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