Corfu, Paxos & Levkas September 25 - 29, 2001 Corfu is a pleasant place, with combinations of the old narrow town streets, market stalls, small cobblestone squares, ancient fortresses, old town docks lined with grungy fishing boats, derelict tour boats, modern glass bottomed sightseeing craft, and cruising boats such as ours from many countries of Europe. It also has larger, well kept parks, including an active cricket pitch alongside the Liston Promenade, large tourist hotels, internet cafes, bars and tavernas with loud music, tourist shops, sightseeing trains, and a McDonalds. The cricket pitch is the only one in Greece, a leftover from the British protectorate (after the Napoleonic wars, and to prevent Turkish domination) period of 1815 until 1864, when Corfu and the other Ionian Islands were returned to Greece. This period provided other British links with Greece. One of the stops for the sightseeing trains was Mon Repos Villa and its beautiful wooded grounds. This was the birthplace of Phillip Mountbatten, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband. He in turn was a grandson of the former Greek King Constantine. The royal families of Europe had a considerable amount of intermarriage. Prince Philip's great grandmother was Princess Alice, one of Queen Victoria's daughters. Prince Philip's earlier family name was Battenberg, from the Saxony /Hessse area of Germany, and was changed to Mountbatten because of WW I. Similarly Queen Elizabeth's family name was changed because of its German links in 1917 from The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to the present House of Windsor. Another attraction north of Corfu is Kalami, where the White House of the Durrell brothers, now a restaurant, overlooks the water's edge. The brothers, born in India during the British Raj, made their names after coming to Corfu in the 1930's. Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) was a writer known for, among other novels, a Greek trilogy covering Greek events from 1938 in Corfu in Prospero's Cell, up to the third book, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, during the Cypriot insurgency in 1957. His younger brother Gerald (1925-1995) was a noted conservationist who established the world renowned Jersey Zoo on Jersey in the Channel Islands. We visited that zoo when we were there last fall (2000), and particularly enjoyed the wide open spaces allowing the animals to roam in conditions approximating their natural habitat. The zoo is also noted for its research and programs involving breeding of endangered species. It set the standard for many modern zoos. Judy read his book, My Family and Other Animals, a very humorous portrayal of his boyhood in Corfu, when she was a child. She had to re-read it while we were in the area, appreciating the island, environment and setting in which it took place. She has found his other books delightful as well.  This is another joy of our travels, visiting the actual places of things we have heard about, learned about, read about, and about which we have had a curiosity or interest. Such travels allow us to revisit, bring alive, and bathe in the literature, history and developments of mankind in which we have been interested during our lifetime. It could be anything from the ancient ruins of a bygone era such as Stonehenge or Olympia; a genuine artifact in a small-town museum such as an old school picture or a dress of the type worn by the local women, in a world famous museum such as the Mona Lisa in the Louvre; or just an empty stretch of water in which a naval battle took place such as around Malta, Navarino or Cape Matapan. We are thankful to be able to have this opportunity. It is one of the reasons I enjoy writing up these logs, to give thanks, to share our experiences, and to encourage people to follow their dreams.  We left Corfu at 0950 on the 25th, arriving at Gaios on Paxos after a 30 mile motor at 1700. Actually we were able to motor sail for a couple of hours, but the rest of the trip was motoring through nonexistent or light winds. Things were so calm, we stopped at noon for half an hour and went in for a swim. We went bows to at the town dock (39 11.8N, 020 11.2E) at a pleasant stretch of tavernas, boutiques, wine shops and olive oil merchants. We bought five litres of Paxos olive oil, reputed to be of very high quality and the only oil carried by Harrod's of London. We also shared an enjoyable capuchino coffee in a local taverna in the town square with Bengt and Annika from the Swedish boat Flavia, whom we met in Dubrovnik and again in Corfu. We enjoyed the local museum displaying domestic life in Paxos over the past 200 years.  Mediterranean mooring at the town docks along bustling streets with shops and tavernas is a common procedure in many Greek Islands. There is usually no charge for such, but in most cases, boats have to use their own anchors as no "lazy" lines are provided to hold the boats off. That is why we have taken our lighter 25 pound CQR bow anchor and rigged it for a stern anchor. Most boats go in stern to, and use their bow anchor to hold them off. In Veleda, we can't do this as we have our dinghytow system on our stern, and thus have to go in bows to the dock. However when we came to leave next day, I was having a heavy time trying to haul the anchor up as we backed off the wall. Another boat had dropped his anchor over our anchor cable, and I was hauling his cable up as well as ours! What a gut busting job! I haul our anchor by hand, and do not use our manual windlass (but that's another story). I was not happy.  However, we got off and headed down to Levkas, the largest of the Ionian Islands. The Ionian Sea is that body of water immediately south of the Adriatic Sea that separates Italy from Croatia. It forms the western seaboard of Greece right around the Peloponnisos until it merges with the Aegean Sea which in turn starts from Crete up the east coast of the Peloponnisos, up to the north coast of Greece and the Dardanelles, and down the west coast of Turkey to Rhodes. The islands in the Ionian Sea are called the Ionian Islands. However the islands in the Aegean Sea are referred to in several groupings such as the Cyclades, Dodocanese, Sporades, and the North Eastern Aegean. I will describe these as we pass through them. The trip to Levkas allowed us to actually sail for a whole 20 minutes until the wind died to force 1 or 2, when we motored the rest of the way. Approaching Levkas, the wind picked up to a lively northwest force 5, as we had to negotiate around a sand spit to get into Levkas channel and wait for the 1700 bridge opening to get into Levkas town, or Levkada as it is called. Levkas is separated from the mainland by a sandspit guarded by the imposing walls of the fort Santa Maura, first built in the 1300's, and a three mile canal, originally built by the Corinthians around the 7th century BC, and spanning flat salt marshes. The sandspit is bridged by an interesting barge that straddles the canal through it. The barge has drawbridge type ramps at each end, and craft such as ours are permitted to pass through on the hour, by the ramp on the seaward side elevating to permit passage. For larger vessels, the ramp lifted does not provide sufficient space, and so the whole barge pivots towards the landward side giving a larger passageway on the seaward side. This barge arrangement is favoured by Levkas as it allows it still to be defined as an island. If there were a traditional land bridge, whether it was a high fixed or an opening bridge, Levkas would be defined as part of the mainland (as is the Peloponnisos), and as a result lose subsidies granted to islands by the EU because of their island status. Thus the barge bridge allows Levkas to be considered an island. We moored bows to at the town docks (38 50.0N, 020 42.7E) by 1720, to be greeted shortly later by Bill and Jean from Soleil Sans Fin. We were also opposite Contract Yacht Services, whom we used for a mail drop and to whom we had arranged to have our replacement Plastimo stove sent. The arrangements were made from Malta last July, to replace our defective but supposedly repaired new Plastimo Pacific 3000 originally purchased in April while we were in Mallorca. It was supposed to have been delivered to Levkas the first week of Sept. It had not arrived yet! I will tell the saga of our poor service from Plastimo in a later log.
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