11 October 2023 - Lakka, Island of Paxos

Keeping a close watch on the weather forecasts is a normal, regular routine, while we are living on the boat. It was a little marginal, but we had in mind that we may be able to stay in the bay next to Parga for another day. By mid morning the boat taxi had not appeared, so I phoned to see if he would come to collect us. “What time do you want to return”, he said. In the afternoon, was my reply. He said that he wouldn’t do it, because bad weather was coming after midday and he couldn’t guarantee he could return us to our boat in the afternoon. We couldn’t see it in the forecasts, but as in Spartochori, local knowledge is usually spot on. He must have been looking at the clouds.

It wasn’t a difficult decision to make, that, if the taxi boat driver didn’t think he’d be able to return us safely, then we shouldn’t stay there.

We’ll have to go back to Parga sometime in the future to see the town and visit the Venetian Fort.

Within the hour we were out on the water in fabulous sailing conditions; F2 and a beam reach (wind at 90 degrees to our direction of travel). It was only 13 miles to cross back to Lakka at the north end of Paxos, where we came about 3 weeks ago. It’s been a while since we had both sails out and the engine off and it was one of those sails, when you might have been tempted to just keep going for the fun of it, but, even though there are only a few boats about, it’s still advantageous to get in early and have more of a choice of a good spot to drop the anchor, especially in a place where we are limited by our deep draft. The bay of Lakka is quite shallow. It was a good move, we did get a spot further in, beyond the entrance than before and the anchor dug in nicely in the sand on the bottom. Thankfully, there was no tangling with someone else’s chain this time.

Paxos in the distance.

The bonus, therefore, of missing out on visiting Parga, was that we could launch the tender and visit the little village of Lakka, which is absolutely delightful. Many of the restaurants and bars had already closed, but a few remained open. A charter fleet was berthed at the town quay, so their chosen eatery would know they’d be guaranteed business.




By nightfall the bay had filled up with maybe half of the number of boats compared to 3 weeks ago, but nevertheless a good number.

The wind died as darkness fell, with peace, quiet and the view of the starry sky a relaxing end to a superb day.

Miles today             11 

Miles in 2023      1117

Tricia (and Steve) 

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