Princess Nayeli is waiting in Aegina

The Easter celebration was a little disappointing. For a couple of days people from Athens gathered in town getting ready for Saturday night. They were all dressed up properly for the event. To make a long story short, at midnight, the fireworks lasted for 2 seconds, Yasmin who was right next to it, missed it (only heard the explosive sound), but then all night, and the days after, we kept hearing explosions... The highlight, should have been the Sunday branch where they grill a whole lamp. We escaped that part, and sailed away towards the Corinth canal.
Anyway, it was an interesting experience to see.
We learned that Galaxidi has its root in ancient times. Since it has a great natural harbor, and it's proximity to the Corinth, made it an important point for transiting ships. Later on (in the 19th century) it became an important shipyard, who built hundreds of ships (initially sailing ships and later also steam ships). We visited the interesting marine museum they have there, where they have drawings and models of some of the boats.

The highlight of our trip was crossing the Corinth canal. When we got closer, a strong (20kts) head wind that was coming from the channel, made me a little worried as to how easy the crossing would be. We were also worried that they would stall us for several hours, as they sometimes do. Anyway, since it was Easter Sunday, there were no boats around. We were almost the only boat at sea. There was just one other boat that called the canal authorities, and Yael immediately noticed by their accent that it was an Israeli boat.
So, they let us in right away. There is a low bridge at the entrance to the canal. They lowered the bridge into the water and only when it was all the way down, they let us pass above it.
The canal itself is a narrow 25m wide channel with high cliffs on 50m at the peak. It took us about 1/2 hour to cross.

On the other side we tacked against a 15-20kts wind that died out as we drew away from Corinth. Eventually, we motored out way to Aegina.

We left the boat in a small "marina" in Aegina, with some nice guys named Adonis, and two brothers watching her.
Getting back home (hydrofoil + taxi + plane + train) took us 7 hours, door to door.

I added more pictures from Galaxidi and the canal crossing to the trip's album:

Preveza to Aigina, April 2009

Eyal

Preveza to Galaxidi

Eventually, after three stormy days with winds up to 30 knots and endless rain (we collected 100mm in less than 24 hours), we left Preveza on Wednesday April 15^th at 6:45am. We motored past the Lefkas channel and did motor sailing after that all the way to Patras. Our original plan was to pass the night in Mesolongion but the way went so well and everyone was so happy that we kept going all the way till Patra.

We turned to the yachting marina in Patra and the first thing you notice as you approach Patra, that the water is just one big smelly sewage. Anyway, we spent the night there, and wanted to leave the boat there and go to Diakopto. It should be very beautiful there with a mountain train that travels up to the mountains of Peloponnese. Unfortunately, after walking all the way to the train station, we found out that the mountain train only works on weekends. So instead we walked around Patra and went back to the boat.

We left out to sea, heading to Trizonia, which is about 20 miles East of Patra. Having a wonderful back wind of 15-22 kts, we just surfed east and passed Trizonia so quickly that we decided to continue all the way to Galaxidi (about 35 miles).

We found Galaxidi to be a very nice lively place. It’s full of people now, getting ready to the Easter celebration. People here are extremely nice, the water is clean, and the port is beautiful.

Entering the bay of Galaxidi, we saw a large group of black Dolphins.

We took the day today to visit Delphi. Noga and Yasmin surprised us with their walking ability and their interest in this archeological site, and specially the museum next to it.

We’re back at the boat now, getting ready to watch the village celebrating their Easter. Planning to sail to the Corinth tomorrow.

Preveza to Aigina, April 2009

Back to Preveza

A couple of days ago we landed in Ioannina. We rented a car and spent 24 hours in the picturesque mountains of Epirus (Zagohoria - the villages of Zagoria). We were there a week before the season tourist officially starts, at Easter. As you can see in the picures, they still have some snow, and the villages were more or less empty. The two families we met there were all from.... Israel!
We stayed the night in a small isolated village (1100m) called Papigo. Even in our modern times, there are no shops, no fresh provisions in the village. For anything, you need to drive 1/2 hour to the closest village.
See some pictures at:

Papigo, Epirus, Greece

On Saturday, the boat was already waiting for us in the water.
We found the boat in a very good condition, clean and dry inside.
Only one mysterious thing: The covers of the wheel and table were off, thrown on the cockpit floor, and the navigation screen cover was gone. It feels like it was stolen, but we can't be sure. Anyway, other than that, all looked fine.
While checking all the systems I noticed that three Raymarine
instruments (depth, speed and wind) are not working at all. I looked everywhere for fuses, torn cables, but all looked great - nothing wet, no corrosion. We called an electrician who initially was helpless as well, but then I noticed, looking through a narrow slit behind the instruments that one of the connectors looks a little bit out. So after taking the deck apart, we could reach the back of the instrument to properly plug it back in. All started to work!
The weather yesterday was perfect. Today we have some clouds with a 15-20kts East wind which makes it a little bumpy in Preveza.

Hopefully, we'll start sailing tomorrow (depends on the weather).