Arrived to Zakinthos!!!

We're there!

We had a great sailing day from Katakolon to Zakinthos. We tacked all the way against the wind that luckily was not so strong and we're now anchored in Keri bay, on the West side of the huge Lagana bay, on the south side of Zakinthos.

We almost caught another fish on the way. We brought him all the way to the stern and then when we tried to get him into the net, he managed to escape! The 2nd one this week.

Strofadhes Islands

After spending a bit of a stormy and bumpy night in Pilos we woke up to a calm morning with just a few rain drops here and there.

We left Pilos and motored the 35 miles to Strofadhes islands in no wind.

The two islands lie about 30 miles away from any land. They are tiny islands, the larger one (Stamfani) is about a mile long.

We anchored at the South bay of the Northern island (Arpia). On one side we had Arpia and on the other the view of the monostry on Stamfani, about a mile away. This monostrey was built in the 13th century by a Byzantine ceasar because his daughter found shelter on this island after abandoning a sinking ship.

What was supposed to be a deserted place, turned out to be sort of a home to somebody.

We found some sort of a small hut at the bay on the other side of the island, a small power boat tied to a rock there, and lots of hunting gun cartridges. They say that this place used to be full of rabbits...

Later on, we found the guy who lives here: We saw him working around some ruins of a old house, later on he was in our bay doing underwater fishing, and at night he was going around us with his small power boat in total darkness within the hundreds of rocks that are spread all around here.

We also had an interesting incident: We all went to check the anchor while swimming above it. First Yasmin, then myself and eventually Shay.

We saw that the anchor chain was tied around a big rock. We knew it won't be easy to pick it up. We were also looking at repositioning the boat in the tiny bay.

While swimming in the crystal clear water of the bay, we found a nice mooring line in the middle of the bay. So we decided to struggle with the anchor in the evening and move to the mooring line.

The manouvre was not easy at all. Shay was in the water, telling us where to steer the boat so the chain would go off the rock. After a few attempts we managed to untie the chain from the rock and pick up the anchor.

The sunset in the bay was breathtaking. The sun was already behind the island and was painting the sky and water in deep red orange colors, as if the sky is on fire!

The night was a bit bumpy with 20kts winds and some waves in the bay. We also had some background noises of some animal that we couldn't recognize.

Today, we woke up to a 4 beaufort sea, and sailed close hauled all the way to Katakolon. Our Grand Soleil loves those winds and we were running more than 9 kts with reefed sails all the way to Katakolon.

Tomorrow Shay is going to Olympia and we are sailing to Zakinthos from where Yael, Noga and Yasmin will be flying back home.

Pictures from Koroni to Strofadhes:

princess_nayeli_2010_09_koroni_to_strofadhes

In Pilos again

Hi,

We're back to Pilos. After a long round of the fingers of the Peloponnese, we've started our journey NW towards Zakinthos.
In short, we left Kalamata on Thursday the 23rd, spent a night in the bay of Limeni, and then the following morning visited the beautiful caves of Diros. Those are really exceptional stalactite caves. They took the 8 of us on a small boat through a path of 1500m with fresh water under the boat and natural tunnels just over our heads. You can see some of it in the pictures.
After Diros, we did a long sail to Githio which is a town at the North end of the huge Lakonikos bay.
From Githio, we were able to take a couple of taxis and go to Monemvassia. This is the place Yael wanted to visit for several years. Since we didn't make it with the boat, this time, we found a way to get there by land. Anyway, it was so nice there that we promised ourselves that we'll get there with the boat one day.
Weather is pretty warm, but was raining hard for a couple of nights.

From Githio, we sailed down to a very special bay called Porto Kaiyo.
You can sit on the beach, surrounded by high cliffs with scattered fortresses that used to belong to pirates.

A long leg to Korini, and then another 23 miles in a rainy day and we're in Pilos.

We're planning to spend the night in the bay here and leave tomorrow morning to Stefani islands, half way to Zakinthos.

We were also much more lucky with the fish. We caught about a fish a day on the days that we did try to fish. You can imagine how good the sushi was...

As usual, you can see some pictures at:

princess_nayeli_2010_09_peloponnese

Porto Limeni

Today, we sailed for the first time. We left Kalamata marina in no wind and as we went, the wind picked up at our back up to about 17 kts. Lovely sail in a winter like atmosphere with cloudy sky and a dark blue sea. When we got close to our destination at Porto Limeni, a heavy rain started for maybe 10 minutes. We got soaked, but 10 minutes later it all went away.

We' re now on anchor in Porto Limeni.

Kalamata and the transit log

We arrived at Kalamata marina on Monday at 4pm after a long travel that started at 6am in Ben Gurion Airport. We were lucky with all the buses so we made it all the way down to Kalamata pretty fast. After all, this is like the end of the world here. It's so far from everything.

Anyway, I had an interesting experience with the Greek customs that I wanted to share with everyone who sails in Greece.

Since we entered Greece on March 22nd (In KastelloRizo) , our transit log expired today, September 21st. It was valid for 6 months. A transit log is like a tourist visa for boats.

So I went to the customs here in Kalamata to extend the transit log (I was told back then in Kastellorizo that it shouldn't be a problem), and found out that I can only extend it by 15 days. I wasn't planning to leave Greece in 15 days!

Fortunately, I met there a very nice and helpful guy named Mr. Stavrianakos. First he said that he can only extend my stay in Greece in 15 days. I told him that I need to get to Preveza and it would take me more than 15 days. He checked all the regulations again and said that he can't find any way around it. As he started the paperwork I tried a different approach: I asked him if the fact that the boat was locked in the marina for over a month while I was at home, helps me get a longer extension. He said: "That's interesting. If you can get me a letter from the marina that you left the boat for a month, I can give you an extension of another month".

So I went back to the marina office, and then again to the customs office with the letter (I'm lucky to have bicycle on board), and after a long journey through paperwork, payment at the cashier, etc. I got the extension.

I tried to understand how this works so here is what he explained to me:

As a foreign boat, you're allowed to stay in Greece for only 6 months. Then you have to leave the country for 6 months, at least, and then you can come back for another period of 6 months, and so on.

Then, if you leave the boat for a long period of time, you can either surrender your transit log at the customs office or just come back with a letter from the marina that shows that the boat was left locked in the marina, and the that time off won't count against the 6 months. So actually the 6 months is the net sailing time that you have in Greece.

In practice, the bureaucracy is so heavy that I don't know if it's practical to go through it every time you leave the boat and go.

There is still the question of the reciprocal tax that I need to pay every 3 months. I still don't understand how it works and feel like I'm the only boat owner paying it. Once I understand how it works, I'll share it in this blog.

Eyal

Ionian Islands, Again

Hi All,

I didn't get a chance to write anything in the blog yet. We've been sailing the North Ionian see since July 7th first with my Brother's family (Dror, Gila and Nadav) and then with Roy and his kids Naomi and Yoav. I need to find the time to write about the past 3 weeks (or hopefully one of them will...)

In the meantime, you can see some of our pictures on:

princessnayeli_2010_ionian

Passover trip from Kos to Galaxidi

We took a two week vacation and had a family trip on Princess Nayeli from Kos to Galaxidi. A total of 290 NM.
The weather forecast was quiet good. There was a SW storm that was supposed to end on Thursday (a day after we landed in Kos), and from then on, nothing much.
It turned out that the weather is more difficult to predict this time of the year.

Kos for itself, turned out to be an interesting place with a lovely old port, an a lot of archeology from the days of Hippocrates.

So, sitting on the boat in Kos and reading some tour guides, we understood that the best place to see a Pascha celebration is in Patmos, an Island just North of us. So we decided to change plans and go North first. This turned out to be a great decision as we went up in a stong SE wind (23kts) and by that we gained enough upwind milage to start going West against the NW wind.

We stayed in Patmos for 3 days. Unfortunately, we had to see the midnight celebrations from the boat. Noga and Yasmin were too tired to make it till midnight in town. Anyway, the fireworks show was perfect to be seen from the boat.
The one thing that was annoying, is the earsplitting explosives.
One anecdote from Patmos: Going down from the monastery to town, we took a taxi. Once he realised we're from Israel, he put on a disk of Noa (Ahinoam Nini). It turned out that his wife, who's German, works for an organization in Athens that preserves Jewish heritage. He drove us through his house to meet his wife and kids. Such a thing could not have happened in the summer!
After Pascha, we stayed another day due to bad weather. Yes! The Meltem wind already started blowing (only force 5 at this time, but we didn't want to do a whole day's sail in 20+ knots of winds).

Next stop was supposed to be Mikonos. Or actually, Delos. We started sailing at around 8am, and quickly we found out that the wind is coming from Mikonos and it wouldn't be easy to get there before dark. The wind directed us to Maxos, so there we went.
In Naxos, the first time in Greece, while we were in a restaurant, celebrating the end of Passover, someone opened our gangway, walked on the deck all the way to our bedroom window, opened it (it wans't locked), and fortunately, something scared him off and he left before making it into the boat! We were lucky this time.

So the next morning, we left Naxos and headed to Delos. It was all nice and quiet before we got there and we were planning to go into the small harbor and visit ancient Delos. Once we approached Delos, the wind started to blow hard. According to the pilot, Delos, which is very small, gets dangerous with the strong North wind. So being prudent, we changed course and entered the adjacent port of Mikonos.

Yael, being in Mikons for the first time, loved the place. The city is beautiful and very well maintained. It's mostly shops and restaurants, but all in good taste. And the best part is that it was all just for us as there were very little tourists.
It also gave us the opportunity to visit old Delos the next day. We just took a tour boat (that fought the wind and waves for 45 minutes to cross the channel to Delos), and a wonderful English speaking guide. It was very interesting.
We could also see with our own eyes how small the bay in Delos is, and that there's no way for our 45' boat to get in there next to the tour boats. The only way is to anchor out and take a dinghy to the entrance. I think the pictures show it quiet well.

After checking the forecast carefully, we realised that the Meltem wind (North wind) is gathering strength towards the weekend, and the more West we go, the lighter the wind is and is coming more from the East which is good for us.

So we started to run fast. We left Mikonos at 4:30PM and put up some sails to let us run in 8+ knots to Ermoupolis, Siros. In Ermoupolis, we have our dear friend Charles, that waited for us in the port and helped us moor the boat.
The following day, again we waited for the afternoon hoping that the wind would go down (which never happened), to leave to Loutra, Kithnos. This time, we had a side wind, 20-23kts, and had a beautiful sail going there. Noga, at this point, got so used to sailing that she kept singing and laughing all the way. Yasmin just went to sleep and woke up when we got there.

Charles told us to make sure we go to the hot bath in Loutra. When we were there, with our coats, hats and gloves, we didn't think it would be possible to take off our clothes and go into a hot bath which is in the sea (it's a mixture of a hot spring and cold sea water). After asking a few people who returned from it, and absolutely recommened it, we decided to go.
I must tell you, this was the best experience we had all this trip. The water was so good that we could have stayed there forever. It's hard to describe the feeling of sitting in a hot natural bath, in a lovely bay, surrounded by sea water and stones, with cold wind blowing in your nose. It was divine! For all of us!

Next stop was Epidavros. Again, we originally planned to stop at Poros, but Epidavros was new to us so we decided to go there and visit the ancient theater of Epidavros. The theater is very impressive. The view, its size, the phenomenal acoustics, the way it was preserved, etc.

And now - the Corinth canal.
We've been here same time last year, but it's always exciting to go through the canal (maybe because it costs 220 Euros...). Anyway, past the canal, we tried to go into Corinth marina for the night. It's only 2 miles away from the canal and looks promising according to Rod Heikel.
So going in there was a nightmare! The whole marina including the approach is very shallow. Some rocks are maked as 1.9m (while we are 2.3m deep).
So with the West wind blowing, and shallow water, we could not find a place to tie our boat, so after spending maybe an hour there, we decided to go to the commercial port. It was a little more bumpy, but we had 8m depth, and after 9pm, the whole port for ourselves!!!

So, Galaxidi, here we come.
Another 35nm, (first time on engine), we were anchored in Galaxidi.
We know the place well, after spending Pascha there last year. We also know someone there that could keep an eye on our boat. When we got in, there was only one other yacht there (you can see it in the pictures). It belong to a British family that is going around the Mediterranean and will hopefully come to Israel soon on their boat.
We had 1.5 days left, to prepare the boat for her stay in Galaxidi. Noga and Yasmin were very helpul this time. They even helped me fold the huge jib!

Eventually, we took the 3 hour bus to Athens....

We have a lot of pictures this time. Many of them were taken by Noga and Yasmin:

PrincessNayeli201003_kostogalaxidi