12 October 2023 - Plataria

There are some bays on the mainline to the north east of Lakka that have some great reviews as pretty places to visit. It was with a certain amount of caution though, that we set of to arrive at the bay with, potentially the best holding for the anchor. Lots of the bays in this area have Posidonia grass on the seabed, which is great for marine life, but not good for getting an anchor dug in.

It was again champagne sailing conditions, with flat water a nice breeze under a beautiful blue sky. To start with the wind was coming from directly the direction we wanted to go, so we zig-zagged, tacking and not making a lot of progress, but the wind direction changed and we able to have a superb sail across. There are a group of small islands with sand bars between some of them on the coast, to the south of Igoumenitsa. It is all very picturesque and understandable it’s a popular place to visit.

You have to try to drop the anchor in a small patch of sand, rather than on the grass and this is really difficult to judge, because, more often than not, you’ve missed it by the time the anchor hits the bottom. Unfortunately, after three attempts at getting the anchor to hold, we had to accept defeat and go straight to plan C. (Plan B was a bay with possibly more grass and so unlikely to offer better holding.) A pity because it was a rather beautiful spot. The small bay was overlooked by rather swanky looking properties with bougainvillea tumbling over the walls. In the process of this attempt the windlass fuse tripped, so Steve was concerned that we’d be having to haul the anchor up by hand, but with some time to let everything cool down, he got it working again. Phew! “Hard work” is an understatement for having to lift the anchor manually. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t stop to take photos while this was all going on.

As we exited the bay, one of the large ferries had departed Igoumenitsa and was accelerating in our direction. We had the sails back up by this time, and although by the rules of the road, we had rights on the ferry, you don’t mess with them. They don’t deviate from their course for anything. It’s rather a case of them being bigger than us and a quick decision has to be made to turn around and go back to let it go past, or continue to pass in front. I decided to ram on more speed with the engine and continue to get across in front. The AIS told me we had half a mile clearance, but it’s never the less very disconcerting to see this massive ferry bearing down towards you at 20 knots or more. As soon as we could see down the far side of it we could relax. Aren’t there the words of a song that go “do something that scares you everyday”? Well today I did.

Plan C was to go Plataria, which thankfully, we had been to on our way south and knew it had good holding in sand and only five miles away. It’s a wide open bay, with loads of room. Several charter boats were also enjoying a wonderful afternoon sail and heading towards the harbour in the north east corner of the bay.

It was 5.00pm when we were nicely settled in and could relax after what felt like a relatively tough day. I use the work ‘relatively’, as we haven’t had any tough days at all this autumn. The bay is open to the west so we had a great view of the sunset and the beautiful red after glow before darkness falls.

Miles today            20 

Miles in 2023      1137

Tricia (and Steve)