduced in popularity with kids taking up kite surfing Vasiliki has suffered a bit and the investment there has been is a bit in excess of demand.
The harbour in Vasiliki is quite small but does seem to be undergoing extensive development work so perhaps they are looking to yacht tourism to supplement their fortunes.
It was however very end of the season when we visited with most of the rental outfits decommissioning their stuff, but it all seemed a bit of a ghost town with just half a dozen die hards zipping about in the late afternoon. However it has inspired us a bit to have ago again next year, if the old bones and joints will allow.

Ithica and Cephalonia in the haze.

From Vassiliki we sailed S to Cephalonia again. The day started off with a brisk SE wind which vanished a few miles N of our target and we motored the rest of the way to the anchorage at Foki Bay a mile or so S of Fiskardo. We anchored with two lines ashore. Now our technology for doing this has advanced a bit. Our long line is a single 100m length of nylon rope. You need this much as during the time it take the rower to get ashore, find a tree or rock to tie to, the cross winds can often have blown the boat down wind away from the target and the line has to be long enough to pay out, and then pull in. Previously I had this 100m rope in three separate hanks to try to avoid fankles but this did not work well and often there were problems getting this to pay out, to the (understandable) frustration of the rower (M), and the payer out (me).
The solution I have come up with is to flake the line into two Croatian Lidl's bags.
Flaking is the laying of the rope backwards and forwards on top of itself rather than coiling it into a hank.  Each end is tied to a handle of the Lidl bag and the two bags then tied together with a separate rope for storage in the aft locker. It pays out much more easily and so far this has been a total success. I can thoroughly recommend this technique

Sad face big toe? At sea too long?

Yesterday evening there suddenly appeared a cacophony of bells. A herd of around 50 goats wandered down to the beach we were anchored off. They started doing loads of typical goaty stuff. The billy goats were fighting with one rearing on hind leags and smashing his forehead, fully horned, into the forehead of the opponent. The opponent made no effort to get out the way and the impacts could be heard 100m away. After a while the big matriarch tried to get in between them to call it off but they were obviously having a great time. There were olive trees on the beach which the larger goats could reach by standing on their hind legs, often for several minutes at a time. Indeed one pulled down some branches with its forelegs for the others to get stuck into. M took a wonderful video of them, the sound track of which is really good but I can't get it to upload to this site. I will persevere.
After a while the goatherd appeared and sent them back along the sore past us. They proceeded to attack our shore lines, fortunately the lines survived but were a bit ragged on retrieval this morning.