Meganisi Magnet

These blogs have somehow gone out in the wrong order (Kerry is the one who schedules them). This all happened before the Greek Wedding episode!

When Kerry finished her previous blog at Poros it was Wednesday 2nd October. We decided to stay there for a few days and see a little more of Cephalonia. It’s very hilly at Poros so bikes were out of the question. Besides Kerry’s electric Brompton bike is broken. When I say broken I mean it is perfectly fine for pedalling but the electric bit is broken. To her that means broken. We have it booked onto our flight home so we can take it to the Brompton bike shop for fixing over winter. Unfortunately the battery is not allowed on the plane, so let’s hope that that is not the bit that is broken!

We looked into hiring a car for the day, and booked one for Friday. That left Thursday free, so Kerry did some writing (and rested her sore leg) while I went for an explore. The explore turned into a serious expedition, as I found a walk up to the Acropolis of Poros. It was actually very clearly marked with little white and blue squares occasionally painted onto rocks or trees. Otherwise I think I would have got lost or maybe walked off a cliff. It was a peaceful walk, with no other humans sighted, but sure felt a bit isolated. The only google review I had read mentioned a sighting of one of Greece’s few venomous snakes.

I eventually made it up to the acropolis but found very little there. It has not been disturbed by any archeological excavations, which actually makes it all the more interesting. I scouted around until I found some evidence of previous buildings. Just some huge stones that were clearly cut into building blocks and also some sections of old, overgrown walls.

Our hire car was delivered to our boat on Friday morning (very conveniently!). A nice little Nissan Micra automatic. She complained a bit on hills but otherwise Kerry loved her. Plus she had the same colour scheme as Barberry!

It was going to be a business/pleasure trip. I had tried very hard to renew our Greek SIM card online, but was really struggling with the Greek. Even with Kerry scanning my phone with google translate I did not seem to be getting anywhere. There was a serious risk that we would not be able to watch our habitual Disney+ in the evening (or upload our exciting blogs), so then what would we all do? For this reason we needed to urgently visit a Vodafone shop and the nearest was in the Cephalonian capital of Argostoli.

Argostoli was about an hour’s drive, but we took a bit longer as we went the coast road and really enjoyed the scenery. The town itself was busy and not very attractive, particularly the public toilets that Kerry tried to go to but decided she didn’t need badly enough. It was mission successful for the SIM card though, as we found the Vodafone shop and managed to renew it.

After this we drove to the nearby Castle of St George. I always thought St George was English, with he being their patron saint and all, but no, he’s Greek. Kerry, with her mind jammed packed with useless knowledge, already knew this, of course!

It was a great castle to explore. A bit of scrambling, which was not good for Kerry’s bad leg, but we managed around okay. The castle has been ruined by earthquakes, the worst of which was in 1953. This earthquake was so bad that it actually raised the whole island of Cephalonia by two feet!

We were going to sail up the coast to Sami the next day, but the forecast was for thunderstorms in the morning, so we saw not harm in staying at Poros for another day. Kerry rested for a lot of the day as her leg was still quite swollen and the walk to St George’s Castle had not helped. After some persuasion I talked her into a swim at a little bay nearby. She was put off by the steep path down as her knees were still really sore from falling on the marble step at Trizonia. We managed though, and it was well worth it as the fish were amazing. Some huge wrasse were grazing on the rocks and did not seem at all fazed by our presence.

That night the thunder and lightning came, then very heavy rain. But we were tucked up in Barberry, so fine. Besides, we have the smallest mast, so does that mean we are less likely to get a lightning strike? The thunder eventually stopped, but the lightning kept going for a couple of hours. It looked really strange, watching it through the forepeak hatch. It constantly flickered like a faulty fluorescent tube.

On Sunday we headed off for Sami, only about three hours up the coast. It was light winds, but we had planned for that, as we were being extra careful not to risk Kerry’s leg being knocked in a rough sea. We had been to Sami already this trip, but felt that there was a lot that we had not seen. Also, we had lots of smelly clothes and we knew Sami had a good laundry!

After we dropped off all our clothes (don’t worry- we kept a few brief items to wear), Kerry went back to the boat to rest her leg, so I decided to go for an explore. There was an old monastery marked on google maps, so I found a path up to that. Again it was very isolated, but a well-marked trail with little painted squares. It was an amazing place with great views across the Ionian islands. No other tourists.

That afternoon we went back to our favourite swimming beach, bringing our showering stuff with us. A lovely swim, but when we came to use the beach shower we found out it was not working. Near disaster as we were no doubt fairly stinky by this point and wanted to be clean for the arrival of our clean clothes. Luckily I decided to follow the water pipe and found a shut off valve some distance from the shower. Smelly disaster averted.

There turned out to be many ruins in Sami. Mainly Roman as there was a big Roman settlement here. As we walked around the streets the next day we randomly came across archeological excavations, in what seemed like people’s back gardens. We also visited the Sami Archeological Museum, which contained all the local finds and also had maps showing where in Sami you could find all these interesting sites.

On Tuesday we set off to Atokos island, just over three hours sail away. We had been recommended to go here as there are known to be pigs that visit one of the beaches. The plan was to anchor there overnight if it was not too busy. Well it was busy, really busy. Mainly catamarans taking up all the anchorage with more on the way. We did manage to drop anchor, but we were very close in to the beach and the sea bed did not look good holding. Mainly rocks, seagrass and gravelly sand.

We stayed long enough to see a pig with half a leg missing, struggling across the beach, presumably in search of food from some of the other sailors, who had landed their dinghies on the beach. It was really sad to watch so we upped anchor and left straight away. Many trip boats visit this bay and there seems to be no thought for animal welfare, just human amusement. Not nice.

We did not have much of a plan after that, but Meganisi island was nearby and seemed to be calling us, so we set course for there and found a lovely, quiet anchorage for the night at Ormos Rementinou, well away from the madness of Atokos.

The snorkelling here was ridiculously good again and we were both really enjoying it. The drawback of a remote anchorage is that there is no taverna for dinner. We had to make do with my new invention of beer bread baked with meatballs and feta on top- delicious! So nice to be back at Meganisi. Next stop Abelaki Bay!