Well, the trip home was relatively uneventful. We enjoyed a last British meal and a couple of pints of Strongbow at Heathrow and paid twice what we did anywhere else…but it is an airport and they do have you somewhat captive, so there you go.

Our plane departed a bit late, but we had a tailwind and made up the time and arrived promptly….if there is one thing I can say about British Airways, they are generally punctual. We did have to sit on the tarmac at Vancouver for a few minutes before being allowed to disembark, they announced that someone wasn’t feeling well and had paramedics coming to help the passenger off….not me!

Our luggage all arrived, customs was a breeze and Deb had just pulled in to pick us up when I gave her a call. So grateful to you Deb for the ride home!

When we got home, Charlotte was well, but looking forward to heading to her own home after such a long time away. We weren’t actually sure who was going to be at our condo when we arrived, could be either Mom, could be both… The cats snubbed us for a few moments then decided we deserved a bit of attention. Gizmo was a bit more excited to see us right off the bat. Sunny and hot here, sunny and hot everywhere it seemed.

I’ll have a few more photos to post, haven’t downloaded anything from the camera from England yet. Many to sort through!

So grateful to everyone who helped make this a wonderful trip for us. And so sad it’s over, but the good memories make planning the next trip something to look forward to. Not sure when that will be, for the next while we will most likely be constrained to boating in our own beautiful waters of Howe Sound… postings most likely in the other blog…http://the-philosophical-fish.ca

Thanks everyone for visiting us as we traveled!

Cheers,
Paige & Kirk!

After a very heavy sleep we got moving around 7:30 am and I did a quick email check. I seem to have become used to sitting in some strange corner at some odd angle, not breathing, while the computer attempts to connect to some unsecured internet wifi connection….Bournemouth was no different.

We headed out to find the New Forest. Oddly, it’s neither New nor really a Forest, but we were heading for breakfast with two more Flickr friends.

I have so many pictures since May 29th but I haven’t had time or a good enough connection to load them up….will have to wait until we are home now.

On we go, as we turn out of the hotel we immediately take a wrong turn on the first roundabout…not an auspicious start to the day. But we get sorted out and heading in the right direction and the computer takes us down some odd streets, but we make it out onto the main highway in the direction of the New Forest.

We arrive in Lyndhurst a bit early and start to fret about the fact that I can’t remember if we were supposed to meet Mary and Karen at the cafe (which I can’t remember the name of…) or in the parking lot. We have a bit of time so we grab the laptop and start wandering around looking for an unsecured wifi hotspot so I can check my Flickr mail where I know the answer lies. As we wander along the alley doing a classic “can you hear me now?” move with the laptop Kirk looks back and sees two women in a small blue car waving at us. They have found us! Whew!

The cafe hasn’t yet opened so we take a wander into the New Forest (which isn’t a forest…at least not by Canadian standards….open fields of scrub don’t usually attain the title of “forest” where we come from….did I mention that?). It is very pretty though…. and ponies and cattle wandering about freely add an interesting spin on things. The ponies have the right of way in the New Forest, and we see lines of cars as a pony wanders down the centre of the roadway. Apparently they release pigs in the forest as well at certain times. The pigs eat the acorns that fall from the trees The foals apparently eat them and it makes them ill as they are toxic to them, so the pigs help clean them up. Bit of natural way to keep the system running smoothly!

After breakfast we take a drive up to a pond and there are donkeys! One shaggy little fellow is crying out to have his photo taken but every time I point the camera at him his ears go back and he steps towards me. I know enough about livestock to understand that if I stand still things won’t end well for me…so I keep backing away. The little guy may be small, but I know he probably has strong teeth and I don’t need to arrive home with a donkey bite. We move on to a second pond and visit a swan family, take photos of water lilies and wander around the area. As Mary moves forward through the grass I hear a noise I have a bit of familiarity with and look down. Less than a foot from my foot is a small coiled snake valiantly hissing at me. I let out a surprised cry and step back laughing saying “garter snake”. At least that’s what I thought it was. Mary tells me to watch out, it’s an adder, and although not lethal, my bare toes pose an easy target and a potential visit to the hospital…hmm….don’t need that only hours before a flight. Hard to believe that little thing has such a nasty bite, I didn’t actually realize there was anything that nasty in England. No harm done, four camera geeks try to get a decent shot of him, he slips off into the grass and disappears. And we must take our leave. We say goodbye and offer yet again, should anyone visit Vancouver they must look us up.

As we are heading to Heathrow we make one last silly stop. Wouldn’t you know that there is a small community called Canada. So we did have to go so that we can visit Canada twice in one day! Yes, we are geeks.

We navigate our way to Heathrow, take a wrong turn trying to find the rental dropoff, end up circling around for a bit completely and utterly lost before we see the Car Rental Return sign. YAY! And at the last turn into the National rental lot…Kirk tries to turn immediately right instead of going around the roundabout. He’s done so amazingly well driving us safely around this country…….but let’s make one last attempt at a head on collission before we go… SCREECH!!! That’s me screaming, not car tires. ;)

And now we sit in Heathrow waiting for our plane, enjoying a last pint of Strongbow.

It’s been a long trip, it’s been a wonderful trip. And interestingly enough, while it is usually the sights that make the trip for us, this one turned out to be the people. We met so many wonderful people. While we are tired and happy to go home, we can’t believe that five weeks have flown by so quickly.

Did I mention traffic circles? Sorry, I stand corrected…roundabouts. ;) Today we got up early, found a place for a breakfast bite to eat, and then were picked up by a Flickr friend, Danny. He really showed us a great time. I honestly can’t even recall all the names of the places he took us, it was such a whirlwind tour. I do know we visited Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world, out to Sandbanks which hosts the fourth most expensive properties in the world (apparently John Lennon started the fad when he bought a house for his Auntie…now the likes of Elton John, Ron Howard and others have homes there), stopped to see the “puffers” (steam train), visited Corfe Castle, Wareham and Milton Abbas (Thanks for correcting me Danny!).

We stopped in Poole Harbour and watched the ferry to France leave…quite an amazing sight to see such a large vessel navigate such a narrow channel. It also seems strange that it only takes two hours by ferry to reach France. I’ve been across the English Channel by ferry many years ago, I know it’s not far…but it seems strange that a run just longer than that to Vancouver Island lands you in another country.

Corfe Castle was amazing and the town below simply stunning. Danny was a gem and gave us his and his wife’s National Trust passes for entry and he stayed back while we took about 30 minutes to poke through the ruins. We felt badly that he didn’t come in with us because I’m sure we could have learned ten times more had he done so. But we appreciated it so very, very much!

Danny took us to a wonderful little village of thatched houses, Milton Abbas. The roofs are so cool. It’s amazing to think that there are still thatchers out there who do this kind of work. The town felt like something out of a story book!

From there it was a whiz back into Poole Harbour to meet the rest of the Flickr bunch. Danny dropped us off outside the pub and went to park the car. It’s easy to find strangers when you have a common hobby…just look for the table of people with piles of camera hardware! One fellow looks kinda like you Rae…so Tony was easy to find. I knew Helena was a blonde, and had a fairly good idea what the others look like (as well as one can from a 1cm square icon).It was so much fun to meet Danny, Tony, Helena, Jen, Donna & Mel! Funny how you can spend time on the internet and end up making friends with strangers halfway around the world. And I never would have believed that I could make friends through a medium that I have always considered to be somewhat impersonal…but what an amazing bunch of people!

We hung out and had a blast and compared camera equipment…what a bunch of geeks! The day was clear, sunny, and hot….and of course, we didn’t think to put sunscreen on. After lunch and a few pints 8 photographic geeks wandered the Quay and then took a ferry ride around the entire harbour. Fantastic! I go four weeks in the Mediterranean without a sunburn and manage to get a bit of a burn in Southern England. Not bad really, I just burned my neck a bit…so I can truly claim to be a redneck!

Eventually everyone had to disperse and we said goodbye. Danny was willing to continue to be at our disposal and taxi us about, but we had imposed enough and didn’t want to cause another divorce :) so we asked him to drop us off and took our leave.

The sun was dropping and we decided to take another shot at Durdle’s Door so drove back out that way and hoofed it down the steep steps, and I mean STEEP! We kept looking back up thinking….”that’s gonna burn…” But it was worth the effort, although we were unfortunately about 10 minutes too late to get the setting sun on the rock itself.

After we clambered back up the steps and back up the hill we headed for the hotel…we were exhausted. I turned the navigation system back on and worked out the route back. There was this one roundabout that we had encountered on our way into Bournemouth the first time….we thought we had it right and when we took what we thought was the proper exit, it slingshot us back onto the highway going the wrong direction. So as we approached it this time we were ultra careful and plotted our way properly…and we got slingshot back onto the highway going the wrong direction….again….I said I could navigate down through another way again but Kirk was insistent….he was going to beat that darned roundabout! So, we found another roundabout and circled back for another attack. And we managed it this time!

Eventually, after one or two more wrong turns, we fumbled our way back to the hotel and stumbled into bed and fell unconscious.

Crop circles are so yesterday….now traffic circles…those deserve some serious merit! Canada really needs some serious traffic circles. We don’t need big highways in Vancouver, we need to get rid of traffic lights and then need to install traffic circles, and educate everyone properly on how they work. Edmonton has traffic circles…Halifax has one but it just doesn’t work like any other traffic circle in the world so it doesn’t really count because it really is an international oddity. But when you look at the population of Britain, and then you look at the towns and where the people are concentrated…and you hardly ever encounter a stop sign or a traffic light…and the traffic flows …well! We could learn something here!

Anyway, today we had a full day. We hung out at Mary and Derek’s until about 10 am and it was really hard to tear ourselves away. They were such amazingly wonderful hosts and we would have loved to spend more time…but it is a short trip and we really did not want to impose any more than we already did.

Once we got underway we headed towards Dartmouth with a few detours on the way (read wrong turns). We took one turn and ended up in some little town where there was a ferry. We parked and walked down and took a few photos before backtracking. We tried to stick to the coast as much as possible and ended up in Fowey first. What a cool little place! However we actually kind of missed it. We took the ferry across and aimed for Polperro…but took a wrong turn and once we were committed…there was simply no turning back since the road was barely one lane wide (my mirror was often in the bushes!). So we ran it to the end and found ourselves in Polruan. We stopped and took some photos since it looked out and across to Fowey. We turned around and found the right road to Polperro…Kirk muttering the entire way about the fact that I seem to find my way onto the smallest narrowest roads on the planet. …. Eventually we popped out near Polperro and when we saw a wonderful Inn with a waterwheel we turned in…unfortunately we both missed the sign that said no cars…but after a few minutes we figured it out and managed to get turned around and find the parking lot. We walked back down into Polperro and loved it! We stopped for Cornish pasties and stumbled back to the car full of meat, potatoes, and pastry.

Back on the road and aiming for Dartmouth. But we missed the right turnoff there too….and ended up taking a ferry to get back across to visit. But it was worth it. Dartmouth is delightful. It’s warm and an ice cream cools us down as we sit and watch the boats drift by. The we have to take another ferry to get back to where we started.

Then it’s on to Lyme Regis. I can’t actually recall why I waypointed this place…I think it was just to force the navigation software to take us on a route along the coast… but are we ever glad I did! What a gem of a town. We stop and buy fish and chips for dinner and eat it down by the water. It’s been a bit of a carb filled day and we have spent the better part of a month eating salads, so the chips weren’t really necessary and we spend some time causing fights between seagulls. The beach along here is stunning. And we look down towards the massive breakwater behind which are some boats. And the sailboats are sitting upright…with their keels firmly entrenched in the mud. Very cool.

We’d love to stay, but we still have a long way to go and need to push on. We drive out to Portland Bill and visit a lighthouse. WATCH OUT FOR THE CHICKEN! LEFT LANE, LEFT LANE!!!! DON’T HIT THE BUNNY! LEFT, I SAID LEFT! NO THE SECOND LANE OFF THE ROUNDABOUT!!! NO THE OTHER LEFT! Apparently I was looking at the computer when we had an almost close encounter with a massive truck (it was apparently an inch from Kirk’s mirror) …glad I was looking down. I didn’t miss the other stuff though. NO NO NO….NOT THAT LANE!!!!

Then on to the Durdle Door…but the light is falling and the clouds are rolling in. It’s just too late to make the hike down to the Door and we think we might have time tomorrow evening to visit if the Flickr friends get tired of us. If not, well, just another reason to come back.

So on to Bournemouth only to discover that our hotel closes at 9 pm…it’s 10:07. There is a phone number so we find a sympathetic person at another hotel who calls for us and the Hotel manager says he will meet us at the front counter if we come back. We do, he does, and we have our room. It’s fine. It’s a bit of a backpackers place, and this neighbourhood is a bit of a backpackers/watersports place…but it’s fine. it’s clean and has a bathroom. What else do you need…arguably I can even live with a communal bathroom, wouldn’t be the first time…but it’s the clean part that is important to us and this works just fine. Tomorrow we meet a bunch more people and will have a fun day I think!

After breakfast and a shower we were on a mission…to find a boat. Funny, to come halfway around the world and end up driving down an unnamed country road, across a tiny bridge, park and clamber down a small path at the side of a river to find a boat. One of my Flickr friends has a boat and as luck would have it, he was currently moored up not too far from where we were staying. That we found him is a testament to GPS navigation! Lady River Mouse is a 50 foot long, 6’10″ wide narrow boat and we wanted to meet up, say hello, and set foot on one of these vessels as we have thought about chartering one at some point in the future. Lady River Mouse is warm and cosy and welcoming, and so is David! David and his feline friend, Cookie, live on Lady River Mouse and ply the waters of the English canals waking to a new view of the world whenever they need a change. It is a fantastic boat and seems like an idyllic way to live. We can’t stay long though as we need to be down in Cornwall by 2pm to meet several other Flickr-mates at the Eden Project and it’s a long way off.

If we didn’t have a GPS navigation on the Mac…we would NEVER have found our way! Period! We weave our way on different levels of roads and highways, round traffic circles (and mostly manage to stay in the right lane) and zip through the most amazing little towns and villages. We make one stop to take a photo of one of the white horses of Wiltshire carved into the hillside. Amazing that they could make them look proportional when they couldn’t get into the air to look down from above. They aren’t exactly the Nazco sand carvings, but they are still impressive. Wiltshire is crop circle country and we had driven up to Windmill Hill earlier before breakfast, home to regular circle activity we understand.

Each town we drive through makes our heads snap around. The buildings are fantastic, the architecture wonderful and all we want to do is stop and explore and photograph each one…but we have no time. Frustrating! We wish we had more time here!

Eventually we wend our way to the M5 and fly down to past Exeter before we finally see signs to the Eden Project. We are about 15 minutes behind schedule and are looking to find a phone to call Mary, but can’t see one so we just push on and when we drive into the parking lot we see two couples replete with camera gear…they MUST be our friends. We’ve never met in person, only exchanges comments on photos and chatted online in a photo group on Flickr. And it is wonderful to finally meet and speak to them!

Bob and Fran have come 2 hours South to visit the Eden Project. Mary and Derek live closer in a small village called Ponsanooth. We have a wonderful time visiting the most amazing biomes imaginable. The Eden project is a massive botanical conservatory built into the belly of an old china clay pit. One biome contains the tropics while another contains the Mediterranean. Funny to be in England and see some of the same plants we left behind 24 hours ago! The project is like nothing we’ve ever seen and we are SO glad we made the trek down this far. No regrets.

Afterwards we follow Mary and Derek back to their home…and we would have been terribly lost if we had not. They have a fabulous little home at the top of a quiet lane with peaceful atmosphere. We spend the rest of the evening sharing the evening with them and they treat us to a fabulous dinner and even more fabulous conversation until we are all exhausted and need to turn in for the night. They generously offered to put us up for the night and we are ever so grateful.

The plane finally landed, an hour late…and when we made Athens things were frantic. We had to shuffle a bit of packing on the airport floor so we wouldn’t be overweight and took a bit out of both bags and into carry on packs. British Airways charges more for weight than Olympic.

Security took a round out of Kirk, but we made it through in time to grab a last Greek “twinkie” (the chocolate croissants we love) and the plane was boarding.

The flight was uneventful although we did not get to sit together since I couldn’t do a web check in as there was no internet within any reasonable distance from the marina.

On arrival we found out luggage (although it was the last to show…we thought we had lost it) and then found our way to the car rental. That took some time, as did waiting to get the car. Once underway we both tried to adjust to being on the wrong side of the road and that was somewhat harrowing.

We did find the Inn eventually, although and hour later than we thought we’d be there. We drove down to Marlborough for dinner at a curry house and then when we came out….Kirk immediately attempted to drive on the right (wrong) side of the road into oncoming traffic! Scream!!!

OK, let’s not do that again!

Until we make a right hand turn and he does it again a bit later! Other side! OTHER SIDE!!!

This morning we got up at about 5 am and drove to Avebury and walked in among the stones in the fields with the sheep as the sun came up. It was lovely and the cool air felt good! We then realized that we were not too far from Stonehenge, and although it doesn’t open until 9:30 am, we walked around the fence and took a few photos before driving back up to the Inn for a shower and breakfast.

After breakfast we will hit the road again!

1430…still no plane….

1445…still no plane….

Lots of agitated looking passengers and…still no plane….

It flashed and boomed all night long and the rain came down heavily. When we crawled out of bed this morning the clouds were still thick and the sky was still grumbling. It rained hard on and off but the air was peaceful because of the coolness the rain brought. It was nice to not be sweating by 8 am for a change.

It seems quite ironic that four years ago on our last night in Athens, the sky darkened and we awoke to a downpour. So strange to experience the same farewell to the Mediterranean. It does make it easier to leave….somewhat.

We packed last night but checked and rechecked every nook and cranny of the boat for anything we might have missed. We drank the last of our juice, had cereal and downed the last of the milk. But we didn’t quite use everything up. A few eggs, some flour, some coffee, tea, tomato sauce and a bit of pasta…and six darned potatoes and a can of corn that we bought on day one and never ended up eating because who really wants to eat heavy starchy carbs when it’s 35 degrees at dinner time? Note to self…next time, don’t buy potatoes!

We stripped the bed, and put all the dirty towels and laundry in a large bag to try and tidy the boat up. I’m sure some people charter and leave a mess behind, but as a matter of personal pride we wanted to leave it as clean as we could.

Stavros arrived shortly after 9 am and we talked about the trip and the boat and what a good time we had. He went through the boat and checked it out but surprisingly he did not bring a diver to check the bottom. When we chartered from Pireaus they dove each boat that returned to check for damage. Stavros said that boats suffer more damage in the Cyclades than here in the Ionian. We called the agent for Sailing in Blue who came down to meet us and have us fill out a questionnaire. He called Vangelis who was not able to be here to meet us, he is in Athens. They say they will destroy our deposit slip and apologize that it is in Athens and not here.

Stavros asks when we are leaving, we say today at 2:30. He won’t hear of us taking a taxi and says he will drive us. The luggage is put into the car and we stop at the Port Authorities to sign us off the boat and have the final papers stamped. He then stops at a pastry shop and buys us each a freshly baked tyropita (cheese pie) ….really yummy! We then stop at a cafe and he buys us each a cappuccino and we sit and discuss Greece history, politics, economics…. He asked if we drive and we said yes….he then wanted to give us his car to drive around but we declined, we felt that we were taking too much of his time and we were now imposing so we convinced him to take us to the airport early. On the way we got a great tour of the area. He pointed out the ancient Roman road between Lefkas and Aktion that is now mostly submerged. He showed us the canal that Cleopatra used to move her ships into Voulkaria Lake to hide them.

He asks us how long we are in Athens and suggests that we just jump on another plane and head for Mykonos or some other island for another month. We say we’d love to…but there would be no job for Kirk to come back to if we did. When he drops us off at the airport we thank him profusely, that was a long drive and would have been a fairly expensive taxi ride. We are very appreciative. He gave us his email address and asked us to send him photos of us and of the boat.

Our luggage is overweight for Olympic Airline, but we knew that before we left Canada. Unless one is flying international with them, the luggage allowance is very low. Although, we have somehow increased our weight slightly overall (with respect to luggage) even though we didn’t really buy anything to bring home with us. Apparently we did not do as good a job of allocating the heavy items into our shoulder packs as we did on our way here…the lack of a scale would be our problem. However, their overweight charges are nominal and again, we had already factored it in before we left Canada. We should be fine for our British Airways flights. We pass through security, are looked over from every angle …I have two boarding passes and Kirk has two passports and he forgets to pick his luggage up as we spin in circles…it’s a wonder they let us out. We’ve been on a boat too long! We visit the duty free shop, alcohol, perfume, cigarettes, stuffed animals, and more of the same ticky-tacky-touristy crap we have seen at every shop on every island. Everywhere we went we saw the exact same items with just the name of the island changed. Aprons, towels, plates, doormats….who buys this stuff?

We wait for our flight and they call one, somewhat unintelligibly, but we think they said Austria and Vienna. We look around the waiting room and there are five TV screens which one would think would have the flights listed…but they are all black. So typical of here. There are only ten flights out of this airport today, one to Athens….we hope we manage to figure out when we are called because it is immediate. They call, you look around, suddenly someone shows up at a door, they flash the few people through, shut the door, and it’s all over. Better act quick!

Everything runs on Greek time. The plane is supposed to board at 1415 – it’s 1420 and there is no plane here yet. The plane is supposed to depart at 1435….but there is no plane yet. I asked the security guy what gate we should go to, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said they would call it, but probably Gate 3…when I look around I realize why he looked at me like I was a bit daft…there are three gates…one has a podium in front of it, one has nothing and one has a row of chairs right across it. Ummm…looks like Gate 3 it is. 1425…still no plane….

It has been another wonderful adventure in Greece.

And now we are off to Athens, with a two hour layover, then to London and a few days in England for another, albeit much shorter, adventure.

On to England!

We had another lazy morning and spent most of it wondering how we were going to get off the dock in a relatively heavy head wind. We watched a couple of other boats do it a couple of different ways. One couple did what what we thought we’d end up doing. She yarded on the lazyline and he released the stern lines while she pulled forward, then she dropped the line and he powered out. Bit worrisome because that line needs to get below the prop before the prop reaches that point.

Method two involved releasing the lazyline first while holding powering the boat in forward, but still attached to the dock with the stern lines…when the lazyline was down the stern lines were released and the boat shot out while the stern lines were pulled into the water and then pulled aboard. This method looked better, but required four people working simultaneously…we only have two….not going to work.

Eventually though, we have lots of room and figure we can muddle our way out when Mind-the-gap-guy shows up at the dock and tells us he will help us get off. GREAT!! Kirk puts the boat in gear and I release the lazyline and call back when it is down. Mind-the-gap-guy then pulls the stern lines over the dock cleat and tosses them onto the boat allowing us to leap forward. Worked like a charm! We are off! What an amazing place and what amazing service when all they want from you is to eat and drink at their establishment in return….which was reasonably priced and had excellent food. We would recommend Porto Spilia Taverna to anyone!

Next on our agenda, and really the last thing we want to do other than sail, is to find Jackie O’s beach hut. And since it is us looking for it…an since it is on a very small island…we can be sure to not find it easily! We motor across and head for a white building where another sailboat has anchored off. We tuck in for a look and agree that this is not the same building in the photo, keep hunting. We have two directional options, we, of course, choose the wrong one. And we proceed to circumnavigate the entire island of Skorpios. We do pop into the main harbour for a looky-loo and then continue on….finally we round the last corner, literally metres from where we started, and we find it.

Last thing to do out here…is sail! We have a good wind and we hoist all the canvas…and we have a wonderful sail for several hours. We see Kanula in the distance, see them drop a hook in the bay off Skorpios. When they haul anchor we think they have gone the other way but we think we might cross paths as they are heading for Preveza today. Awhile later we did see them and we tacked and sailed across their bow and waved. The only place we had to go was Lefkas Marina….and that was only a short few miles away.

The sky was threatening all day, and the mountains were shrouded in grumpy looking clouds. The weather report for today did include thunderstorms and it does look as if they might arrive.

Eventually we pulled the sails in and headed for the Lefkas channel. We pulled up on Kanula and chatted a bit while underway before pulling ahead. They are running for the 3pm bridge opening. A boat flying a German flag was ahead of us and entering the channel (which is extremely narrow, perhaps only three to four boat widths wide in some places) wing-on-wing. So because they are under sail, they are a bit of a danger to maneuver around. They look back at us crankily that we are so close, but we have Kanula coming up our stern too. It’s extremely obnoxious to be in here under sail and they are not only hogging the channel, but they are holding boats up. Eventully they pull the jib, but they are having difficulty with the main because there is nowhere they can turn to get the wind out off the canvas. We get another dirty look and we glower back and shrug at them…they stupidly put themselves in the situation they are in. Eventually the three not steering manage to manhandle it in. During the transit they also can’t decide on a speed and keep altering their velocity which also makes things difficult. Twits!

As we continue on the channel we see large powerboat a few feet outside of the channel markers….firmly aground in the sand and silt. Twit! The markers are there for a reason. But it really makes you worry about getting close to the markers on the inside of them!

We wonder if Kanula will make the bridge, it only opens once per hour for a few moments depending on boat traffic. Apparently they are thinking the same as they pick up speed and pass both us and the obnoxious twits in front. We wave and call a final farewell and Sandra calls out that if they are ever in Canada they will call. We really hope they do, they are a fantastic couple and we thoroughly enjoyed their company.

We also pass the twits in the wing-on-wng boat as they can’t seem to manage to be consistent with their speed under power. We pull past them and turn into Lefkas Marina and stop at the fuel dock to top up the tank. 48 Euros does the trick. Our grand total for four weeks of boating is 147 Euros. Pretty good!

We pull off the fuel dock and head for the marina, the rain starts. How ironic that our last night in the Cyclades four years ago also ended with rain. We think perhaps it’s natures way of making leaving that little bit easier at the end of a wonderful trip. A fellow comes whizzing up in a small boat and gives us directions on where to dock. When we head down someone waves us into a spot and hands off the not-so-lazyline to me. This one goes a bot better except I have some water on my feet and as I step on the glossy varnished wood my foot shoots out and I smack my shin. Oh good, another bruise! The lazyline is slimy and disgusting and leaves much all over the boat as I walk it forward. So, a quick cleaning to get the gunge off Nikolas. We would be embarrassed to give the boat back in such condition.

Once safely docked, we watch the twits come down the same lane and the dockmaster tells them they are too long and they must go to another float on the other side. They proceed to argue with the dockmaster until they finally concede. As they are backing out they are not watching the lazylines of the docked boats and they cut one and set the bow loose on one. They look at it, and just keep going without saying anything. I see the dockmaster in his boat and wave him over and tell him what happened. He calls on his radio and a few minutes later there are three of them there sliding the boat over to another berth. They thank us several times and go chew out the twits.

We went for for a walk around Lefkas town, bought a bit of milk for the morning, had a drink and one last saganaki at a local cafe in the marina and observed the various injuries. He has a limp, she has a banaged foot, he has a bandaged finger…. we merely have a multitude of minor scrapes and bruises…and of course Kirk has his plethora of mosquito bites. We pack our things and listened to the rain, watched the flashes of lightning and listened to the booming thunder directly overhead and are glad we are tucked in snugly at the marina.

Well, that’s pretty much it. The Ionian was good to us, and we hope we have left a good Canadian impression behind. We met many wonderful people, saw some wonderful sights, and visited some spectacular areas. It’s hard to leave. On one hand, after a month home looks pretty good and we are ready. On the other hand, leaving is so difficult and we could spend another month easily. The month disappeared far too quickly for our taste.

Tomorrow Stavros arrives at 9 am and we will finalize things. We fly out of Preveza at 2:30-ish and into Athens, then out of Athens and on to England for a few short days.

The weather report for today is unsettled, mixed cloud and the possibility of thunderstorms. We don’t have far to go. Lefkada is only about 10 miles away and if we get another wind from the South as yesterday, we may be able to sail right up. We do plan to make a quick stop (float) off of Skorpios though.

We need to call Stavros and let him know we are coming in, we may meet him for dinner. We also need to call the marina when we get close and refill the fuel and get a berth for Nikolas.

Other than that, today we just sail and tonight we will need to pack and get ready to leave tomorrow.