A canal, green water & an Irishman
After leaving Petritis, Corfu we motored, yes there’s still no wind, towards the next island Paxos. Reading in the guide Navily, one of the first bays on the northern end of the island looked like the place to be. “Do not miss this bay”, was the basic comment in the reviews from Navily so we heeded their advice and headed towards Lakka Bay.
Now we don’t consider ourselves slow learners, but perhaps in the subject of Greek anchorages we are. “Do not miss this bay” is really code for crowded and hard to find a spot! But where there is a will there’s a way and we cornered ourselves a bit of stunningly clear and turquoise coloured water on the outskirts of the bay to call our own for the day.
The weather is getting warmer, and the sea temperatures are slowly getting warmer but it’s still not warm enough to loll about in the water for too long, but it was not an option to not swim in that gorgeous water. Later in the afternoon we jumped in the tender and went to find the town and we realised how big the bay was and that we really were on the outskirts. We ended up walking up and up the island roads and got a great view of the bay before heading back to the water’s edge and having a refreshing ale before getting on the boat to then watch 3 rather large power boats edge in and try and get their patch of turquoise water too.
As we headed away the next morning, motoring again we had our sights set on Prevesa on the mainland. It was an uneventful motor and as we followed the channel into Prevesa we could see the storm clouds building over the hills and could see a thunderstorm brewing. Prevesa is set on the edge of a large inland waterway, and we had decided to make Vonista our stop for the night. There was an old Venetian castle or fort ruin that we climbed the hill and walked around the next morning after our bakery breakfast. We had stopped on some stairs to sit and have our breakfast which we ended up sharing with some stray cats. Stray cats are everywhere in Greece, and you can often hear them fighting at night.
After we left Prevesa we started towards the island Lefkada or Lefkas. To get through between the eastern side of the island and the mainland there is a manmade channel that requires some care and thought. The channel has a traffic bridge crossing it and this bridge opens on the hour every hour to allow boat traffic from both sides of the channel. There are lots of instructions in the guidebooks about the process so following the instructions we anchored up on the northern side of the channel and waited for the hour to arrive. There were about 7 boats waiting on the northern side of the channel and everyone was jockeying for their position and as the hour approached the leaders took off. Now sounds straight forward but the timing is everything. Wind and wave play a huge role in what your boat is doing and a channel by description is generally narrow so it was slightly stressful, but the bridge bell sounded, the bridge opened, and the boats started heading through the channel and it was around 4 nautical miles before you reach the end and can branch out to open water. We anchored up for the night and the next night as well just south of Lefkas town. We tried out a taverna just opposite where we anchored and had a delicious meal and then the next day, we just chilled.
After another stunning morning, just glass off conditions we moved further south to a huge inland bay near Nydri called Tranquil Bay. The water colour was the complete opposite of Lakka Bay. It was green and not a nice green but a winter dirty pool colour green so not hugely inviting. The actual bay was surrounded by quite big hills on one side and was really green and vegetated. It’s surprising how green the islands in the Ionian have been, we’ve been told that is not the case once you reach the eastern side of Greece.
Tranquil Bay is home to quite a few charter companies so there was a constant stream on charter yachts coming back to their home docks.
We needed to get fuel before we took off the next morning and at the fuel dock we were helped by an Irish guy. As you do, we got chatting and he then asked, “You’re not heading to Meganisi Island, are you?” Turns out Michael is a skipper on a 25m private boat and works for a UK family. He was just heading back to work and was planning on catching the ferry back to Meganisi. We were neither planning on going to Meganisi or planning on giving him a lift, but we had no solid plans so thought why not! Michael jumped aboard and for the 45 min trip to Meganisi he told us about working as a skipper on the boat, managing the crew, guests etc and all the while I’m thinking of all the “Below Deck” shows I’ve watched but Michael assured me that that isn’t what the boat he worked on was like! We ended up anchoring in a very picturesque bay and had a lovely day and evening in the still waters watching the comings and goings.
