In which we have some issues…. And a dearth of photos documenting them.
Overarching all our other concerns about returning to Greece from Denver was that we were worried about our Schengen status – I had only 8 days left, and Peter had 15. We’d prepared everything we could for our Greek “Digital Nomad” visa while we were back in Denver and were in touch with an agent in Preveza who was to help us put together the rest and submit it. “Put together the rest” consisted of trips to the bank, the police, and the post office with one of her staff, and sure enough, once it was in she got us a copy of our temporary visa papers and told us that in order to activate them and stop the Schengen clock, we had to sign out of Greece and back in again from a non-Schengen country. Fortunately, Albania had several border crossings just a few hours from Preveza. With her warning to NOT let the Greek border police stamp our passports but rather our temporary visa paperwork on our way back in ringing in our ears, we hired a car and headed north. We parked at the border, checked out of Greece, and walked to Albania where we checked in – and they refused to stamp our passports. Wha? OK, so we continued back into Greece, where they absolutely insisted on stamping our passports, not our visa paperwork. The captain of the Greek border police even told us our agent didn’t know anything if that’s what she’d said. So that was encouraging.
We drove back to Preveza and our agent and her staff told us that if that border crossing refused then we either had to go to a different one and try again or get a flight to some other non-Schengen country in the area and on our return to Greece, have them only stamp our visa paperwork. So north again, this time to a more inland crossing to Albania. The exact same thing played out again, right down to the new captain of the border police telling us our agent didn’t know what she was talking about. He even refused to speak to her when I called her. FFS. He assured us that even with our passports stamped into Greece, it was not going to start the Schengen clock again simply because we had our temporary visas with the date they were issued. OK. We believed him. Which is good because we still haven’t received our permanent visa cards, even though our agent told us we should have them within “a few weeks.” The last time we called her to ask where they were she assured us that in fact she was still waiting for cards for applications from last April. So, you know, not a few weeks.
From Preveza we returned to Nidri, where we met up with friends Judith and Phil (from Porto Montenegro on SV Molly Moo), and our Welsh rigger, Jade and his assistant, Adam for dinner. Jade had already warned us that he hadn’t been able to re-rig The Fish since – oops! – he hadn’t confirmed that the parts had been sent from Montenegro yet, and we’d had a chance to stop cursing him to the skies and settle down a bit. We did let him know we were very disappointed, and he had the grace to say he would be too if he were in our position. It was a very fun dinner, with too many gin and tonics and lots of laughs. The next day we got to put Flying Fish back in the water – we were home! – and then headed out on Molly Moo for a sea trial of their newly tweaked rigging with Jade and Adam. It was a beautifully windy day, steady and strong enough for Molly Moo to really sing. Judith and I sat up front with our backs against the salon windows and caught up some more, had an Aperol Spritz, and watched the boys all looking happy. It was completely relaxing and made me think that being back on the boat wouldn’t be so bad.
After a few days of waiting out weather, which we spent provisioning, me getting a haircut, Peter having his knee neuropathy checked out, and having our mechanic Tassos install the stabilization “wings” on the dinghy motor, we said goodbye to Judith and Phil and headed for Meganisi. Our destination wasn’t more than an hour or two from Nidri, so with another steady, strong wind we hoisted sails and spent the afternoon tacking back and forth across the large bay north of Meganisi. Gorgeous, and so much fun to be sailing rather than motoring. With light hearts we headed into Porto Atheni and found the town quay and little harbor very crowded. We decided to head up the shore just a little way and go stern-to with the anchor and lines ashore. We’d gotten proficient with this technique over the summer, and I was merrily headed to the spot we’d picked out. Hadn’t gone far when we heard the worst possible sound you could ever hear on a boat: the crunch of the hulls slamming in rocks. By throwing the engines hard in reverse I got us off the rocks relatively quickly, all the while moaning, “Fuck me fuck me fuck me” and imagining water pouring into gaping holes in the hulls. Peter had a few “fuck me” moments too, but calmly asked how I hadn’t seen the shallow area on the charts. That would be because I hadn’t been looking at the charts. Ooops. So much for light hearts and merrily on our way.
We got ourselves secured for the night and Peter got in with snorkel gear to inspect the damage. I was still shaking, still waiting for the bilge pumps to start rumbling, fully expecting him to come up with a report of gaping holes. He came up and explained that there’s a reason cats are fitted with “sacrificial keels.” Much worse accidents would cause them to simply… come off, saving the hulls from damage (assuming the only thing that hit the rocks was the keel). Fortunately, my blunder had caused relatively minor damage to both keels: a smallish chunk out of one, and a 5-6” gash in the other. Big rock. But no gaping holes. We were not going to sink. Not this week at least.
After a couple of nights there waiting for the weather to calm a bit, we decided to go around the bottom of Meganisi and try for an anchorage in one of the very highly reviewed spots along the cliffs on the lower west side of the island. Within an hour we had sails up in 10-15 knot winds and had about 10 minutes where we thought it was going to stay that way. As we approached the southern tip of the island however, we started getting gusts of 20-25 knots and higher, and we quickly reefed. Gusts and heavier winds around capes is a common occurrence, but rounding the Meganisi cape, we realized it was even windier on the western side, and we got the sails down completely. Of course, the well-reviewed anchorages were already full, and so we continued to the southern coast of Lefkada, to a large, if meh, anchorage with good holding.
The next morning, with strong southerlies forecast, we crossed to a large, beautiful bay on Ithaca’s north coast. It was boat sparse along the beach at the innermost end of the bay, and after quite a few tries in several places we finally got the anchor to hold and went off snorkeling. Along the way Peter confirmed that the anchor was dug in, and we went to sleep feeling ok about it, despite the rising southerly winds swooshing down the mountains that ringed the bay. So much for southerly protection. And sure enough, we woke up about 7:30 to the anchor alarm going off. This is a frequent occurrence, since Peter always sets it with a tight circumference, and we didn’t react immediately. When it went off right away again, Peter looked at the anchor map and realized we were WAYYYY out of the circle – by the time I got to the helm we were in 80 feet of water and drifting toward the head of the bay. Peter started to winch up the anchor, but as it got closer to the boat the windlass was working harder and harder to bring it up. Looking through the mesh of the trampoline he realized the anchor had hooked a disused fishing net. Engines off, Peter into the water with a very sharp serrated knife. It took ages. I know because I was watching our drifting path feeling completely helpless and very scared. He finally sawed through the mess on the anchor, and once he was back on the boat, I fired up again and we continued our path out of the bay.
We were both shaken. We’d thought we’d been well anchored, but clearly had not. Between this horror show and the one in Port Atheni, my confidence was shattered, and as far as I was concerned this was not fun anymore. So we did the best thing we could have done: headed to Vasiliki, a large bay on the southwest coast of Lefkada, dug in our anchor in the gorgeous sandy bottom, and spent five days SUPping, swimming, eating out, and thoroughly enjoying the unshakeable hold, perfect weather and the entertainment of multitudes of kite and wind surfers who swarmed the bay every afternoon.
I could have stayed in Vasiliki for weeks, except that we were expecting Bailey and Michael to meet us in Argostoli (Kefalonia) in a few more days. Eventually we HAD to leave. But we didn’t go directly to Kefalonia, mainly because on our way south we found a stunning little inlet on the east coast of Ithaca with clear turquoise water and room for one – and we were it. We ended up spending two nights there, swimming, SUPping, and sleeping under the brilliant stars of the Milky Way.
Finally, though, we could delay no longer. Argostoli was at least 9-10 hours away, and we didn’t want to have to do it all in one day. We got as far as a pretty little anchorage on the southern coast of Kefalonia and made Argostoli the afternoon of the next day. It was the 16th of September, and the first two weeks back on the boat had been at times either harrowing or thoroughly enjoyable. How would the last two go?