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Saturday 21st March...

Good News. Miraculously, my camera has decided to start working again. I think it's that 'significantly historic' Greek God Pan, who is really not dead, and wants to read the blog, just like all Thésée Followers do. What do you think?

A week in Paxos has come to an end, and so it was time to make a move. It's been great, no-one has bothered us at all, and we've had a freebie stay on a nice pontoon. 

Typically, the wind was blowing from the south this morning, which meant it was blowing us onto the pontoon, making it more difficult to depart.  We planned to do a manoevre called 'springing off'. Dean attached a line from Thesee's bow cleat to a pontoon cleat near the midships. Then he motors forward which makes the back end of the boat move away from the pontoon, then he puts the boat in reverse, I release the spring line, and he backs the boat away from the pontoon.  We couldn't go out forwards because Thesee's bow was in a kind of an angled corner. 

What made it a little more tricky was that a local lady had decided to put four fishing lines out behind the boat. Fortunately, she came back as we were preparing to leave, and kindly took her fishing lines in.... well some of them. I gave her a wave and a thank you as we left. The manoevre worked perfectly. We have done this a few times before, but not for quite a while. 

So, once on the move we went up to the top of the island to a bay called Lakki. It's has very beautiful blue water and is so popular in the summertime. We thought we might be spending the night here, but the problem is it's very shallow. We anchored in 2.8 metres depth. This means we can only put about 15 metres of chain out. If the wind blows up tonight there's a chance we'll drag anchor. We like to have a lot of chain weight on the ground. 

The sea outside had been quite lumpy this morning, and in the anchorage it was quite rolly. It didn't take us too long to decide we didn't want to stay here the night. So I took some photos 😀 and we left for Plan B, the mainland.

Lakki bay

Like I said, the sea outside was quite rolly. Once we had the sails up it was more comfortable, and we were sailing for about an hour before we ran out of wind, and had to put the engine on. About 3pm we arrived at Sivota Mourtas (on the mainland). We like it here, been twice before. But it has changed since last year when we spent four nights in the little port. This time we hear it's been taken over, and it's now gone up market. Tonight we are moored stern-to in the same little port, this time with a massive sailboat next to us. It makes Thésée look like a toy. And this evening we had a little walk about, absolutely everything is closed (except for one ice cream parlour). Even Paxos is busier than here. 

Sunday 22nd March...

No point staying in Sivota, it's a bit of a let down this time. We know it's early in the season, but what do the locals do for entertainment around here in Springtime??

We had decided to get up early today and move on. Which we did. It was forecast to be a calm day, perfect for heading just down the coast to Parga, to anchor for the night or two. There's a massive bay for anchoring in Parga with nice blue water. This was our third visit to this bay, and we were looking forward to going ashore again. 

We arrived about 10am, dropped the hook in about 4 metres of water, and had the whole bay completely to ourselves. Everything ashore looked closed up, but the main town is in the next bay along. So, coffee on, feet up, chilling, happy. 

Anchored in Parga.... lovely

The tiny harbour

The main town is the other side of the headland

Our nice day got turned upside down, when around midday the un-forecasted wind got up and the swell started rolling in. Our motto is 'if you are thinking we might need to move, then we SHOULD'. So we did. Dean raised the anchor and we headed southwards looking for an alternative anchorage nearby. It was such a shame because there are a choice of another two bays here, which we were looking forward to seeing, but all open to the swell that had started up. 

We motored into the wind for a hour or so, but with our alternatives running out, we decided that we should just head down to Preveza. Dean put the sails up, motor off, and with the wind at about 60 degrees heading, we were sailing at around 8 knots! That's almost as fast as we've ever sailed. The journey was around 25 miles to Preveza and the wind stayed with us for about 20 of those miles, leaving us just a short way to motor into Preveza anchorage. There was only us and one other boat out there today, and tonight we are in the same anchorage. 

Now, a happy sailor man

Here's a few sail photos from this afternoon...

The three orange dots are the guide to our reefing points.

No reefing required today.

Looking up the main sail

And so, we are now in Preveza anchorage. All is well, apart from the same old grumpy fishermen who had a serious wobble at us for anchoring next to one of their fishing pots. Well, we didn't have much choice where to anchor, because the whole anchorage is now covered with fishing pots. In the end we had to move, but only about 10 metres away. They keep saying to go closer to shore, but it's only about 2.5 metres deep there. We are actually anchored in about 5 metres now. And after all, and I said it last week... This is an OFFICIAL ANCHORAGE.

Monday 23rd March...

It turned into an eventful day today. We'd decided to carry on our trip and go down to Lefkada, which meant going through the Lefkas canal, with the road bridge that opens to let boats through. But first, before we raised the anchor in Preveza, Dean decided to grease the bearings on the engine extractor fan, because it had been squealing now and again. It didn't take very long, so a quick fix (for a change).

Looking inside the extractor fan

The Lefkas canal has been closed recently for a few weeks for some emergency repairs. But a few days ago it re-opened again. It's a good job because it's a VERY long way to go all the way around the outside of Lefkada island to get to the southern Ionion islands. Current 'winter' opening times for the bridge are every two hours starting at 8am and finishing at 8pm. 

Our plan was to get the 12 noon bridge opening, so we set off at 10.30am which gave us about 10 minutes to spare. As we motored out of Preveza channel it became obvious that we were not the only ones with the same idea. In fact we were following seven boats in a row. And all but one heading towards the Lefkas canal for the 12 noon bridge opening. 

Following seven boats out of Preveza

A tour boat coming into Preveza

Heading towards the canal with neighbours

So here we all are arriving at the canal entrance

It's a little tricky as we all start to line up

near the bridge

Heading in now

Very shallow so have to be careful

And so, there we all were waiting for the bridge to open. It's always a few minutes late, but by 12.08pm the bridge still had not opened. Then someone on another boat told us that there was a problem and the bridge would not open until the next scheduled time at 2pm instead. Some boats turned around and went back outside to anchor and wait, but we decided to moor up against the fishing boats quay and wait. It was very sheltered there, and apart from the delay we were quite happy.

2pm came, and went. Still waiting, and waiting. Dean called up the bridge on VHF12 to be told it 'may be' open at 4pm!! Yikes, what to do now. 

Dean checking how long we've been waiting 

Then unexpectedly at 2.20pm the news filtered through that it would open at 2.30pm. By this time there was about 12 boats waiting. We got ready, but didn't cast off the lines until we actually saw the bridge lifting and turning. Then our fleet of boats all filtered through following each other. It took quite a while, and the road traffic was building up as they waited for us all to go through. 

Bridge open at last

The channel

Works going on

Traffic lining up all down the road 

We were soon in Lefkas town looking for a mooring spot. It's very difficult because it's completely full of charter boats. So you have to hedge your bets about getting a place. It took us a while but finally got a berth at the end of one of the pontoons. Phew, relieved and happy now.