Ithica to Cephalonia

We arrived in Vathi, the main town I think, on Ithaca it is in a large bay but is not that sheltered from the prevailing wind, as the wind comes down over the hills, though as it’s a bay there is no fetch for the waves so not too rough mostly choppy. We have for 30mins so far been watching 2 other yachts trying to moor up stern to in strong ‘beam on’ wind, we just decided it would be easier to anchor so we were settled after 5 mins. More and more yachts arriving so our afternoons entertainment is sorted!😉
Instead of one night on mainland we ended up spending 2 while we waited for a storm, well probably more like very high winds, on the western coast of Cephalonia to drift away offshore. From Astakos we went to Pagania, the sheltered inlet I mentioned in last post only to find there were other boats there! Well Really! but it was OK they were quiet neighbours, the occupants of one boat spent the afternoon and early evening looking for shellfish and then laying a net. Needless to say they were French.😂. The noisiest things were the cow and goat bells in the early evening and morning. From there we headed over to a truly small inlet on Dhragonera island, see photo of chart plotter, the inlet would have fitted 6Take Fives in total 3 side by side and two rows, we reversed in and had stern lines ashore on both sides we arrived before the afternoon winds so lots of time for me to swim the lines ashore, the island is uninhabited except for goats, so very peaceful.
Vathi on Ithaca was really quite nice, the write up in the pilot book didn’t do it justice, as it called the houses pale concrete squares, this was because the earthquake in 1953 had destroyed all the earlier architecture and none of the new builds were more than 2stories so as to be earthquake proof, but I thought they looked lovely and the town was small and largely pedestrianised. We ate ashore and John unsurprisingly had another lamb dish Keflitki, I had seafood pasta, both were very good. The following morning more shopping and then off to Cephalonia, the location of ‘Captain Corelli Mandolin’ a good mildly informative read. Sadly our first anchorage option wasn’t very sheltered, so we headed on towards Pessades, today has been a long cruise compared to previous weeks in Greece we were cruising for 6.5 hours. Pessades is another quiet anchorage with a small cafe on the headland final photo.Read more