Fraser talked about our time in Paxos, where we stayed in the turquoise waters of Lakka Bay for a couple of blissful days, but we left on Sunday morning and headed north towards the island of Corfu, where we’ll be meeting our son Patrick and his girlfriend, Chloe, next week.
Corfu was so named by the Byzantines from the word Koryphai which means peaks. There are two tall peaks in Corfu town where the Venetians built a fortress above Mandraki Harbour. The Greek name, Kerkyra, comes from the mythical water nymph, Korkyra, who was so beautiful that Poseidon, god of the sea, fell in love with her and abducted her to a beautiful, fertile island in the north Ionian Sea that had as yet no name, and then named it in her honour. The island is shaped like a sickle, or some would say a scorpion, and it has more rainfall than most of Greece, so it is greener and more fertile than many other islands.
There’s quite a bit of swell between the islands of Paxos and Corfu, as there’s nothing between you and the Italian coast for that stretch, but once past the tail of the island, we reached calmer waters and everything stopped falling over. We headed for Petriti Bay, where we’d stayed overnight before, in October 2022 in a charter boat. The water here is clear and warm as the bay is quite shallow and mostly sandy. A few other boats followed us in, and soon we were part of a small flotilla, each bobbing above our own shadow on the seabed. It was the hottest day yet, so we were both eager to swim, and the water was lovely. Fraser filmed me getting in, hoping for screams, or at least gasps, but I wasn’t very rewarding.
We checked the anchor (which was fine, well buried in sand), then swam through shoals of bright fish, scales flashing in the sunlight, over to the beach. There’s a wrecked boat hull there, covered in graffiti, and it always makes me sad to sea a boat beached and abandoned, out of her natural element like that. It also makes both of us even more aware of the importance of good anchoring practice!
That night, we rowed ashore rather than using the engine because it was so calm and windless, and we liked the idea of beaching the dinghy rather than tying up to a jetty (easier to do if you’re not worried about damaging your outboard propellor in the shallows). We went to a restaurant we’d used last time we were here in 2022, and had happy memories of good food and friendly people. That time, the restaurant being so close to the water’s edge, our meal had been interrupted when a series of huge waves from the wake of a fishing boat or ferry sloshed up and soaked us and my meal. This time, we were lucky and apart from wet feet from wading ashore from the dinghy, we remained mostly dry.
I’d built up an appetite by rowing what seemed like miles, but was probably only a few hundred metres, but as this was the beginning of the season, there was limited fare available. We ordered a few items that sounded like hardly anything as we said them, but turned out to be enough to feed an army: taramasalata, Greek salad, deep fried cheese, fresh bread and a Dorado each (very pretty fish — I felt a little guilty about that). We made good inroads into the food, washed down by a half litre of the local wine, then paid our bill.
As usual, the Greek cats appeared, ears twitching and eyes open for any scraps, and we were watched throughout our meal by a pair of swallows who’d built their nest directly above our heads.
My tummy was too full to row, so I told Fraser it was his turn, and we zig-zagged our crazy (and wine-fuelled) way back to the boat as I criticised his technique and he mumbled stuff under his breath that I couldn’t quite hear.
There was no wind that night, and we both slept like babies on the calm sea, waking well into the morning. We had only planned to stay one night in Petriti, but it was so idyllic we decided to stay a second night, not least because the restaurant promised us calamari for the next day’s dinner (fried squid). We whiled away the day by alternately swimming and writing our blogs, as well as planning what we’d order for dinner.
After a day of swimming and lazing around in the sun whilst reading on Facebook about wind and torrential rain back home in Northern Ireland, we motored ashore for dinner in the restaurant next door, which has its own jetty. This restaurant has been in the same family for many years, and the son of the owner was very informative, telling us about the history of the area and answering all our questions about local fishing customs.
We’d noticed that when the fishing fleet went out each evening, each big boat towed a small one behind it with a single crew member on the towed boat. Our host explained that they set huge floating lights on the surface of the sea, then leave the small boat holding one end of the nets while the big boat drives in a circle, dragging the net out to loop around all the fish that are attracted towards the surface by the lights. After this, they close the loop and bring the nets in with their catch.
We upped anchor on Tuesday 16th April and set off northwards towards Gouvia Marina where we planned to spend a week with Patrick and Chloe. As we were in no rush (their flight didn’t land until late evening), we took the opportunity to sail and then motor close inland, looking at the sights. We carefully made our way in as close as we dared to Pontikonisi (Mouse Island), which has a tiny monastery and white chapel on it, and were overflown by an EasyJet plane landing on the runway just by the church.
We passed Mon repos, the former residence of the Greek royal family (before the monarchy was abolished in 1975, and Greece became a republic). It also happens to be the birth place of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. According to Wikipedia, the prince was born on the dining room table!
Finally, we rounded the prominent Old Fortress of Corfu Town, passed Mandraki Harbour and Corfu Commercial Harbour, then turned into the bay that shelters Gouvia Marina from the prevailing winds.
I have some bad memories of Mandraki Harbour from 2022, when we visited it in a charter boat that was far bigger than any other boat we’ve ever sailed. It also had twin rudders and a wing keel, neither of which I’d experienced before. And the harbour is tight, very tight, for big yachts (although you can’t really tell how tight until you’re inside). Suffice it to say, it wasn’t one of my most glorious moments, and went to prove that when sailing, the biggest cock-ups always happen in full view of the biggest audiences (all shouting different advice at the tops of their voices in several European languages, none of them English). Still, no one was harmed, no boats suffered even the lightest graze, and the only victim was my pride, which will probably heal. Eventually.
We made it into Gouvia Marina, escorted in by a marinero in a RIB who directed us to a berth. He originally planned to take us to the berth we’d booked, but changed his mind at the last minute and took us to an easier one (perhaps he recognised me from Mandraki Harbour?) where we managed to Med Moor faultlessly, probably because there was no one watching.
Next week, Fraser can tell you what we got up to in Gouvia with Patrick and Chloe. I’ll just leave you with this photo of us all at a local restaurant (Zorbas in Gouvia — highly recommended).
