Caught in Traffic

We have friends visiting us next week on the island of Lefkas so we started to make our way slowly south to meet them. We lifted the anchor and left Potomos bay, the port was very busy with ferries and cruise ships.

We continued on around the headland, with great views of the old and new fortresses, and with a light wind we sailed very slowly 13 nm down the Straits of Corfu towards Petriti.

Petriti is a typical Greek fishing village located on the south east coast of Corfu. The small harbour has a few seafood tavernas on the water edge and fishing boats moored along the quay. It was quite busy when we arrived so we anchored outside of the harbour where there is plenty of space in nice calm, clear water.

We waited for some better wind to blow us on our next journey which would be 50 nm down towards Preveza.

The weather is now really heating up, particularly the further south we go, the Greek islands are about 5°C hotter than Albania with temperatures of almost 40°C. The best way to cool down is to dive into the sea, but even that is now over 30°C, it’s like a bath. The warmer water seems to promote growth on the hull and no sooner have we cleaned it before it needs doing again which keeps us busy, at least with our hard copper coat it does come off easy.

We waited in Petriti for a few days but with no wind forecast we decided to go for it. The anchor was lifted and we set off under engine in a dead flat calm sea. The forecast was right and we had to motor the whole day. This meant that we made good time and decided to power forward and try to make the 17:00 bridge opening to go straight to Lefkas rather than Preveza.

The Santa Maura bridge, which joins Lefkas to the mainland, has traditionally always opened every hour, on the hour, throughout the day for boats to pass through. However, this summer the opening times have reduced due to it being too disruptive to road traffic. If we miss the 17:00, we would have to wait two hours for the next one. So with full steam ahead we arrived in time, we didn’t need to worry though as when we got there, the bridge hadn’t opened and at least 23 boats were all waiting to go through, plus more wanting to come through from the opposite direction. We have never seen it so busy, but the previous opening was at 14:00 and it was Saturday, change over day, many people had just picked up their charter boats and wanted to make the most of the first day of their holiday.

The road traffic was stopped and the bridge opened, it was carnage with some boats trying to push forward through the narrow entrance, others going very slow holding people up, to add to this, the wind had just picked up to a force 4. It took at least 20 minutes before everyone had passed through and the bridge closed.

Once we were through, we could see the enormous traffic queue that went way back to Lefkas town. We continued down the channel and anchored in the bay at the end.

After the weekend we needed to get our transit log stamped, you are supposed to do this in every port/island, so we went up to Lefkas town to visit the port authority.

In the evening we walked through the narrow streets to the top of the island where there is a cocktail bar with great views of the sunsetting.

Later we went to the busy central square in town which has restaurants with tables and chairs all spilling out into the square and it’s full of family’s and their children playing with all sorts of toys.

Most things are available in the town so we did some grocery shopping before we left and visited the chandlery, there’s always something we need from a chandlery!

Our visitors were due to arrive in Nydri so once we were well provisioned, we headed down to meet them. We left our mooring and with no wind, we motored 9 nm down to Nydri, a popular tourist town on the east coast of Lefkas island.

We planned to get Ziggy cleaned and shipshape before our guests arrived and so booked to moor on a pontoon close to their hotel, where water and electricity was available. This is the first time of being tied to a dock since we left Tunisia so she was very dirty. However, due to the constant high temperatures and no rain, there is a water shortage and a ban on using the hose to clean boats, so we had to try to do it with just a small bucket of water, not particularly effective but definitely better than it was. Now we are ready for the VIP visitors, let’s hope that she passes inspection.