The three days of the storm in Otranto were a bit traumatic. There was maybe 40 kts of wind outside, the sea was high and choppy and we were moored alongside the cargo pier waiting for the storm to die. Two mooring lines were ripped by the cement quay, the whole boat was black, inside and out from the dirt of the truck road above us and everything had a think layer of salt from the spray that was going over the 10m breaker wall.
So, after 3 days of storm, we left Otranto on Saturday, August 13th at 5AM, heading SE towards Corfu in Greece.
10 minutes after we left, a speed boat was heading towards us, it was just before dawn, and she slowed down as she was about 100m away. It was clear that they wanted something… Yael was thinking of Albanian pirates and I was thinking that I should have told the coast guard that we’re leaving so early. As they got closer, we could see the words “Guardia Finanzia” and could hear them speak Italian so we knew it was really the coast guard. A couple of minutes later, they were tied alongside to us, asked us to neutral the engine and they had full control over out 10 ton boat. One of them asked permission to go on board, and we “let” him. He even agreed to take his shoes off. The only problem was that he was wearing sun glasses and had some kind of a pirate like head cover. Yael showed him in, turned on the indoor lights and showed him Noga and Yasmin sleeping. That was good enough for him to tell his friends that we’re OK, and they left apologizing for the disturbance.
The rest of the day was wonderful. We had side-back winds of 15-18 kts and the boat was flying at 8-9 kts towards Corfu. Once we passed Erikousa, the small island NW of Corfu, the wind died and we motored the rest of our way to Gouvia marina.
In Gouvia we met Yael’s parents, Ruth and Shaul that were waiting for us.
Yael had a recommendation for a restaurant close to the marina. I called them, and asked how to get to the restautant. They lady said: “have you a dinghy?”. I said: “yes”. “Then”, she said, “take a look towards the East side of the marina. Do you see a fishing boat tied up to a small pier?”. “Yes”, I said. “So just take your dinghy and go next to our fishing boat”. That’s all I needed. I knew it was going to be a good restaurant, and it was.
From Corfu, we sailed down to Paxoi, and then went down towards Lefkas Bridge. We planned to cross the swinging bridge at 3PM. The bridge is supposed to open every round hour and we’ve crossed it maybe 10 times already. We got there at about 10 minutes to 3 and got in slowly hoping it will open on time. After circling for about 20 minutes in the small entrance with 4 other boats, Yael decided to call the bridge control on Ch. 12. Surprisingly they answered her, and said that they’ll open only at 4pm. They skipped the 3pm opening. You can imagine how many boats were there at 4, waiting to cross...
From the bridge we sailed down to a beautiful bay in Meganisi and then left for Ithaka on Tuesday. Dan Goldstaub and his family were there on a chartered boat and we planned to spend the night with them. We tacked our way towards Itaka till suddenly the wind picked up to 24kts on our head. To Yael’s request to go to the nearest port, we turned around and entered Sivota on the South side of Lefkada Island. We’ve been to Sivota several times before, but it’s always nice to go again to this lovely landlocked bay.
On Wednesday, the sea was flat, zero wind, so we motored for two hours to meet the Goldstaubs in a picturesque bay near the main town of Ithaka, Vathi.
The bay is beautiful, the beach is shaded by pine and olive trees, the water is amazingly clear and warm. It’s really a perfect bay. And what’s really amazing is that the girls, led by the experienced fisherwoman- Yasmin, fished about 6 fish, one of them is a 400gr sea bream!!!! The biggest we ever had in bay fishing. Shaul then BBQed them ashore and after a couple of hours we had a delicious fish dinner.
After a peaceful, star watching night, the Goldstaubs started their journey north while we got ready to sail down to Zakynthos, but then, when I went down to switch to the engine battery I realized we accidentally spent the night on the engine battery, and that battery was already empty. We had both our battery packs empty!!!! I tried to start the engine anyway – but nothing. The two service batteries were showing 10v while the engine battery was showing 11v. What do we do now? I started thinking of taking the dinghy to town to find some starter battery. Yael called Dan on the VHF but he was too far and did not answer his phone either.
We had to come up with a good solution. We had to be in Zakynthos that day because Ruth and Shaul had a flight to catch on Friday morning.
After some thinking, I decided to rewire the batteries and connect the two ‘dead’ service batteries in a row (so they give me some 20v) and use them to charge a little bit the engine battery. Shaul was holding the wires real tight while I went up to the switch. I switched the battery switch to “both” so get my circuit going, and tried to start the engine…
It started immediately!!!
Then I quickly switched back to the engine battery, to minimize the damage and off we went to Zakynthos. It was clear that now we needed new service batteries urgently.
On Thursday the 18th, we entered the port of Zakynthos at about 3pm, after a nice sailing day, using the spinnaker a good part of the day.
This morning, at 5:45AM, Ruth and Shaul left to catch their flight to Tel Aviv. It was great having them for a week with us. They were vivid and helpful. Shaul was great crew and did everything from hoisting sails to tying the boat to rocks and trees. Ruth specialized in navigating the boat between all the “dangerous targets” we had around us. This for itself was a full time job. They both felt great at sea and got used to boating life very quickly. We hope to have them with us in many more cruises.
Today, we used the day to buy new batteries, clean the boat, get some laundry done and just rest before the last sailing week. We are sailing down to Kalamata soon.
As usual, this summner's album with additional pictures of the last week can be found at:
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