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).

Last sail from Parga to Preveza - Just amazing

We're back to Preveza. In a couple of days we'll be on a plane going back home.
The last sail we had yesterday was just perfect. We stayed in Parga till early afternoon, Yasmin caught a fish, we could spend some time on the beach, and even swim in 20 degrees.
Sailing to Preveza, we had back wind of 5-10 knots (apparent), sea was smooth, and the weather was nice and warm. It was our last chance to use the Spinnaker - and we did.
At 7:02 we had a beautiful sunset (can't really see it in the pictures), we furled the Spinnaker and sailed with the mainsail and engine into the darkness.
Getting into Preveza with the long tunnel leading to it, was interesting. At that point Naama decided to try and steer the boat (between the buoys of the channel), and she did so just perfectly.
So this was a nice ending to this extended summer vacation we had in the Ionian islands.

Princess Nayeli - Parga to Preveza

naama's camers Princess Nayeli to Corfu

Parga to Petriti (South end of Corfu)

Yom Kippur was coming and we wanted to spend it in a Synagogue in one of the Jewish communities. The only one we found (on the Internet) was in Corfu.
We arrived at Mandraki Marina, in Corfu on Tuesday afternoon, a day before Yom Kippur eve.
Mandraki is a small marina, operated by a local sailing club (IOS). It’s a charming place, except the fact that each time the fast Ferry to Igoumenitsa passes by, we get an enormous swell in the marina that rolls us immensely for a couple of minutes.

The Jewish community at Corfu is really small. About 50 people left here. 2,500 people were sent to the concentration camps in 1944, and only 250 returned. About half of them immigrated to Israel and the rest remained in Corfu.
We were welcomed warmly by the community and joined the Yom Kippur service at the synagogue. The service was held by a cantor (hazan), that was brought specially from Jerusalem. So we really felt at home there. Actually, it was superior to the synagogue we have in Kfar Netter in any sense.
We visited Zino’s shop one day. Zino is the head of the community. It was important for him to show us his father’s holocaust striped shirt (see the pictures). Both his parents survived the horror of the holocaust and returned to their home town.
After spending some more time in the lovely town of Corfu, we had a nice quiet sail to Petriti. It was supposed to be an authentic Greek town (as described in the pilot book). What we found is a town that’s in the midst of a major change. Big fishing boats fill up the harbor, with a lot of Egyptian workers. A lot of land was bought by Germans who are now building new houses in the village. It will probably be a shiny pearl in a couple of years.

Princess Nayeli - Parga - Corfu - Petriti

The Fish!

On Monday morning Yael bought a fish from the fishermen and we were off to sea. I had a feeling that this is would be our luck day with the fishing rig, because we already had a fish.
So after dragging the plastic bate for 3 months, about an hour after leaving Preveza we caught a nice fish (see the pictures for a proof!). Then, out of nowhere, Naama started screaming that this is a murder and that we’re not allowed to do this, and she went to her room and wouldn’t talk to us for the whole day. She missed the beautiful close hauled sail we had in 20+ knot wind. The boat was heeling nicely, while I on the helm keeping the boat a little head to the wind, to avoid the aggressive heeling and speed. Eventually we decided to reduce the sail area and furled the mainsail one step. The boat straightened up a little bit, stopped jumping on the waves and went a little faster, as we could go full speed now. It was a lot more comfortable now. We kept going this way till we arrived at Parga.
BTW – Yael cooked the fish with tomatoes and other good stuff, and was delicious.

Parga is a lovely bay, surrounded by rocks, with a small fishing harbor at the west end, as you can tell from the tons of pictures that we took there. We’ll try to stop there again on the way back, to enjoy the lovely beaches, and maybe have some swim.

Princess Nayeli to Corfu

In Parga

We're now in Parga, after a good sail close hauled in 20 knot north west wind. It's amazing how the boat remains dry even when jumping on waves.
It's a small resort town, between Lefkas and Corfu, on the mainland. We're anchored in the bay outside the fishing harbour.
Planning to sail to Corfu today.

More details and pictures to follow.

Eyal