Tag Archives | Nordhavn

Envoy is in Lefkas Marina for the northern hemisphere winter and we’re in London with our daughter Amy en route to New Zealand and home.

Back to early October and my brother Charles joins us at Corfu for his first visit to Envoy. It was Charles who first introduced us to Med cruising when we spent some time aboard his 34ft sailing yacht in Turkey. He’d sailed it from Australia with his now-wife Marie and after several years in the Med continued on to the far north-east of Scotland where they now lives and he works as Harbour Master in Lossiemouth, near Elgin. It was during our time with Charles and Marie that we decided to buy our own Med-based boat. Look what they started!

Still anchored off Corfu town we meet New Zealanders Alan and Tina from the yacht, Whisper. They’re the first NZers we’ve met this season and it turns out they know our NZ friends Bruce and Leslie from the catamaran, Midi.

Di, Tina, Allan and Laurie in Envoy’s cockpit, Corfu

Visiting Malta has been on our minds for a while and Alan and Tina provide us with some more information about this interesting destination, making it a definite possibility for next year.

Checking my emails one morning I see an official-looking one mentioning the US Navy and my first thought is that I’m getting a telling off for including a photo in our Blog of a USN ship moored in Crete’s Soudha Bay.

Here’s that photo again

On reading the email though I’m delighted to find that it’s from a very senior officer of the USN’s 6th Fleet, Destroyer Squadron 60 saying that he’s very happy to see “one of my ships, USS Ross, appear in the Blog”. The officer and I have since had several exchanges of emails and it turns out that he has an interest in Nordhavns and follows our Blog. We’re even talking about possibly meeting up next year in Italy where he’s based – Diane and I haven’t exactly decided which of two cruising plans we’re going to adopt next year but both include Italy.

We spend a couple of nights of perfect tranquility anchored at Mourtos until the weather forecast predicts southerly winds over 30 knots with heavy rain, quickly turning to northerly winds over 30 knots. This is the kind of forecast it’s hard to find shelter from, but nearby Igoumenitsa Creek is perfect so we head there to anchor in a depth of about 14 metres (a bit deeper than we prefer) laying out 60 metres of chain. The bottom is mud and Envoy has a heavy (40kg) Delta anchor plus 3/8 inch chain and we rarely drag with this much chain out.
There’s plenty of thunder and spectacular lightning plus a choppy sea whipped up by over 40 knot gusts, but we’re perfectly safe.

Balmy evening in our anchorage before the storm

Wind-driven chop in Igoumenitsa Creek

Laurie and Charles at Koulara

Koulara Harbour

Charles leaves us at Corfu’s Gouvia Marina where we visit to get a few maintenance jobs done (details in next posting). Meanwhile summer seems to have come to a sudden end and we have several days below 20d with heavy showers and thunderstorms.

In Gouvia we meet some other New Zealanders – Trevor Giles from catamaran Kiwi and Chris and Michelle from yacht Endless Summer.
An Australian yacht Pablo Neruda berths next to us, formerly owned by Melbourne-based Rob and Kerry, who we met through recent visitors Simon and Bronwyn and who gave us a lot of cruising advice before we started in the Med.

We’re aboard Envoy at Greece’s Lefkas Marina as we prepare to leave her for the winter and return home to New Zealand in just a few days.

Back to mid-September – with an overnight onshore wind change we’ve had an uncomfortable night anchored off Poros and shift in the early light of morning to Antisamos Beach for a calm and enjoyable day and night. From here it’s a short hop to Ay Eufemia where we spend three nights anchored in the harbour before meeting our Australian friends Simon and Bronwyn (SandB).

There’s a few wasps around and during this time having not long recovered from her sea urchin sting Diane get’s two wasp stings on a finger resulting in some painful swelling!
The night before SandB’s arrival we have a violent thunderstorm with heavy rain and winds well over 30 knots. A charter yacht anchored in front of us drags to only five metres abeam of us but her crew is alert and they safely re-anchor. This is common in strong winds as charter yachts often have light ground tackle and inexperienced crews.
Our plan is to cruise with SandB about 110 miles to Corfu and along the way we’ll be anchoring at some of our favourite places. This is SandB’s first Envoy cruise but they are experienced sailors having raced yacht, owned boats and cruised the Med with other friends, so are very quickly part of the crew with Simon sharing watches from day one.
First stop is just eleven miles away at Foki Bay from where it’s an easy walk or ride by dinghy to Fiskhardo, a great bay surrounded by tavernas and funky shops. Most yachts visiting here and similar harbours go stern-to the quay, but we prefer to anchor nearby so we can swim, enjoy some privacy and avoid the hassles of tangled anchor chains. It’s getting late in the season but there’s a surprisingly high number of boats around.

Great bougainvilleas adorn Fiskhardo house

Envoy anchored in Foki Bay

After a night at nearby Sivota we enter the Lefkas canal and refuel at the marina, taking on 1,325 litres which will be our last major refuel of the year, then anchor in the canal off Lefkas so we can show SandB around the village. After leaving the canal we head north to the mainland village of Parga, always quite special and this visit no exception.

Simon, Laurie and Bronwyn enjoy a coffee at a Parga taverna

Parga’s castle entrance and harbour below

Fiskhardo, Sivota and Parga have been featured in earlier blogs so not detailed here.
The weather is still fine with daytime temperatures in the mid 20s but by night it’s now cool enough to need a blanket on our beds and to wear sweatshirts. The wind is very light – mainly less than 10 knots which is great for motorboat cruising and for calm anchorages.

While anchored in Lakka Bay on Paxxos Island we meet some Australian cruisers – Peter and Colleen from Wild Passion who recently left Turkey. They tell us things are rapidly going downhill there, much worse than is reported in the press, that cruisers are leaving in droves and charter boat operators are moving their boats to other destinations. They were planning to stay another season at Kas Marina but so many cruisers have left that marina management have doubled the fees to maintain their income level, ironically forcing those hardy cruisers unworried by the political situation to leave because they can’t afford to stay.

We spend some time at the mainland anchorage of Mourtos and then Corfu.

Kayakers pass our anchorage at Mourtos

With Envoy safely anchored off Corfu Bronwyn and Di hit the shops while Simon and I explore the Old Fortress, one of two Venetian fortresses that guarded Corfu, an island of huge strategic importance protecting the trade route to the Adriatic Sea. The impressive rock was first fortified by Byzantines during the 6th century and later improved to withstand artillery by the Venetians in the 15th century. Corfu withstood three Turkish sieges in 1571, 1573 and 1716 and remained one of very few areas in the region never taken by Turks. Corfu became an English Protectorate from 1815-64 and the fortress became their garrison.

Corfu’s impressive Old Fortress

A parade of Greek sailors in Corfu although we don’t know what the occasion is

It’s serious enough to involve four priests though

A large cruise ship in the background – many visit Corfu

FOR FOODIES
Laurie, Diane, Bronwyn and Simon enjoying farewell dinner in Corfu at excellent Athos restaurant y discovered by Bronwyn in Trip Advisor

We enjoy an excellent fish soup, with crusty hot fresh bread, mussels and tuna washed down with a local rose wine. They also surprised us with small free tastings served between courses and a tasting tray of desserts. Altogether one of the nicest eateries we’ve been to

 Here SandB leave us after two great weeks with plans made to link up again soon in NZ.