Fiskardo to Ay Eufimia - Cephelona

Once we'd had our fill of Fiscardo it was time to move on. Strangely you always know when it is time to move on though sometimes it is more difficult because each move engenders a minor culture shock. Each place, although similar in that there are other boats, a wall, tavernas, supermarkets and bars, always feel to be fundamentally different.

Eufemia is no exception. From a chaotic but lively Fiscardo, where for the first time we received a polite invitation from a rather fetching female port police officer to pop by and check in, to Eufemia where we were met at the dock by a waving, directing portly port captain who directed us at first by hand signals, and once within earshot, by voice into our designated parking spot. He issued instructions as to how exactly we should maneuver our boat and it was quite obvious that his instructions started with the lowest common 'sailing skills' denominator. I did not take offence and we got onto the wall without fuss although our anchor chain was off at a slight angle which can lead to crossed chains which is a bore.

The wall in Eufemia is long, straight and very well organised. Water, power, shiny stainless steel hoops that don't rust stain your mooring lines and a bill which includes a 30% surcharge for catamarans....

All up 30Euro a day which is good value.

Docked, set, bikes off, kids gone!

For the first time in a while we had managed to get the sails up and sailed all the way to Eufimia. This was doubly enjoyable because we had guests to enjoy it with us and crew to help. We did learn that this is not always a good thing...

We know what we're doing, we forget that they don't, the delegation process was half arsed and then we forget what we're doing..... don't we Sal?

Sal was to show Deborah how she distributes the chain as it is her favorite job. We've untied and Beat is ensuring that we are going straight out avoiding all the obstacles we missed on the way in. I have the chain coming is at a rate of knots from the helm and I notice Sally leaning over the front of the boat, coffee in hand showing Deborah.... something?

"Uh Sal, the chain?"



"Oh (insert your choice of expletive here)" says Sal as she dives for the chamber and frantically starts distributing the incoming chain before it jams.

Luca on the port pulpit in full sail

No harm done, we exit the harbour, turn the Summer Amy into the wind and raise the mainsail.... Well, we try to. This time it was my turn. Totally forgot to release the line that brings the sail down when your done with it which could have resulted is a lot of broken things, specially with very powerful electronic winches.

My error was picked up by Sal before anything broke, but these little cockups were not exactly confidence inspiring for our guests specially as we dueled for the best excuses and finally blamed them!

As we reached Eufemia I started the usual pre-arrival instructions like "can we put the fenders out"....

Oh, don't worry, we forgot to bring them in!




After we had docked and were set, I wanted to move the boat along the quay a notch to straighten our anchor chain. No need to bring it in, simply undo a line or two and slowly use the rather stiff cross wind to blow us slowly along the quay.

No way we could do this without the permission of afforementioned Port Captain but there were quite a few boats coming in so we had to wait.

I gave them a hand with the incoming boats and started to develop a good relationship with them. They were jovial cads, charming all the female occupants of incoming yachts and gratefully accepting bottles of wine for their services. Once they were done, they came to give me a hand. The cross wind was pretty strong, so this was to be a delicate operation but they did see the necessity and competently got to work, once again issuing clear instructions but this time not quite at the lowest denominator for which I felt complimented.

The final move was to take a line up to a winch which had the power to straighten the boat in the cross wind, but this had to be done quickly. They wrapped the line around the bollard on the dock and tossed it back to me, I grabbed it turned to get up to the helm and stepped straight into an open hatch.

Ouch! What was that I was saying about the common denominator?

Nothing broken but excruciating having to continue straight on with the task or lose the boat!

Some special anesthetic by the glass required...
and another good thing about having guests, they bring new movies for the kids!

Electronic babysitting, home schooling by another name, allows mum's and dad's to do a little home schooling of their own, sans kids.

Beat took the kids off to explore the place, mainly to find somewhere suitable to swim. The harbours themselves are seldom suitable for swimming as they are enclosed and the water is always a little off colour, the reasons for which having been covered before...

In Luca's words they discovered 'paradise'.

A natural rock slide.

An absolutely beautiful spot a five minute walk away. Deep, crystal clear water. Rocks of varying heights to launch from. Each one more and more daring and more and more thrilling for the squealing kids as peer pressure drove them ever higher.

Just try prying them away from this in 40 degrees.

We did need to be in Agostoli, a 35 nautical mile sail away and the island's airport by Wednesday evening, there were other places to see before we got there, so, sadly we did pry the kids away and moved on.