Pilos

On the way to Pilos, we sailed past this!

Built by Harry Fournakis, a Greek boy made good in the US, came home and built this and a number of other equally bizarre embarrassments. Note the 35 foot statue of Poseidon's horse!

Pilos sits in the largest bay in Greece and the arrival is quite dramatic. Craggy cliffs and caves and an impressive fort guarding the entrance. It is a town with a plenty of evidence that the French were involved in its evolution.

The marina is a tip, full of redundant boats and fishing trawlers leaving very little room for yachts. Luckily there was room enough on the town quay for us to go alongside. This is the only place to get water so Kostas, the guy who is responsible for dolling it out was doubtful when we said we were planning to stay for three or four days.

We dug in, made friends with him, and only moved the boat down the wharf a touch to allow others to come in and fill up and only then because we got bumped by an incompetent Frenchman from whom an apology was difficult to extract making a bollocking easier to deliver.






Bikes off and the kids made friends almost immediately. A Greek American family has a house in Pilos which they visit in the Summer break. The kids spent their days building forts in the mole, swimming and chilling at their house.

We were invited for dinner of home cooked lemon chicken and potatoes which was, needless to say, delicious. We had them over the following evening for home cooked pork fillet and ratatouille.... Which was, needless to say, delicious. It did make a change from a Greek taverna.... We have been in Greece since early April, so say roughly 100 days, times and average of 2 tavernas per day.... That's a lot of Greek salad!

The fort was indeed impressive and we finally got to understand the real reason for the nondescript piles of rubble no longer resembling the placard description beside them.... The towns that have sprung up around the fort have been using the readily available building material to build the town!







On the 15th July, we cast off at 8:05am! That, for us was the earliest yet but we wanted to dive on an exposed wreck in the north of the bay en route to Koroni before the predicted wind came up. It is always beautiful motoring on glass first thing in the morning. The sun already has some bite by then so a swim is always welcome.... the wreck? not something to write home about, so I won't.