Kalamata to Elafonisos

The wonderful Onan generator now purrs like a kitten again. A new high pressure fuel pump would have been US$2K so I had braced myself for a big bill and it turned out much less than that. Plus the work was done over 3 days which I found amazing. I watched all the work and would give it a go myself next time (minus cleaning the injectors and rebuilding the fuel pump).

We stayed 6 days in Kalamata marina. A high of 41 for most of the week but Thursday the high was 43. I was on a mission to get more oil filters for my Onan and I was biking around Kalamata to get them. First the chandlery (no luck) and then an auto-parts store (they ordered them) so back the next day.

43 degrees Celsius is a bit warm so on my way up north to the auto parts store (a few km away) I stopped and bought a litre of an orange drink to keep myself hydrated. I ended up biking 8km in total. There was a bit of wind and of course you get nice air flow from your bike. I felt fine. On the way back I noticed that my mouth was dry and I was feeling a little tired. I was getting dehydrated! I was going to get freaking heatstroke! This is not possible!

I made it back to the boat, drank tons of water and relaxed for the rest of the day. The next day was only 41 but I rented a scooter to get around anyway. There are tons of scooters on the road in Greece. Greece has lots of one way streets, and usually one of the streets has a ‘right of way’ and the other has stop signs at every intersection. If you are driving, biking or on a scooter you had best be careful at any intersection just in case someone has forgotten to stop. I really like driving/biking in Greece as the rules seem a bit more lax and it makes it more interesting.

There are a lot of wildfires in Greece right now. There was a big fire about 10km south of Kalamata and one night we had a dark ring of smog across the entire horizon and the setting sun was almost blocked. We even had ash on our deck.

The deck of Spruzzo has had red sand from Africa (winter storms in Sicily) soot from a Volcano (Etna) and now ash from a forest fire.

Leaving Kalamata we went around the tip of the big bay to avoid waves from the east (makes sleeping a bit miserable) and ended up in a small bay called Taxiarches Bay. We had motored the entire way, got there about 7:30pm and we were both tired. It was a small bay but there were young Italians camping on one of the beaches. We had just set anchor and this guy came swimming up to the boat. There is a big turtle here! It was neat to see. I snorkelled the next morning to check on the anchor and I couldn’t believe how many huge schools of small fish there were! This was definitely a nursery and the next morning I saw a fishing boat at the mouth of the bay where the larger fish hang out.

The bay was beautiful but the bottom was a thin layer of sand over rock…..and we didn’t have internet (very rare so far) so I wasn’t happy not having a great hold and not seeing the weather so I suggested we move on….to Elafonisos island.

All of the Greek islands are beautiful. Too many wasps or mosquitos or a rocky bottom (or too many other boats especially power boats and jet skies 😉 ) are the only things I would complain about. The water is crystal clear blue and not cold at all. When people say some place is the ‘best’ I think they are thinking of big wide sandy beaches with a slow drop off. This is exactly what this place is like. We anchored on the less popular side (there is a much bigger beach just around the corner) but I expect it is crowded with boats because it is better protected from the swells from the east which are expected. I’m sure we will stay here a few days.