Advertisement
Published: August 5th 2023
June 19 – Monday – Left the marina in Zakynthos at 5:40 as had to wait for the 5:30 AM ferry to leave the harbor. Started off with no wind, but put up our mainsail anyway hoping that later in the day the wind would show up. Fortunately, it did and we had a nice sail for a while today. We are definitely getting into an area of Greece that is full of charters. The bays are full of charter boats at anchor and the areas between the numerous islands were full of sailboats. We were concerned that we might have a hard time finding space in the anchorage we were aiming for, but fortunately just as we arrived, a sailboat left so took its spot. By the end of the evening there are only about 5 boats staying overnight. A nice quiet anchorage at Ormos Rouda Bay on the island of Levkos.
June 20 – Tuesday – Ormos Rouda anchorage to Preveza - Another calm day so even though we put up the main, we didn’t get much help from it – guess it was hopeful so glad we have a good motor and plenty of diesel to motor
to the marina in Preveza. We could have anchored outside the marina, but we decided to bite the bullet and pay the high price of 70 euro ($77) per night as we wanted to get a Hollywood shower again and water to do a complete wash of the boat as haven’t been able to do that for some time. The women in the office were very pleasant and helpful and they had a book exchange. We always appreciate these as we usually can find a few new books to read as well as leave behind those that we have already read. One thing this has done has introduced us to different authors that we may not have read or heard about. Yes, we both do read on our electronic devices, but we find that when on duty during the day, it sometimes is easier to read a paper book as we can easily set it aside and not worry about finding a safer place for an electronic device to be set down.
June 21 – Wednesday – Today is the day to take care of our official paperwork that is needed for checking out of the country of Greece.
Anchored in Ormos Rouda Bay on Levkos Island
we were in front of this house and not the beachWe divided and conquered on part of this as we had a problem yesterday with getting the water on the dock to work so had to go to the office to figure out the problem so we could wash the boat. Most places give you a key or a card with a code on it, but here you have to download an app, set up an account and then put a minimum of 10 euro on it to get either electricity or water to work. We set up the account without a problem, but then when we provided the credit card to pay the 10 euro (and now there was an additional .72 added as a service charge) it said there was a problem. We tried it a couple of times and knowing that we have had problems occasionally with using a US based credit card, we went to the office. Fortunately, they said we could pay them the 10 euro (and we didn’t get the extra service charge on) and they could “magically” get the water functioning for us. As that happened late last night Bob wanted to get the boat washed this morning. That was a perfect time
Ormos Rouda Bay Provides Lots of Protection
and a great view in the evening out of the bay for me to head over to the Coast Guard office to do part of the paperwork – this was to get stamped in and stamped out of this port. They could stamp us out as we were leaving the marina before they opened in the morning the next day. This time we got an additional piece of paper from them saying that they approve us leaving the country of Greece.
When I got back, Bob had done an excellent job of washing the boat and we only used 4 euro of the water, but that is our misfortunate as you had to pay a minimum – oh well. Our water tanks on the boat didn’t need filling, so couldn’t use it that way either. With our new solar panels, we don’t need to plug into electricity at a marina which saves us the hassle of getting the electrical cord out. At this marina you also have to buy a card that provides entry to the laundry, toilets and showers. In this case you need to buy it for 5 euro ($5.50) and it is not a deposit as we have found in other marinas. Here they say you get
to keep it card– if you don’t come back, that is too bad, but you still need to buy it. It is just a shame that they don’t do as other marinas do of providing access with a deposit that you get back when you return the fob or key that they provide. Oh well, as Bob keeps saying, “it is only money” and an interesting souvenir from Preveza.
We then went to the Customs Office as that is where we need to go to officially check out of the country. They did not stamp our passports, but they do take copies, keep the paperwork that we have been going to the various ports to for their stamp of arrival and departures and wished us well. Very painless, but the thing to remember is that their office is only open from 8-2 Monday – Friday so if you want to leave on a weekend, you need to get here by Friday! The hours for these types of offices surprise us when people need to get to them to stay “legal”. Oh well, fortunately we didn’t have that problem and we were aware of the days they were open –
glad it worked out with our travel plans.
June 22 – Thursday – Today was a short travel day. We planned it this way to get a few hours ahead in our travels which would make our overnight passage to Italy tomorrow a few hours shorter. We left the marina in Preveza at 5:30 AM and went to a very popular anchorage, Lakka Bay on Paxon Island. We hadn’t been seeing many boats around, but the amount of charter boats keeps increasing as the season starts to kick in. We saw numerous bays with lots of sailboats anchored in and many more sailboats on the water. We wondered as a result if we’d find a spot to anchor, but fortunately as we arrived a sailboat was just leaving and it appeared to have been in a perfect spot that was not close to the beaches. We got our anchor down in very clear, turquoise water in 11 feet of water on a wonderful sandy bottom. As we arrived about 12:30pm, this gave Bob some time to get in the water to check the sacrificial zincs we have on our refrigerator system. Our refrigerator/freezer system is keel cooled, so this
is under the waterline and of course he wants to do it when the water is clear. It also is a good excuse to get in the water (if we ever need one!) We are glad we arrived when we did, as many more boats came in during the afternoon. Many of them were charters and a few seemed to definitely be “party boats”. There was even one boat that had numerous dinghies tied to the stern and was loaded with people having a good time. It brings back memories of some of our times in the Caribbean.
June 23/24 – Our overnight crossing from Greece to Italy was uneventful which is what we definitely like! We estimated that it would take 28 hours and it in actual fact turned out to be 27 hours – not a bad crossing as our first overnight passage in a long time! We left Lekka Bay anchorage at 5:30AM when you could still see the anchor lights lit on the anchored boats. Fortunately, with a number of boats in the bay it was a pretty easy exit from where we were located.
Bob never seems to sleep well just before a
passage so many times after we set the sails and know things seem to be going smoothly, he goes down to sleep while I stay on duty for a good part of the morning. This morning the sky was overcast to the point that it almost seemed like we were surrounded by fog. It seemed that I could only see clearly only a short distance. Good thing for AIS (automated identification system) and radar so can check to see if any other boats are nearby. It usually clears up quite quickly but this morning it seemed to take most of the morning. We had very calm weather so no problems and only minor tweaking of the sails to try to get some use out of them. With very little wind we had to keep the engine on but always hope to get some help from the little wind there is. Once Bob woke up, we have some breakfast and then we trade on and off with being on duty and having naps in preparation for the overnight trip. The wind started to fill in during the afternoon which we were happy about, especially with a long passage ahead. While Janice
was on duty, she did see one lone dolphin – didn’t seem to want to play at all and was on a mission somewhere. Later in the day a moth flew into the cockpit and finally settled down on our stern arch. Decided to stay there for a long time – guess it wanted to go to Italy as well. Stayed with us for a few hours but then took off. That was it for the “wildlife” on this trip.
We returned to our 4-hour duty schedule for the crossing which seems to work out well for us. Janice took the 9:30pm – 1:30am shift and Bob took over until 5:30 AM. Janice wound up lucking out as Bob had a complete shift in wind direction while he was on duty giving him more work to do. Janice only had to do minor sail adjustments as the wind direction only changed between 30 – 60 degrees making the changes quite easy.
We were aiming to land in Italy in Crotone. We have been here before so knew the marina as well as the anchorage. As we needed to check into the country, we made a reservation for
the marina for the night. We also thought after our overnight passage it would be good to be tied to a dock depending on how the weather was when we got there. We knew that the anchorage in Crotone can be quite rally and decided we didn’t want that when tired. The office at Crotone had told us that we shouldn’t get there before 10AM. We found that we were making good time so tried slowing down some. Even with that we got to the anchorage about 8:15 so put an anchor down. There were a couple other boats anchored out as well and we could see by their movement, there was quite a bit of swell making them rock back and forth quite a bit. With seeing that, we were glad we made reservations for the marina. After being in radio contact with the marina we found that we could come in about 10:15AM. Once we were tied up, found out where we could check into the country and get the paperwork we needed to be in Italy. It was a painless process as most are once, we found where the office was located and how to get into
the gate that surrounded it. We rested for a while after our official business and then took a walk along the promenade later that evening with all the other families in town. We are always surprised at how many young kids are out late at night here in Europe but understand that the schedules for everyone here is much different normally, but especially so with the heat everyone is feeling these days.
Will continue the journey in the next postings. Have great wi-fi now so taking advantage to get this posted as know I am so far behind.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.2s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.1642s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Anne and Chris/Mr Mac
non-member comment
Lovely!
As always, I'm enjoying your terrific pics and tales of your continuing journey!