Monday 19 June 2017 – Korfos (Peloponnese)
Well we have finally left Athens. But it has been an interesting day, not necessarily in the
good sense, but rather in the Chinese curse sense.
We woke up nice and early and the sun was shining and all
seemed well. We were going to try
to get away early, but having to go and pay first put us a bit behind. But it worked well and we were only 20
minutes later than we planned.
We didn’t put any sails up to start with. We wanted to get past the main harbour
in Piraeus. So as we were dodging loads
of commercial shipping the wind, forecast at 6-8 knots suddenly started to blow
17 knots. We still decided to wait
until we were out of the traffic to put up the sails when the autopilot started
beeping. We couldn’t work out what
it was, but on going below it became clear that the GPS had lost its fix. Richard tired to re-boot it by turning
it off and on again, but no luck.
It looked like the GPS had just given up the ghost despite working
perfectly only minutes before. In
the mean time the wind had got up to 22 knots! Luckily the wind was on the beam, so it was not so much of a
problem.
The real question was what to do. Should we turn back and get repairs done in Athens or press
ahead and hope to find another place for repairs in a day or two. Richard was all for pressing on. He said that the navigation we were
doing was line of sight in any event.
Also we have charts on both the plotter and the iPad. I also pointed out that we do have a
hand held GPS. Richard looked up
facilities in the pilot book and found that we should be able to get repairs
done in Corinth. So we pressed on,
We did however find that our hand held GPS was useless. We left batteries in it and they
leaked. So we need to buy a new
one of those too.
So for about 40 minutes we were facing old fashioned
navigation when suddenly the GPS started to work again! We have no idea what the problem was
and whether we should be looking to replace the unit anyway. I may try to email our electronics man
in Chichester to see what he recommends.
By the time we are back to normal the wind has dropped a lot
and is down to a force 3. We motor
sail with the Genoa up for most of the way, but it isn’t really sailing.
So we head to Korfos.
Richard has read up about it.
It is a small town on a bay where lots of charter boats go. There are free pontoons from a couple of
Tavernas which are supposed to have pick up lines. Alternatively it is an anchorage.
We arrive just after 1pm and get very confused about where
to go. We get directed to a
pontoon that looks a bit ropey, but also looks like it has lazy lines as the pilot
book suggests. But no, no more
lines and we have to put the anchor out.
In the end we are probably on the worst pontoon. I have almost 50 meters of chain out,
and heaven knows where it has all gone.
The restaurant next door chides us for not using their pontoon, which
looks a lot better maintained. Hey
Ho that’s how it goes.
The place is very pretty. A walk around takes us to a new beach hotel and café that
has very smart new loungers and umbrellas. If we can’t find anything else to do tomorrow we could just
spend the day on this beach. We
really want to go to Epidavros, which is supposed to be just down the coast and
have a fabulous ancient theatre.
However, we can find no car hire here in this little town and there is
certainly no public transport. The
owner of the pontoon and taverna says he will make enquiries about a taxi, but
I expect that will be a non-starter.
Dinner at the taverna is a mixed bag. The service is terrible. It takes half an hour to take our order
and then my main course comes 20 minutes after Richard’s. But the food itself isn’t badly
prepared, if a bit boring.
We are now back on the boat. For some reason it is bouncing around like crazy. We seem to bounce more than any other
boat. I have taken a pill!
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