Princess Nayeli: With the family again (Ioannina to Lefkada)

The morning started early. I got ready to take the ferry to Igoumenitsa where a minivan was waiting for me. I had the whole morning to drive to Ioannina to pick up the family. I took the 7:30 ferry and had a pleasant 1 ½ hour ride to Igoumenitsa.
The road to Igoumenitsa is beautiful. You climb the high mountains of the mainland with a road that’s still half motorway and half just an old tortuous road.

I was lucky to get early to Ioannina because later in the day it became unbearably hot. I did some sight seeing in the old town that was once divided to three: Turks, Jews and Greeks.

You can see some pictures of Ioannina at:

Princess Nayeli - Ioannina

I haven’t met the family for about 10 days but it looked more like a month that we haven’t met. The airport in Ioannina is so tiny that I could wait at the luggage belts with some journalists who were waiting for some soccer player that came on the same flight.
I could see them going down the airplane’s stairs and walking into the terminal. It was a very exciting moment for me.

We tried to see the synagogue in the old town but Mr. Samuel Cohen, a very old man who maintains the synagogue, said it’s too hot and that he can only get out of the house at 8pm. We decided to turn around and go quickly to the port and catch the 6:30 ferry to Corfu. We got there at 6:23. Those ferries leave on time!!! We waived to the guy at Europecar that we leave him the car with the keys in the port, dropped all the girls with the luggage so they can load it all to the ferry, I drove quickly to buy tickets about 500m from the ferry and got back just on time before they closed the door.

The following day, after a relaxed morning at the pool in Gouvia, we met the Segal family on the boat. Segal couldn’t go on the boat for more than a minute, so he left us there to sail up to Kassiopi where he would meet us. His wife and kids joined us for the sail.
Kassipoi is less than 10 miles North of Gouvia so we just motored up the Corfu channel (in a 17kts wind) and fortunately the wind doesn’t get into Kassiopi so we could moor safely. Here was the first time we used the stern anchor, because the water at the quay is too shallow. Our fortless anchor with the weighted rope is so light and so easily managed that the whole maneuver took a couple of minutes.
Kassiopi was a pleasant surprise.
We went up to see Segal’s house at the village, 400m above Kassiopi. They have an outstanding view of the Corfu channel, the Albanian mountains, and all the boats crossing between Corfu and Albania. They say that at night they can see the ferries lighting the sea and can hear their engine humming through the silence.

Pictures from the sail to Kassiopi:

Princess Nayeli - sailing to Kassiopi

The next day we sailed back to good old Moutros. The same bay where we already spent a couple of nights. I would call it “Fish Bay” because we caught a lot of fish here several days earlier). For some reason, you can still find your own bay in this lovely spot (unlike what we had in Lefkas and Meganisi).
The sail down to Moutros was wonderful. We sailed the 30 something miles with the Spinnaker.

After a peaceful night at Moutros, we sailed relatively early to Gaia in Paxoi. It’s a very crowded place so we just motored down with no wind till closer in a good wind started on our nose so we had nice tacking against the wind till Paxoi.
Paxoi is really crowded. As Yael said: Now I know where all the boats are. Even the sea plane has a station here and he kept coming and going all the time.
We were able to anchor in the busy channel that leads to the city with two anchors and two lines ashore. We were properly secured this way.

Sunset at Moutros “Fish Bay” and pictures from Gaia on Paxoi:

Princess Nayeli - Moutros to Paxoi

From Paxoi, we sailed down to Preveza and the huge half salt lake behind it. With 15+ knots on our back, we had a great sail down. It was a little too choppy for the girls. Noga and Yasmin were a little sea sick for the first time. It took them a couple of hours of bad feeling till they were able to vomit after which they felt as good as new and started playing again. The entrance through the narrow channel with this wind and waves on your back was a little challenging and mainly scary when you go there for the first time. We furled and stowed both sails fearing from the unknown. Eventually – it was nothing. Once you’ve done it, you know it’s a piece of cake.

We passed Preveza and the three huge boatyards at the entrance (looks like a good place to winter out) and went into the large bay. We headed south to Vonitsa. It is a small sleepy village with a nice harbour and nice people. The boats around us were mostly old private boats that were sailing around for years. On our morning walk we saw a big sea turtle swimming around the harbour. It was a good place to relax before we got into the rushing resort bays of Lefkada.

Pictures from Vonitsa:

Princess Nayeli - Vonitsa

We sailed out of Vonitsa and Preveza towards Lefkas Bridge. The bridge opens on the hour for passing boats. We planned to be there at 2pm. Thanks to some good wind, we got there 15 minutes prior, and had all the time we needed to drop the sails and get ready to pass. We were early enough before the afternoon wind started to get to the passage with no worries. It’s an interesting, beautiful passage. It is a floating bridge that opens up horizontally by motoring (with something that looks like a bow thruster) and mooring alongside the east bank of the channel. It’s really amazing. The whole procedure takes 10 minutes so at 2:10 cars were already passing on the bridge.

Motoring down the channel is quiet tiring because you have to keep a close watch on other boats and make sure you don’t land on the shallow water around the channel. We passed it eventually and just motored all the way to one of the bays at Meganisi. We tried one, but it was so crowded with boats, and no beaches, so we decided to go to another one. The other one was more reasonable and had a nice beach at the mouth of the bay. We anchored next to two other boats and had a nice time swimming in the bay and spending time on the beach with the girls.

From Meganisi we continued south to Sivota. We were lucky to get in early. There are now about 100 boats moored and anchored in this small bay. It is a natural bay around which they built some houses, and a lot of restaurants. We have a nice bar (that used to be an oil-press house) just across the street from out stern that will probably keep playing loud music till the morning. I’ll send pictures from Sivota later on.

Some pictures from Lefkas: