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Grabbing a spare morning to update you all :)
These past two weeks I have not been instructing. I said bye to my last clients on 4th May. Two weekends ago I helped with the flotilla turnaround at a town called Plataria, which is on the mainland of Greece, east of Corfu. My job for the day was to fill the water tanks on all the boats. Which was perfect after the base manager was behind the bar the night before.
On Monday 9th I did a day's tuition with a couple who wanted a helping hand on their Jaguar keelboat and a confidence booster. In the afternoon the wind blew up to 20 knots and the boat was leaning over a lot. The girl had a huge smile on her face and the guy was turning a cool shade of yellow as he fought with seasickness of the 2 hour passage. But they did say they gained a lot of confidence in the boat and knew what to do, once we were in the shelter. So I spent the day on their boat and we sailed with the flotilla to a charming harbour called Lakka on the island of Paxos, south of Corfu. There I was introduced to the Towering Inferno coctail, which has Bailey's in it. The barman turned the lights down, lit some Ouzo and poured the flaming Ouzo into the drink as we were drinking it out of a straw. Delic! I then chilled on Tuesday with the lead crew of that flotilla, Goerge, Tim and Tosca and was expecting to catch a ferry on Tuesday afternoon back to Corfu, but I got a call from the office telling me to stay there as I was needed to deliver a spare yacht to the Saronics.
So the rest of the week has been just myself, Jim and Anna, who are a couple, motor sailing from Paxos to Epidavros in the Saronics. It is 25 miles south east of Corinth, where I have marked the location of this blog and 25 miles south west of Athens! The whole trip was 200 miles and took us 3 days even when we stopped overnight.
The new photos (when they come - i need to start work now) are of the delivery trip and the fun we had on it. It made such a change because I had no clients so I could really enjoy the hour when the wind picked up enough to turn the engine off, and not worry about what to teach people etc. We also went to locations where other flotillas were, especially as they were havin coctail parties, but also to get parts to fix a couple of small problems on the boat.
One particular highlight, and the reason for the tagged location of this blog, is the Corinth Canal. Accordint to Wikipedia, it cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island. The builders dug the canal through the Isthmus at sea level; no locks are employed. It is 6.3 kilometres (3.9 mi) in length and was built between 1881 and 1893.
It is very impressive to look at and also very expensive to sail through!
So I am now helping with the turnaround here in the Saronics today and then doing shorebased skipper work down here. My next big thing is my first bareboat charter skipper work - starting on Friday May 20th! So it made a lot of sense and I was very grateful to have sailed here and took the opportunity to scout a few locations and towns. The charter starts in a marina 15km from central Athens and will be sailing around the islands to the south of Athens for the folliwing 10 days, on a Bavaria yacht 47 feet long.
So I am thinking of you all as I write this over breakfast at a bar on the waterfront. Love to all and send me some messages on here! My wall looks very bare.
Will x
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