(or ‘Traipsing down mainland Greece…’)
After leaving Zakynthos (Zante to give it its Italian name), our first port of call on the Greek mainland was Katakolon. According to Heikell, our pilot guide, the harbour was built in 1875 to support the thriving trade in currants. Zante currants (or Corinthian raisins) are made from small-size juicy grapes. The first written record of these currants was made by Pliny the Elder (who perished rescuing a friend from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius). They were later traded between the Venetians and Greek producers in the Ionian, and sold to the UK as “Reysyns de Courauntz” (Raisins of Corinth). That name became corrupted, and today we know them as currants.
Katakolon has a very shallow harbour for visiting yachts, and we were a little concerned whether we would get in without touching the bottom. Missy Bear has a draft of 2.2m (the depth of the bottom of the keel below the water line). And we like a good clearance of 50 cm under that. We rang the harbour master (unusual for a Greek port to have one). He told us that he wasn’t there but to anchor up just inside the harbour, and he’d come by at about 6pm.
The afternoon passed pleasantly, when, suddenly, yacht ‘Blue Eyes’ appeared at the harbour entrance, roared past us, and did a handbrake turn to park stern-to against the harbour wall. I was impressed – she is bigger than us, and had stormed in with confidence compared with Missy Bear’s uneasy crawl into the harbour.
As we gazed on, a second yacht (‘Blue Bear’) entered the harbour. A car on the quayside flashed its headlights. R thought it was at him, but the new skipper proceeded to head towards the car and to park up with the car driver taking his lines.
“Richard, Richard” I said, “that must be the harbour master on the shore, let’s ring him”. The man on the quay did not pull out his mobile phone and take the call, but the harbour master did answer. He asked, “Is it a fat man in a silver car?”.
We confirmed that it was, and were told that he also worked there and would help us in.
If I’m honest, Richard would have preferred to stay at anchor: we’d got the dinghy afloat, the engine on it. And now we had to put fenders out, tie-on the mooring lines etc. But I shut my ears to the low-level grumbling, and in we went to park.
Tied-up, we then did a few boaty chores, and I emerged up top to find a boat coming in next to us, with the evocative name of ‘Money Penny’. A rather rare yacht [Ed – a Dufour 43 centre cockpit], she flew the Red Ensign (so the boat was British), the Cruising Association pennant (so hopefully like-minded yachties), and best of all, sported a large Red Dragon flag (so someone on board was Welsh.) And so, Judith and Al entered our boating adventure.
We got chatting to them and agreed to hire a car and visit Olympia the next day. Richard and I had been here before, many years ago, but didn’t really remember a lot about the site. The main temple was dedicated to the king of the gods, Zeus, and the statue of Zeus in the temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. An excellent app allows you to use your phone to visualise the buildings in all their glory. And below is the screen shot I took of the statue from the app.
Apparently it was over 12m tall. Down from the great and mighty Zeus, there were also statues that lined the walkways with the names inscribed on the plinths, of athletes who had been caught cheating. This resulted not only in a very public name-and-shame, but a lifelong ban on competing.
From Katakolon, Missy Bear and her new friend Money Penny sailed down the coast to Kipirrisia. Money Penny got there first, and Al and Judith kindly took our lines for us as we parked alongside the inner quay. A little later, Blue Eyes also appeared.
The town of Kipirrisia itself is uphill from the harbour (well, it would be, wouldn’t it?) and it was a pleasant enough place to stay over the Greek Orthodox Easter weekend. Many people would walk down the quayside, and a couple with two small boys stopped to chat to me. Next morning, they returned with their parents (she spoke good English) and carrying bulging bags containing gifts for us. There was Tsoureki - a Greek brioche-style Easter bread, with a boiled egg dyed red to represent the blood of Christ; some eggs from their own chickens; some lemons from their own tree; and also a bottle of wine from her grandfather’s vineyard. Now Virgil may have written the line, “I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts”, referring to the Trojan Horse left at the gates of Troy, but I was overwhelmed by their kindness.
The great spectacle at Kipirrisia though had to be the turtle in the harbour. Al and Judith had seen it earlier. Now, as the four of us walked towards the town, Richard saw it. And finally, I saw it although it had rather a humped back! Richard, who has a biology degree, kindly explained in words of one syllable that this was actually two turtles, one on top of each other. Oh. We all stood and watched them for a while, practising our David Attenborough impersonations.
By now, Missy Bear, Money Penny and Blue Eyes were all firm friends. Daniel, a lovely Belgian guy sailing solo on Blue Eyes invited us on board for drinks, and we also had dinner together one evening. All three boats were heading down to the same bay at Pylos to anchor up, so off we went.
We visited Pylos back in 2004 on our post-flotilla road trip, but sadly we didn’t get the chance to visit the town this time. Pylos Bay is enormous, and we decided to anchor midway along, near the village of Yialova [Ed – sounds Slavic, doesn’t it]. This made it easy to flub ashore, and from there, we could walk a few km along to - you’ve guessed it - a castle on top of a steep hill!
But the walk up was beautiful. Greece at this time of year is full of wildflowers, and the sea bay borders on a brackish lagoon which is a nature reserve. Stunning scenery.
Blue Eyes had left us at this point, but when we got back to the village we called Al and Judith to come ashore for cold drinks.
Our final stop with Money Penny was Methoni, where we all visited the Venetian fort. An old friend of Judith’s (Wendy) had arrived in Pylos to sail with Money Penny for a couple of weeks. And the next morning the three of them glided off for a longer sail across to the next (middle) finger of the Peloponnese, while we sailed around the corner to Koroni.
We had planned to stay two nights at anchor at Koroni, but we woke up on the second morning to grey, overcast skies, and decided to make our way to Kalamata marina. We had already planned to sit out there to avoid the next bout of high winds around the southern capes of the Peloponnese. Everyone is commenting how unstable the weather is, and that by now it should be warmer, with blue skies all of the time, and lovely sailing winds. Not the howling banshee that’s been whistling around our rigging.
We’ve been longer than intended in Kalamata, thanks to another boiled battery. But Richard got the electrician to change the battery charger and change the program settings, and we’ve really enjoyed our stay here. Today R and I walked up to Kalamata’s huge open-air farmers’ market at the other end of the town. It has fabulous produce such as artichokes, horta, peppers, broad beans, olives etc. But best of all was the woman who had her pet duck with her, with a little knitted collar on.
Touch wood, Missy Bear is now better, and the weather has stabilised. Tomorrow, we plan to head set out on our four- or five-day trip around the next two capes. We may even risk a swim enroute. If you hear some screaming – it will be me!
P.S. You may be asking what this blog has to do with Jack Duckworth? Just after we arrived in Kalamata, I stretched my legs out on the cockpit bench, not realising that my sunglasses were there. This is the repair job…
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