Fiscardo, Kefalonia - Saturday 8 September 2018

We decided to leave Vathi after all.  I did a bit more shopping, managing to get some nice lamb chops.  I now have to hope our electrics keep the fridge cold!  The weather forecast is for possible showers, but mainly sun and light winds.  It was not like that.  Within half an hour of leaving port the wind started to get up and was 10-15knots more or less on the nose.  Also there was a huge black cloud just behind us.  Richard assured me it was going in a different direction to us, but then when I was on the helm and he was below there was such a huge clap of thunder for a moment I thought the dinghy had exploded.  So there it was, a huge thunder storm and it did look like it would catch us up.

Richard put up the Genoa (the wind now 17 knots on the beam) and turned up the revs on the engine in an effort to beat the storm.  Surprisingly that worked.   We managed to stay ahead of it until it just dispersed.

We got into Fiscardo at about 3pm.  We had hoped that it wouldn’t be so crowded on the basis that the charter boats do handovers at the weekends.  But it is crowded and there was absolutely no chance of a berth on the town walls.  Not only were they full, they have taken to double mooring with one boat in front of the other like in Hydra town. 

So we were left with anchoring on the other side of the bay.  The problem with anchoring here is that you have to take a long line ashore because there are so many boats anchoring and no room to swing. Now long lines ashore are our bugbear.  We don’t really have a suitable line since we lost ours in a storm in Albania last year.  We also are terrible at setting the lines with only the two of us and now there is a brisk wind blowing.  Luckily as we came in a British couple were in the boat next to where we were heading and offered to help us with our lines. I managed to find our old heavy long lines which were just big enough.  It really was a lifeline they threw us and we are so grateful.

The cloudy conditions have made it very close and humid.  So we are pleased to be at anchor where we can swim.  The only question is how to get to the town. We can row across, but that it rather far.  There are some steps behind us which we could row to and then walk around the bay to town, which is fine. Otherwise we could put the engine on the dinghy and see how that is running.  We opted for the second alternative.  However when we got to the steps it was clear that climbing up was a wet feet job and Richard was not in suitable shoes.  So we rowed along the shore to see if there was anywhere else to go and wound up on the ferry quay.  We couldn’t stay there because a ferry was due but we could get off and tie the boat up a little way along.

We had a nice cocktail in our favourite bar and then a lovely dinner of fried red mullets. Getting back in the dinghy turned out to be a little more challenging that expected, but we managed and are now on board safely.  If the batteries stay charged we will stay another day.

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