Friday 7 July 2017 – Ormos Parga (mainland)

Up fairly early as we wanted to catch the bridge opening at 8am.  So we had a quick cup of coffee and slipped he mooring.  I was a bit worried that a large catamaran had anchored in the canal over our anchor, but it turned out that our anchor was nowhere near them.  So we were a bit early, but not too much.  The big motor yacht next to us also left to make the same bridge opening.

After getting through the bridge there appeared to be enough wind to sail!  It wasn’t even on the nose.  So we put up the sails and sailed for about two hours.  Of course the wind died on us.  As we had a 30 mile journey we had to put the engine on.  For a while we motor sailed, but then the wind died completely, so it was just motoring again.  Of course as we got with 3-4 miles of our destination the wind picked up to a force 4 and was on the nose.  So no change there.

This anchorage at Parga is not the wild experience we had hoped for.  It is a big bay completely lined with hotels and beaches of lines of sun beds and umbrellas.  There are a couple of speed boats taking people paragliding and towing them fast on over inflated tyre type inflatables.  There are also a lot of boats here.  Richard first looked in a small harbour in the corner of the bay.  There was a wall completely filled by what seemed to be local boats.  Near the shore there were 6-8 charter boats which were clearly in flotillas and waiting for more boats to come (which they did).  So we went out into the bay to anchor.

The problem is that there is the top of a force 4 wind now.  So it is a bit difficult to anchor.  We position ourselves well, but we are not sure our anchor is dug in.  We all go for a swim as it is very hot now despite the wind.  The water is quite cool at only just over 21C, but it is nice, if difficult to swim against the wind.  Richard swam out to check on the anchor, which he says is not dug in.  But we are holding well, so we stay where we are.

Regrettably the anchorage is rather rolly. The wind is blowing at 12-15 knots.   Further it is not helped by the fact that day boats taking people around the corner to the next bay keep going past us at great speed rocking us around even more.  In the end I decide to take a sea sick pill, and feel rather better for that.

We have dinner on the boat.  As we have our pre-prandial drink there is a lot of music and noise on the shore.  We were prepared to be rather sniffy about it until they came by on boats and it is clear that it is a wedding party.


The wedding celebrations are still going on at 10:30.  There was just a bit fireworks display.  We think out in the bay we got a better view of it than the wedding party.  The music is still going on, but I expect we will flake out.  The wind has now died down and it is quite pleasant.

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