6th October 2023 - Spartachori, Meganisi

We like Sivota. It is a tiny village with a bay lined with tavernas and shops, but they have done it in a very classy way. This place has style, whereas Nidri is tacky. Apparently several pontoons have sprouted out from the harbour wall in recent years, making berths for many more boats. The pontoon we were on can take 21 monohulls. Some of the charter catamarans are huge and probably take more than two spaces, but the restaurant proprietor is happy, because they always have a lot of people on board, who will be eating at the restaurant.

We only had seven miles to go and had been advised to arrive at our next destination in the afternoon, so this gave us time to have a short run and spend a relaxing remainder of the morning having a coffee, watching the other boats leave. The marineros here are superb at their job, and when one of the boats berthed well inside wants to go earlier than the others, they pull the boat out and down the narrow passage, with the tender. One of the guys, at one point, sprinted out of the restaurant and leapt into the tender to aid one of the catamarans, that was making a right mess of getting out. When the skipper is not experienced at close quarter manoeuvring, it was crazy that they hadn’t asked for help before they started. Waiting until all the other boats outside of us had gone, made things easy for us. We’d rather have no stress.

Round a couple of headlands, we could see a nice bay, Desimi Bay, on Lefkas, that would make a nice lunch stop. Now we are in October, the roped off area for swimming had been removed, giving more room for boats, so there were ten there. We were able to find a good space. It’s unusual for us to make a lunch stop like this, so it was a novel change, to sit together eating rather than taking turns, while we are on the move. The water looked inviting for a swim, but we decided to move on and get ourselves settled in Spartochori, back on the island of Meganisi.

Our lunch stop

We had read that Babis, whose family run the restaurant and operate the quay, barks out his instructions at you as you make the manoeuvres to park. He didn’t let us down in our expectations, and I’m rather glad we had prior warning, otherwise we would have found it aggressive. I’m sure he is shouting to make sure he is heard, and, as he says, he knows his lazy lines and just how tight you have to make them. He did intersperse his barking to say, about three times, what a beautiful boat we have, which always goes down well with us.

There’s a short walk around the bay, which has a rather nice beach at its head, giving us a pleasant late afternoon walk. Back at the boat, we could enjoy the entertainment of the ferry arrival. It is so impressive at just how slick they are at landing, unloading and leaving, with no anchor down or lines put ashore during the process, but then, there is the technology now, to set the GPS to facilitate holding the boat in position in a hover.

Typical of Greece

The deal is that you eat in the restaurant and then there is no charge for mooring, electricity and water. It was such a treat to have their fresh red snapper cooked on the barbecue; delicious.

Miles today               7 

Miles in 2023      1060

Steve (and Tricia) 

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