Sailing Calista7 June 2022 – 12 June 2022
Leaving Argostoli on Kefalonia Island we crossed back over to Zakynthos Island and headed down to the anchorage of Makris Gialos knowing that it would be protected from the westerly winds.
As we were approaching the anchorage we could see that there was already another Amel 50 sitting at anchor. We immediately thought it was our friends from Paloma but to our surprise as we got closer, it was actually a different yacht which we hadn’t seen before. It was called Toara II.
The following morning we had a visit from Tino who said he was helping out crewing for the owners. They would be leaving the anchorage later that morning to head on down to Zakynthos town quay and suggested that we could all meet up there. We confirmed we would be down that way in a day or two’s time.
We spent the day relaxing onboard and swimming in the blue waters. Sea temperature was pleasant at 24.4 degrees.
Later in the afternoon we couldn’t believe our eyes as a tour boat nudged it’s way right up to the front of the anchorage and dropped anchor and proceeded to drift back behind us. The wind caught the tour boat and it started to drift onto a neighbouring yacht. The captain just watched as a neighbouring skipper came to the assistance of the yacht and dragged it sideways.
With the captain unable to do anything as his passengers were all in the water having a great time, he stayed where he was, and the yacht had to lift their anchor and move.
The following day we departed the anchorage and headed on down to the Port. We didn’t make such a grand entrance the second time. We had 30 knots of wind on our starboard side and our first attempt was a total disaster. I had forgotten to lower our fenders overboard as we were reversing back plus I had let out too much chain and Paul lost control of the stern. We drifted onto and along side a much smaller yacht. Luckily there was no damage to the yacht, but our rudder grazed across their anchor chain as we quickly motored out into the bay and attempted to dock a second time, this time successfully with fenders out. All rather embrassing and making a bit of a spectacle of ourselves.
Safely berthed and lines attached to the bollards with the help of Alex from the Blue Shirts, Alex completed the appropriate paperwork for the evening and then it was a long walk around for us around to the Port Police to get out transit log stamped again.
The following day we went for morning tea onboard Toara II to meet the owners. It was a lovely catch up with Thomas and his wife, Thomas discussed various options that he had on his boat that were different from those on Calista.
Over the road from the town quay where Calista was berthed we discovered a fabulous restaurant called Manoo. Our waiter was friendly and remembered us from our previous visit. The fresh sushi and sashimi were simply devine.
There was quite abit of graffii on some of the buildings around the back streets of town. With some of the derelict buildings ivy and bougenvillias were out of control. Having a small car certainly makes it easy to park in the congested side streets.
Several of the streets in the shopping district were nicely paved and vehicle access was limited during the shop hours.
Before embarking on crossing over to the mainland of Greece, we arranged for the Shell tanker to come to Calista and we took onboard another 210 litres just to keep the tank topped up.
We departed from the town quay at Port Zakynthos and motored down to the bottom of the island passing Marathonisi Island, known
as Turtle Island because of it’s shape.
We dropped anchor in 6 metres at Keri Beach.
From our anchorage we dingied ashore to check out Keri and wandered down along past the water’s edge where everyone was taking advantage of the sun and water.
The next day we decided to dingy around to the far side of the island to check out some larger sea caves. The sea state was calm in our anchorage and we thought it would be ideal conditions.
As we got further around the point and heading along the other side the swell was getting up and it wasn’t very comfortable.
We made the decision after about 2 kilometres to turn around and head back. Some of the bays along the way were quite calm and sheltered from the swell so we hugged close to shore.
Returning back to our anchorage we took a short dingy trip over to Marathonisi Island and checked out the sea caves there.
We returned to Calista and decided to lift anchor and set sail over to Katakolon on the main land of Greece while there was a nice gentle breeze blowing.
