We spent a few relaxing days enjoying the pool and the air conditioning in Nydri, before it came time to pick up the one-way rental car from Green Motion. The people in the Green Motion office in Nydri are always lovely, in contrast to the officious woman in the office in Igoumenitsa, who always seems to be trying to sell me additional insurance, or up-sell something or other. We pick up a car in Nydri or Igoumenitsa, and drive it, one-way to the other location. We have the car for an average of three hours, and they charge us €70 for the privilege. It’s a great service, but I’m really starting to wonder if Avis might not be a better option, to avoid the hidden costs.
We arrived in Sivota on Thursday, only to find that Stavros’s pontoon was full. Well, technically it wasn’t full at all, but it was booked out. I didn’t realise you could book a slot on the pontoon. We anchored in the middle of the bay for a bit, but the water was about 12 or 14 metres deep, which meant we dumped out a lot of the anchor chain (Tim says there’s 70 metres), which then meant we had a wide swing radius, and I wasn’t happy about it, as it’s a busy harbour. Apparently someone on the shore was shouting at us as we dropped the anchor, but I’m a man so I don’t do multitasking. I suspect they were either pointing out to us that they had an anchor down about 50 metres from where we were, or around 80 metres from where our anchor was. Either that, or they were politely letting us know we could have fit alongside them.
Rabbit sent me a text on Tuesday morning. The dinghy guy wanted to talk turkey. So, we lifted anchor at Port Atheni and headed back to the boat harbour in Vlicho. We were somewhat sad to leave Atheni because we could jump off the boat and swim when it got too hot, and it’s certainly been hot. Vlicho offers no such remedies as the harbour is a working port and the water is murky. But we were looking forward to resolving the dinghy situation.
We had worked out a system for getting to the restaurant. We put towels, phones, money and a change of clothes into a gear bag. Then, Ruth and I would tow Ben on his large tyre, carrying the bag over his head. On the far shore, we would change out of our swimming gear into evening clothes, and walk the mile or so to the taverna. After dinner, we walked back amongst the cicadas, back to the boat. We repeated the procedure and climbed back on board.
The overall consensus on Kalamos wasn’t great. While it’s a favourite of mine, and Ruth was an instant fan of George’s Cafe, Ben didn’t like the heat or the lack of a beach. The nearest place to take a swim in Kalamos is the beach at the southern end of the village. It’s probably a 20 minute walk and the heat was intense. So, we decided to leave Kalamos this morning and head for the anchorage in Port Atheni. Actually as we left Kalamos, it was overcast and nowhere near as hot as yesterday, so we should have tried the beach. The wind picked up as we headed down between Kalamos and Kastos so we unfurled the headsail and tried our luck at sailing. The wind was very squirrelly and hard to predict. Big gusts and squalls blew right past, changing the wind direction sometimes by as much as 180 degrees. Eventually it switched off and we had to motor.
We took Tim’s advice. We decided to go to Kalamos. The advantage of Port Atheni is you can swim off the boat. The disadvantage is that without a dinghy, you’re a bit isolated. Kalamos is stern-to. Today is the hottest day so far. It’s approximately 38 degrees with no wind. I was up early for a provisioning run, which involved the steep climb to the village of Spartochori, which boasts beautiful views and a hard climb. Not the best thing to do in the midday sun, so I was up early. We developed a slight issue with the holding tank, and created a toxic aroma in the vicinity. Holding tanks are de rigeur in Greece and a good idea, besides. The heads (toilets for you land lubbers) pumps into the holding tank, and when you’re suitably offshore, you can pump out the tank. It’s all a bit icky, but a necessary evil if you want a toilet on the boat. We haven’t really been using the heads as all the tavernas have showers and toilet facilities so there’s no need. However, as Morgan once explained to me, sometimes sea creatures like algae or plankton will get trapped in the inlet pipe, and die. In the heat, it will go off pretty quickly and when you do use the heads, you’re pumping in methane-rich sea water. That’s probably what happened, and it helped us to get out of Spartochori pretty quickly, both to open all the hatches, and also to avoid an embarrassing scene. While I was scaling Mount Spartochori, the other two ran for cover. They closed all the hatches and had breakfast at the Taverna. When I returned, we fired up the engine and made our hasty exit. Once offshore, we opened all the hatches, pumped out the holding tank and pumped in some treatment goo. The smell didn’t last very long, and it was nice to get away before 10AM.