Cruising The Med - Sandy and Rob's Excellent Adventure

Life in Corfu - Scooter Trip up the East Coast of Corfu - New Scooter - New Pillows!

Well, we have been enjoying life in Corfu staying here at the Marina in Gouvia and tripping around the island.

The first bit of news is that Rob has purchased a new scooter. It is a small Honda Scooter which weighs just over 200 pounds. It is 110cc's for those of you who ride motor bikes.

Rob has spent the last number of days devising a system to lift the scooter onto the deck and secure in to the upper starboard deck with straps and a new D-Ring.

The new D-Ring was quite a project for the infamous "project man". Rob had to cut a 10cm port into the ceiling of the cabin and drill down from the top while trying to avoid the hatch cover, electrical wires, and any other bits he could not know where tucked in there. He did the deed this morning and we now have a new D-Ring to strap his scooter to. We are waiting for the port to arrive by courier to cover his new hole.

We have enjoyed some lovely traditional greek dining which is casual, simply prepared, and always good. We found a cafe called the Navigator which serves awesome beef burgers when we need a change from the greek fare.

We ventured back into Old Corfu to shop for new pillows. Seems Rob is not enjoying enough blissful slumber on the ones we bought at Costco.

The girls in the Marina recommended a shop which we found in the heart of old Corfu which seemed odd with all the tourist souvenir spots in that part of town. We met Milos and Elvira who own the shop and set each of us up with a new pillow and some great pillow covers. Rob was so happy!!!

As any of you know who have had the pleasure of spending time in Greece, the people here are very kind and very helpful. Elvira and Milos took our new pillows, bags, and helmets and stored them for us while we went for dinner in the old town. Elvira walked us through the streets and into the back door of her favourite restaurant stopping many times along the way to point out the best shops for souvlaki, pastries, shoes, and dresses.

We enjoyed a traditional meal of Soffrito (Veal cooked in Wine) and Moussaka (Greek Shepherd's Pie) and Roasted Vegetables with stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes. Another lovely meal.

Finally, a nice scooter ride home to relax and try out the new pillows!

Dinner at our favourite local Taverna in Gouvia - Just a bike ride from the marina

Company for Rob.....

MMMM ... Thanks for the treat Rob!

The Lodge Parked Med Style in the Marina at Gouvia

Sea of Masts - This place is full of sail boats which is a real treat to see!!!

Elvira and Milos and NEW PILLOWS!!!

Dinner at Elvira's favourite Taverna - Really Traditional and great meal

Rob's new Purchase! Honda 110cc Scooter!

And You All Thought Our New Scooter was Small!!!!

Labels: Corfu, Elvira and Milos, Navigator, New Scooter

First Few Days in Corfu...

After a wonderful dinner and long sleep, we began our adventures in Corfu. Corfu, is the english word for this very famous Greek Island which is part of a group of Islands known as the Ionian.

The largest of the Ionian it is 100 Km long and very busy with resorts, cruise ships, and villas. It is also known by the Greeks here as Kerkyra also spelled Kerkira. There are at least two names for everything here and then there is the traditional greek spelling. It is very easy to get lost in Old Corfu as the streets are in Old Greek and it is hard to determine where you are!

Sadly, we discovered as we finished the delivery from Montenegro to Greece that something was not quite right with our water maker. So, we have employed an expert here to try to figure it out. At the moment it looks like a bad pump but we will learn more by tomorrow.

We also discovered the boat bottom needed diving so we hired another fellow who took care of that.

We are fine with staying here for a few days to get things organized and all the systems on The Lodge up to par as there is much to see and experience on Corfu before moving on.

We also noticed the bottom needed cleaning and as usual there is always more laundry!

We did manage to find our way to Old Corfu last night. What a phenomenon this place is!!! We have not seen so many tourist stores and people in our travels so far including Rome!

The most unusual thing I stumbled upon was a "Fish Spa". Clients actually pay money to dip there feet and shins into an aquarium full of tiny fish that attach themselves like leeches and eat the dead skin from your body. Yes.... Folks are paying money to do this.

I took a photo of a couple from Rome who were enjoying the fish spa when I walked in.

We only spent about an hour in Old Corfu as we were ready for dinner and sleep but will return this afternoon to do some more exploring.

Who knows what we will find?!

Taken from the back of our rented scooter while driving to Old Corfu.

This is a crazy place to drive! I think they learned from the Italians in Rome how to drive like this...

Rob in the Scooter Line up - There were streets and streets and streets just like this - We got in further than most by following some locals

Walking in Old Corfu Town

Market in Old Corfu

The Fish Spa....They look happy having their feet nibbled on by all those little fish!

One of Many tacky T-Shirts - Most too rude to show here...

Amazing how street after street is full of these shops all selling virtually the same things - Sponges, slippers, T-Shirts, Honey....

View From Kontokali Bay Resort where we enjoyed a great lunch on Wednesday. Just an hour after I took this photo, the heavy NW winds blew through and brought 20+ knot winds and cleared out the sky. The Temperatures dropped significantly which was a great relief from the heat we have been experiencing all through the med! - See below...

Now we can see Albania and the sea is churning up - The attendents scurried to lower all the Umbrellas!

View from Kontokali Bay Resort looking toward the north east part of Corfu

Map of Corfu. We are just north of Old Corfu in Gouvia

The Gouvia Marina - Kontokali Bay Resort and Spa just beyond the marina

Albania is in the background across the Adriatic

Labels: Corfu, Fish Spa, Gouvia Marina, Kerkira, Old Corfu

We Made it to Greece!!!!

We left our beloved Porto Montenegro in Tivat at 7am on Saturday morning.

With little wind in the bay we were able to reach the sea in only 1.5 hours versus the usual 2 hours. We enjoyed coffee and breakfast just before we reached the Adriatic in case the swells would make our cappuccino spill. We have really enjoyed our little Nespresso espresso machine and milk frother!

The seas were fairly calm with small swells and the winds were light so we continued to motor. A few hours into our journey we found about 7-8 knots of wind and were able to motor sail with both the main and jib for another couple of hours at which time the wind was too much on the nose so we furled the sails. The sky was slightly overcast which we appreciated as it limited the amount of sun exposure.

That was the last of the sailing. We were motoring along at just over 5 knots which we felt was a good speed to cruise along at.

We took 3 hour shifts taking turns resting and watching for ships and other boats while "Auto" did the driving. We saw several fishing boats in the first 5-6 hours and then it became quieter.

We had a fabulous lunch of greek salad and Procuitto as the seas were calm enough for me to be below cutting and chopping without losing my lunch!

The tour was turning out to be as we hoped. Boring and without incident. We each brought books and reading materials to pass the time which was great.

As the sun set, I prepared a dinner of pesto pasta with truffles and fresh grated parmesan with local tomatoes. We had purchased the pesto when we were in Rome and it was a delightful treat!

Rob took the first night shift from 9pm - 12am but he managed to stay up until 2am so I could rest. Rob had to steer around one cruise ship but that was about all the excitement.

From 2am-6am there were very few boats and they were all quite distant from our path. The skies were clear and the moon 2/3 full so it was quite bright. The cruise ships look like Christmas decorations in the night.

Rob was unable to sleep after 5:30am as the waves had again become large enough to cause the bow to slam into the sea making for loud noise and a jarring experience in the bow. He was able to get some rest in the cockpit and the sun rose to another clear sunny day.

After breakfast, Rob managed to get some much needed rest while I watched the cruise ships pass by. The winds piped up to 14 knots and were on the nose so we had to rev the engine to keep our pace of 5 knots.

We realized in the morning that there was no chance of reaching our destination on Corfu today. We would have to arrive in the dark which was not our preference.

We decided to stop at a small island mentioned in our Pilot Books called Erikoussa. We reached Erikoussa at 3pm in the afternoon. There were several boats already there and they kept arriving right until sunset. We anchored stern to onto a large stone breakwall. I was thinking a swim would be nice and I got my wish as Rob gave me a gentle push of the back so I could swim to shore and secure our line.

After we were anchored, we took the new dinghy off the bow and tested Rob's new lift system to get the motor from the back of the boat down onto the back of the dinghy. It worked perfectly and we went for a quick rip around the harbour and neighboring bay to test the new boat and motor. The new boat is quite deep and so we stayed dry and it handled really well in the swells of the bay.

We cooked up a load of chicken and had a great dinner, shower and got all our laundry done. We had a wonderful sleep which we both needed and were ready to finish to trip.

We left the harbour at Erikoussa at 9:30 am and headed toward the top of Corfu. The wind had changed direction and so the seas were confused and uncomfortable for the first couple of hours. After that, they settled into a nice flat water and we made our way.

Unfortunately, we discovered that our water maker was having some issues and we couldn't solve them after trying a few things and reading the manuals so we had our first project ready to be tackled when we arrive in Corfu.

We had a great lunch as we passed along the east shore at the north side of Corfu and arrived at around 3pm at the Gouvia Marina on Corfu. We stopped first at the fuel station and then moved on to our new slip where we now reside.

I checked us into the marina while Rob worked on the water maker and we got some great advice for dinner. We rode our bikes to a local taverna just a few hundred metres outside the marina to a spot where the owner grows all the cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and even makes his own feta cheese.

Dinner was delightful and they brought us a great fruit plate for desert. The cactus fruit, watermelon, and fresh figs all from the owner's garden.

Our total trip was 39 hours so much longer than the 30 we had forecasted. It was however fairly calm and we had no major incidents or worries which made things really quite straightforward which was a relief.

We are now off to rent a motor scooter for a few days, check into customs, and start to explore the island. (After we fix the water maker of course.....)

Lunch our first day at sea - Greek Salad with Procuitto