Resting Day

At: Palaiokastrita (Alipa), Kerkyra (Corfu), Greece

Ahhhh… a good sleep after a few short and broken nights and we felt like new again. The bay was quiet, our anchor was in big sandy patch, I was sure the rocks were out of reach whichever way the wind would shift and the only other boat in the anchorage was far enough away to not bother us if we turned.

Palaiokastrita bay is absolutely stunning, surrounded by high, steep, wooded mountains and cliffs, with azure water and tiny beaches everywhere. It was probably a popular holiday destination a decade ago, but now some hotels are closed and have fallen into disrepair. I was aching to break in and do some urban exploration, but didn’t find the time. Now it’s the landing place to dazed and elderly British tourists that are probably just realizing why their hotel was so cheap.

We moved the boat to the marina in search of fresh water. The marina — like the village itself — is a prime example of past glory: once outfitted with state of the art pontoons, it’s now chock full of fishing boats and overrun by little powerboats that are rented out to tourists. There are three or four spots left for visiting sailboats, but all electricity/water-pillars have been sheared off at the base, pipes and wires sticking out of the ground. Waste pump-out pillars are covered in plastic wrapping. Rusty mooring rings are worn thin as paper in places.

So no fresh water here. We did find unencrypted WiFi we could pirate. It’s not always easy to find decent internet (we’re running permanently out of 4G), hence the spotty updates of this blog. You can’t have it all.

We also found a small overpriced store, Kathy’s supermarket. Kathy turned out to be a burly middle-aged man. As we were running dangerously low on cookies, we made him very happy by emptying his shelves.

We took the dingy out to sea to find the “Blue Eye Cave”. We cruised around for a while — Barbara stressing out because I let Andreas drive so close to the cliffs — but couldn’t find it. Maybe it’s marked at the wrong place on Google maps, or you can only access it by diving.

Back on the boat the kids discovered the sail locker in the starboard bow. They spent about an hour playing there, climbing in and out. I’m still getting surprised every day by how little they need to get their imagination going.