Greek Island Sailing

Saturday 4th July

We are on our way to Bari today to catch the overnight ferry to Greece.... We have been told we can only take our day pack onto the boats and that our main lugguage will remain locked within the bus on shore so to make sure our valuables are with us....

eeep! I only have a TINY day pack so end up having to take a massive plastic bag as well.. sigh!! We leave Rome around 9,45am and the bus trip is for the whole day - everyone is sick of the bus by now!! Today we got the 10 new passengers to get up and on the mike to instroduce themselves, most of them are Australian as is about 75% of the group. We arrive in Bari early about 4.30pm and our tour guide tries to get us on the superfast ferry but no joy and we find out that our ferry is now running late by about 2 hours... it is on "greek time" apparently ;)

So we head to the beach for a couple of hours and come back to find the boat is still delayed, this time we decide to hang around and head to the port buildings for some dinner which was some surprisingly good pasta!!

Finally we get on the ship around 10.30pm and we are now on Greek time so we move our clocks forward an hour. We get allocated rooms - four to a room this time and I get the first shower... Shower is a good word as there is no curtain and itćs in a tiny room with a toilet and basin and is handheld!! I end up dropping it and the water goes EVERYWHERE!!!

My rooming buddies are Joy (our one Canadian), Adela (Polish girl living in NZ), Jacinta (Melbourne girl) and I. We find out today who are sailing groups are - I am with Sam and Lauren (a couple from NZ), Joy, Jacinta and Jess from Bendigo!!

By the way I woke up this morning with a sore throat... and go to bed fairly early as not feeling very well as I have a headcold coming on... marvellous!

Get up the next morning and find myself with a blinding headache and full on headcold, so considering we have virtually all day on the ferry to Igoumenitsa I have a couple of pills and lie in bed for a while. When i get up at 10.30 we all find the breakfast bar has closed... but we had been given a packed brekky, K-bar, roll with jam in it, juice and something else I can´t remember. We climb up on the top deck and take photos and joke around but after awhile I get really tired and go back to bed. The ferry makes a stop before we finally get to Greece and are off the boat about 3pm. One of girls, Bec falls down the stairs getting off the boat - not good she is now limping and gets a really bad infection. WE alreadz have one of the American girls on antibiotics from an infected blister.

We head straight to Plataria to the docks to meet the sailing owner operators and we board our boat "Agrippa". We then have a safety briefing and load our gear on and then rush around madly to get supplies (we get waaaaay too much to water). The Skipper and First Mate (Sam and Lauren) get trained and luckily given how late we were getting there we actually get to leave the port. Under motor... :( we head around the corner and dock at a resort!!!!! YAY! They open their waterslides for us and we have a blast swimming and sliding at the resort. Damo (bus driver) throws me off the wharf!!!!!!!!! (this is a place called Mourtos)

Anyway as previously organised we have our Pirates night, after swimming we all get dressed up in our pirate outfits, I forgot to get my contact lenses out of the main luggage so I end up giving most of my cool pirate gear to Sam - which included a telescope, an earing and an eye patch. I had bought these in a toy shop in Florence at the camp ground. I keep the Scimitar though... RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

1001 photos later and Sam wins the dress up competition!! yeah! We have dinner and then the night club cranks up - alas my healdcold has also cranked up so I head off to bed early (midnight!) Didnt bring the sleeping bag on the boat and glad i didnt as it is SOOOOO hot!!!

Monday 6th July

Wake up about 8am and not tired considering Lauren woke me up in the early hours of the morning with a massive coughing fit... had bacon and eggs for brekky and after the Captains have a meeting at 9am we set off from the resort... We anchor in a bay we motor too and jump off for a swim... then we try sailing for a bit in the afternoon with just the main sheet up. We are going pretty slow so one person has hopped on their lilo and is holding onto a rope off the back of their boat, alas Whitney tries to do this as well on a rubber ring and forgets to hold on... chaos reins - the lead boat with owners on give them lecture over the public rt....

We have another couple of stops for swims and eventually arrive at Petreti which is on the island of Corfu. We are not going to make the main town alas due to the lack of time now.

Anyway I go ashore and have a cold shower, headcold in full swing now... we have a greek dinner followed by greek dancing with tables and fire and all sorts!!!! All great fun!! I get to bed around midnight yet again and fall asleep on the boat with the music blaring so loud from the Taverna the others are still dancing at making the walls of the boat vibrate!!

Tuesday 7th July

We are seeing heaps of cruise ships going by as we are travelling around. Again after we leave our harbour we stop for a quick 10 minute swim to cool off, and at 12 we arrive at Iggy Creek where you can go ashore and lay on loungers in the sun or under big umbrellas or do one of the water sports such as parasailing, the banana boat or waterskiing and other such things.... I am planning to avoid swimming today as my headcold is reallý really not great.... I lie on the boat and doze in and out of the sun!! We cook up pasta for lunch and leave the island about 2.30pm and we are now heading back to Plataria but we are going to race back! Hooray! At last we get to hoist the main and the gib together and sail PROPERLY!

We leave the island get our sails all ready to go, then we all have to get into position spaced out and in line with the lead boat... then we are off! Okay we have an advantage on our boat - ME!!!! lol!! We winch our sails tight and we got best position - first with the wind - YES!!!!! So we pass the lead boat and us and another boat fighting it out!!!!!! And we all get to hang out on the side of the boat - no tacking or anything required itćs just a straight sail to the port and we WIN! By miles!!!! YES!

We then have a minor minidrama.... we pack up the gib and Sam starts cleaning the front the deck with seawater - alas the head of the broom comes off in the sea so he DIVES IN AFTER IT!! Fortunately we arenćt going very fast as the wind is minimal we just do a loop and he is back on board... no one is any the wiser as we are so far in front no one can see!!!

We get to port first which we means we get the showers first and first dibs at the hot water and ićt is HEAVEN!!!! We have dinner and get our prize - skulling a shot of some liquor which tastes like how I imagine METHS would taste! Cant remember the name of it but it is clear and is the left over liquor after the wine making process apparently! I go to bed and have my worse nights sleep thanks to the streetlight shining into the boat and my coughing fit at about 4am......

And here our Greek Sailing Adventure ends.... had a great time, was expecting to be bored with nothing to do but we were busy the whole time virtually but it was a break from walking and bussing everywhere. Bought a t-shirt about it and now we are all ready to face the second half of our adventure.....

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Part of trip: Katherine's Europe & UK Tour 2009

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