If you read about the ladder incident, know that Cleopatra Marina bent the aluminum ladder back into shape, re-welded it and replaced all the steps and it now looks good as new. It was expensive but I am happy to have this custom light ladder back as you can’t buy them from Amel anymore.
We left Preveza through the long narrow marked channel that we came in on, not so scary this time as we have done it before, and turned south to another channel. Lefkada has a moving bridge that opens every hour from 6am to nighttime. I timed our arrival so we would get there just at 11am as the bridge opened. There were a bunch of boats coming at the same time, and a few ahead of me, so at 10:57 I began to slowly enter the entrance to the small harbour before the bridge. I am crawling along this very small narrow entrance and this 60′ power boat decides to go around me. The harbour is very narrow (maybe 100′ wide) and the power guy doesn’t have a keel to worry about but he was still an idiot. He gets in front of me and we begin to wait. The bridge doesn’t open at 11. There is a cross wind blowing us across the channel so I let Spruzzo point into the wind (with some help from the great bow-thuster) and I hold position with very gentle engine. Buddy in the 60′ power boat is bouncing around on his front and back bow-thrusters. We are both sitting there for 10 stressful minutes waiting for the bridge to open (note: remember you are in southern europe and try to relax about schedules). Finally there is a giant horn and we are let through the channel. We go single file (it is a narrow channel) but buddy in the power boat of course passes the guy in front of him.
We are heading to Kefalonia to meet Victoria’s daughter Danae and her friends in 2 days, so we stop in a bay in Meganisi island. The bay we pick is deep and narrow and has 6 or so boats there already all Med-moored with lines to shore, so we need to do the same (not enough room to anchor in the middle).
We set the anchor at what seems a good distance (we have done this before in Syracuse to a dock) and get uncomfortably close to shore (turned out to be 30m away but it is hard to judge distance) and when the boat is set I take a long line and start swimming it to shore. When I get maybe 5m from shore I run out of line. And the boat is moving a bit. I can’t pull the boat. So back to the boat I go and Victoria says give me a line I’ll take the kayak and attach it. I give V a longer line (we just purchased some 50m lines just for this purpose) and after a few attempts gets one around a rock and back to the boat and we are secure. At the end we were about 20m from shore but to me it looked scary close.
I’m not sure if I pulled the shore lines too tight (we set 2 of them around rocks) but with a bit of wind we hardly moved at all. I was concerned about the sharp rocks chafing the line but it didn’t happen…..probably why people attach to trees on shore if they can.
We left Meganisi the next morning and mostly motored to Kefalonia where we are now. We are anchored in Fiskardo Bay, which is apparently the place to be in Kefalonia and it is very beautiful and picturesque. There looks to be a 60+m ketch rigged sailboat anchored further out in the bay. It is huge! (I just looked it up with MarineTraffic: Sailboat flagged in the Marshall Islands (didn’t recognize the flag) and it is 68.36m long with a beam of 12.54m. It is a monster. It didn’t give me the boat name for some reason I think it usually does so maybe it is someone famous. If I find out I’ll report.
Adventures on Spruzzo 