22 September 2023 - Lakka, Paxos

We didn’t have to rush to set off this morning, because it is only sixteen nautical miles to our destination, Lakka at the north end of the island of Paxos. That was just as well, as we had had a very disturbed night, being bothered by mosquitoes. The boat is rather hot inside at the end of the day, so we need the hatches open. We have mosquito nets, but had just omitted to drape the loose one over the companion way. Boy did we pay for that omission.

The wind was blowing a nice F3 from the south, so we had an excellent sail, tacking down to Paxos.

Lakka has the reputation of being a very popular harbour and is rammed during high season. It is also very shallow, so we knew that we would be anchoring close to the entrance. It would remain to be seen how full is would be in late September. As we approached, we could see it was pretty full, but we found a space. Politely, we asked him the people on a boat nearby if they were happy with the distance we were from them. They weren’t. Fortunately a large motor cruiser, which was anchored in the spot we had earmarked before, was leaving. We moved quickly before more boats arrived. Then the fun started. I went to check the anchor was properly dug in, with mask and snorkel, to find that our anchor was caught on a chain lying on the sea bed. This chain isn’t marked on the chart. Steve wrapped a rope around the chain to see if he could pull the anchor free, while swimming, but that didn’t quite work. After sometime, we asked for help from folks on a boat next to us, who had arrived shortly after us. We then realised that this chain was the anchor chain of a very small motor boat, that also had lines to the shore. He had put out a ridiculous amount of chain, probably four times what he needed. The young man did, though, come to help, and as he could spend longer than Steve diving down, managed to free us.

The folks who were helping us are absolutely delightful. Amongst the conversation, while this drama was going on, they told us that they were here in Lakka during the same week, last year and then, there were three boats. Today we reckon there were about fifty.

After this two hours of “fun”, we were exhausted and hungry. We hadn’t eaten any lunch and it was now close to 5.30pm (beer o'clock?). It was going to be a quiet night in, relaxing over a tasty dinner to celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary.

Miles today           21

Miles in 2023      982

Tricia (and Steve) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

24 - 27 March 2023 - Amersham / Zagreb / Biograd

Image
Our Spring / Summer adventures started when the alarm went off at 04:20 on 24th March. The flight to Zagreb was completely full, the passengers including Welsh football supporters going to watch their team play Croatia in the Euro qualifiers, and a Para-Olympic Boccia team going to play-offs for next year’s Olympics. We had a superb 22 hours with our friends Stevo and Jasna in Zagreb, during which we managed to walk around the centre of the city. There are lots of late 19th century buildings, making it very attractive, along with the outside cafes and restaurants of European café society. The centre being largely pedestrianised and serviced by trams just adds to it’s appeal. The cathedral is undergoing some repairs after the earthquake a couple of years ago Ties were invented in Croatia, and there is a shop selling beautiful examples If you want a Tesla, this guy was the original On the way to the bus station, on Saturday morning, the taxi driver had said that, as we were travelling
Read more

24 - 30 October 2023 - Bari

Image
Now that we are back to our base for the winter, we have stopped blogging regularly.  We are spending our time working through the checklist of things to do, and this is probably not that interesting to write or read about. The weather is still great, tee shorts and shorts.  we don't think that England will be like this when we arrive back. Over the weekend there was a big end of season race, with about 100 boats competing. The guy from the yard was trying to persuade us to enter, saying that it was all pretty light hearted.  It didn't seem so when boats turned up from other ports, with full race crew.  Anyway, we had decided not to participate for a number of reasons. The racing fleet heading out So we will draw this a close for this year, and pick up from a new blog address next year. Thank you for reading.    Miles today                0    Miles in 2023       1349 Steve (and  Tricia) 
Read more

20 September 2023 - Benitses and Kerkyra (Corfu Town)

Image
As we had booked into the marina for 2 days, but completed the necessary maintenance tasks in 1 day, we took the opportunity to go into Corfu town for some site seeing. The bus stop was right outside the marina, so it was very easy,  there was even a ticket machine at the bus stop (of which more later). Alighting from the bus, we started to wander through the narrow streets and alleyways of the old town. It was the sort of place to ignore the maps and just wander and see what you would find. Like many other places in this part of the world, Corfu has a very long history.   It was one of three Greek naval powers in the fifth century BC, with Athens and Corinth. Since then it has changed hands multiple times. It was part of the Republic of Venice from the 12th century, and there are still many buildings and avenues which seem typically Venetian. They built two huge forts to guard the city against pirates and the Ottomans, making it one of the most fortified places in Europe.   In Nov
Read more