It's all Greek to me!

Bari to Igounomitsa

We actually had the opportunity to sleep in today!! Not that many of us took it, we are all so used to getting up early that we still got up at 7 when we could have slept in until 9 or 9.30am. It would have been a bit hard considering the noise from all the traffic and tourists, but still possible. Nonetheless, we were ready to go an hour early, so sat around waiting until 11am for departure.

It was a pretty typical drive day, music, movies and chatting amongst ourselves, and we arrived at Bari at about 5pm. We boarded and got set up in our sleeper cabins (3 to a room, pretty sweet) which were good considering it was a vehicle transport ferry and most of the passengers are dirty truckers. The room had a great ensuite, so I was happy.

We watched the sun set over industrial Bari, and made our way inside for a cuppa. It was Tammy's birthday, so we had cake and sung to her, and the whole crew and some passengers joined in too. After chatting with people for a while, I took advantage of the opportunity to get an early night. It was really comfortable and quiet on the boat, but we had a rude awakening of a loudspeaker announcement (that wasn't even for us) at 7am.

Sailing!! YAY!!! Day One

We arrved at our destination port of Igounomitsa at about 11am, and it was a quick 20 minute drive to Plateria where our sailboats and captain awaited us. Adam was a professional sailor, and most people disliked him immediately since he was arrogant and a really bad teacher. 7 of us were nominated as captains, and we had 1st mates to help us figure out the boats' rigging, sails etc. I like driving, so I thought it would be just as fun driving a boat for 3 days, why not?

There were 8 boats in total, and ours was named Ermione. I had a team of 4 others, and we even made a flag for our boat - we were Team Hydra Extreme (named after the 7 headed Greek seamonster). This sailboat was to be our mode of transport, bedroom and major challenge for the next 3 days, so we were pretty excited.

The briefing that Adam gave us was about 10 mins long. His main instruction was 'just follow what I do'. So he showed us once how to raise the two sails and operate the few controls, and the details we had to figure out on our own.

And so the frustration begun. We left Igounomitsa to sail to the south east side of the Island of Korfu. The first day of sailing was pretty much working out how all the lines of rope worked, what you have to pull, when, and how. There was no-one telling us what to do, it was trial and error, but between us we figured it out. A couple of people were pretty annoyed by the end of the day at the lack of support, but I was proud that we had been able to do it on our own.

We didn't get an opportunity to swim in the sea that day because it was a really long sail with not much wind. So we had a quick swim at the beach when we got to our first port. Dinner was Pork Souvlaki (a bit like shish kebab with all sorts of yummy spices) and after that we were shown how to Zorba, the traditional greek dance in a circle. We even took turns holding up tables with our teeth, so all in all it was a great night. No plate smashing, but you can't have everything! We danced the night away at the port while Albanian fishermen looked on, and slept on the boat for the first time, which I found pretty comfortable.

Day Two

After a 9.30am 'captains meeting', we got ready to sail to Benitses, which is to the north west. On the way we got the chance to stop in the middle of the ocean and swim. It was fantastic! The ocean was crystal clear azure blue, and all you can see when you look down is your legs and rays of light dancing in the deep blue. It was almost hypnotic. We had such a good time, alot of people brough lilos and water toys as well as the fun of swimming and floating in such refreshing water. And the thrill of not being able to see the bottom was pretty good too!

After sailing a bit more proficiently we arrived in Benitses, and had cold showers on the beach. My crew and I cooked dinner on the boat, and then we headed to a local bar for drinks. The bar had a pole, so a few of us took turns twirling around it for a while. It happened to be the waitresses birthday, so she was free-pouring spirits like there was no tomorrow, and cocktails were only 3 euro. These were made of 50 percent alcohol and the rest ice and mixer. It only took 4 to completely annhilate me, and a bunch of us stayed up until about 4.30am talking about nothing much in particular. There were also massage circles and singalongs, it was pretty relaxed.

Day Three

The captains meeting was at 8.30am, and Adam was about as tired as we were so it was a pretty brief meeting. To me, the third day was the best, because we actually had wind. The stretch of water we were sailing is quite unpredictable, but we were lucky and had some wind to fill our sails. Unfortuantely, one of our crew (and all his alcohol) had been captured by the leader boat, and two others were sick with stomach flu or sea sickness (as wind also means choppy seas), so between two of us we sailed the boat most of the way back to Plateria.

It was really quite rough when we got back to port, so we were really thankful to get back to dry land. I was absolutely shattered from lack of sleep and very busy day of sailing. So pretty much straight after dinner I hit the hay, it was a cold night so I still didn't sleep very well.

But that didn't matter, because the next day we were travelling to...

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