It's now the 2nd of June, and have been unable to get online decently to keep writing on a daily basis, but I am trying to keep notes so that I don't forget things!

                                            
   Sitting in Porto Kayio on the evening of the 26th ( I think) we had been looking at the wind and the general weather for the next couple of days, and made a quick decision to leave Porto Kayio that evening and do a night sail to Monemvasia, which is a good ten hours sail. The evening was calm with little wind, and the wind was going to be wrong the next day anyway, so one way or another we would have to motor. Tom had slept a lot during the day, so I reckoned he could do most of the night, whereas I had swum and kayaked a lot, and knew I would need to sleep, plus, he stays awake most nights anyway!!!! So decision made we upped anchor and set off. It was a very calm night, and the sea was like a mill pond, with very little swell. We knew we had to watch for traffic, as thee is a pretty main shipping line that goes North of Kithira in the gap between Kithira and the mainland, so we stayed pretty north of that. Tom did say it was actually quite exciting as there were ships all over the place, and smaller fishing vessel too that didn't show up on the radar, so he had to really keep watch. The dogs slept the whole journey, so it was better for them. I slept on and off around two hours at a time, and then around 6.00am we came to Monemvasia. Popped in alongside the key happily and felt very comfy.
  What a magnificent place, the rock of Monemvasia reaching up out of the sea, and the little fortified town all but hidden as the stone and tiles of the houses blended in with the rock. We spenta couple of days here, wandering and exploring, walked up the original path to the upper town and battlements, but sadly were not allowed up to the top to the church of Agh Sofia as they were undergoing renovations. It was still well worth the walk for the view though. This is a must visit place, really magical. What made it even more special were the turtles in the harbour, they would come in mid day to get tid bits from the fishermen, then leave again in the evenings. We saw three at one point and they were playing together.

Tom at Monemvasia

Looking down over the town.

Cat alley.

    

Sadly time to move on, though I really loved it here. Next stop is a little harbour called Leonidon, or Plaka a bit further up the coast, A fairly  nondescript place, with two main tavernas that both vie for your custom. A sailing holidays flotilla came in just after us, so there was plenty of entertainment, and met some nice people. We sat in on their morning meeting, and heard all about the wind expected that day. We needed to get two new batteries, so thought we would go to Port Kheli, as we thought there would probably be more chance finding them there.
  A force six to seven was due to come in from the South East, which was fine for a sail to Kheli, but when we got there there was actually no space, and being at anchor in the middle of the bay would not have been very easy with the battery situation. So we decided to leave, head into the wind and go to Spetses.

29^th 30^th May Spetses.  Big winds, found the bay and quay not as Mr Heikell syas in his book!! No where to park so to speak, Tom had, the not so brilliant idea of tying up along side a big old ship, well, I suppose it was pretty solid and not going anywhere, but the wind was howling and pushing us up hard against it, so after having all the fenders turned orange from the hull of the ship, we gave up on that one and anchored in the bay. I was not that happy about it all, the wind was so strong and there was a pretty big swell coming in to the bay so we were all over the shop. Eventually the wind changed a bit, though not much less, and we managed to get a rope ashore for extra safety and to keep us straight. A very tiring evening and night, very little sleep. Spetses itself is lovely, a lot of roads with no cars so good for the dogs. The next morning the wind had dropped considerably and the sun was shining so I sat at the back of the boat and proceeded to scrub all the fenders to get the orange off them. We went ashore for a walk, and walked towards the fishing harbour, there were a couple of yachts in there, one, preparing to leave, so we reckoned it would be a good chance for us to move there. We had found the batteries that we needed as well, and this would make getting them onto the boat much simpler. So back to the boat, up anchor, and as we went towards the fishing harbour, the other yacht that we saw was also leaving. Yay. At one point we were told we may have to leave around six pm as a big super yacht, stink pot was coming in, but luckily there was space, and we stayed where we were and it came in beside us. That evening there was a big posh wedding party at a taverna just along from us, looked like all the models and beautiful people from the States were there!! Great people watching evening. Next morning early departure for Hydra.

Sitting in Porto Kayio in Mani, a beautiful quiet bay, that looks protected but when the wind blows as it did last night it can be pretty blowy to say the least. We sailed down yesterday from Pilos in Ormos Navarinou, where in 1827 a British commander defeated the Turkish and Egyptian fleet with almost half the number of ships to theirs. I had a rather unpleasant experience in the morning there though whilst taking Jesse for a walk up to the fortress. I walked into a series of huge spiders webs, and disturbed a couple of indignant rather large spiders, that I don't think were too pleased with me, judging by their expressions...I was looking at them that close!!! Any way as I said we left there yesterday, and with no wind set off for the Southern most part of Europe, although apparently Gibraltar beats it by about 14 miles. A way down the the coast of Mani the wind came up perfectly so we had a wonderful sail, but we needed to tack to change direction at the bottom of the cape to go up the other side to Porto Kayio. We knew the wind would be stronger at this point, but I was not quite prepared for how strong, well, I wanted to sail, and this was the most extreme sailing I have ever done, we did have too much sail out, so ended up trimming three times, the wind was probably a force 7 and we were doing a good 8.8 knots, heeled over till the sea almost came over the toe rail...in other words really tipping over, certainly makes the adrenalin pump!!!!! Eventually we had to give up on the sails as it really was just too much wind, the sea was spraying right up and over the boat as well, and of course I hadn't closed all the hatches...another lesson learned...whatever you think the weather is going to be, always close hatches before you set off, every day I am learning so much, and my check list of things to do before we set sail is getting longer every day. But yes, I am enjoying every moment of it.
 Perfect sunrise this morning and the perfect early morning swim off the boat as Tom took the dogs ashore for their morning walk. We met up with Tessa and Tony here as well, which has been lovely, they have come from Crete with their yacht Little Roundtop, and they are heading to Cephalonia, so basically doing the route that we have just done, they also keep a blog at tntatsea.wordpress.com  .

                                                        Early morning in Katakolon.

                                                              Lush green. Katakolon.

                                                         The dogs at the railway station.  

                                                     Silfrania in the early morning sun.

Katakolon...built in 1875 for the then thriving currant trade. Now used by small cargo ships and cruise ships as their base for visiting Olympia. It is a bay backed by lush, almost tropical forest, below which the rusty and overgrown train track runs. A huge car park lies between the tracks and the sea,space for the many tour coaches waiting to pick up their cruise ship punters, and transport them to Olympia. I string of bars and restaurants runs off along the sea to the left as one looks at the bay, and a long sandy beach to the right. We have decided to visit Olympia tomorrow, as the weather is supposed to be better, then leave here for Kiparissia on Wednesday, apparently the train is supposed to arrive here around 12.00 or 12.30, or even 1.00pm, couldn't really find out what time, or even if it returns, as I haven't seen a train as yet!!

Jesse's Journey.
   She stirred and sniffed the air
   A thousand scents.
   Land, once more and somewhere new
   A thousand smells.
   Come on come on
   Impatient to run
   To explore and sniff some more.

Rain, Rain, go away, just come back another day! Well it's been non stop today. I haven't managed to get on line since Fiskardo, so a quick catch up.....left Fiskardo and headed south to a little port called Poros, although not so quiet, as two ferries come in on a fairly regular basis, and then the cars and truck are endless, I was constantly worried for the dogs with the road, mind you they are so good, and seem to be developing some road sense...funny really what we need in a port of call, quiet, plenty of green areas for the dogs to run, no cars, good wi fi signal...preferably that we can get on the boat, and a good cheap bar/taverna...not much to ask really!
 Met a fellow Amel, Supermaramou owner there, Johanne, he was going to be sailing to Sicily in company with two other yachts moored there, just as well really as he had had a fall on the quay and had his arm all bandaged up, and his leg too. There was a lovely bar there, that someone had used a lot of imagination on the design as it ran between existing rock outcrops, down to the sea, and with a stunning view.
  Next stop after Poros was the crossing to Zankinthos, or Zante, to what I believe is the main port there, I was not really looking forward to being in the port of a big town, but needed to find supplies...mainly dog food!! Anyway it turned out to be rather a nice town, with lots of pedestrian areas, and a couple of very buzzing bars full of young people in the evening....we avoided those...not because we are not young any more, but the dogs didn't like the music!
  Provisioned up this morning after waking to a grey and rainy day, typical when we had spent the previous afternoon in glorious sunshine washing the boat down. Anyway we set off around 10.00am in the rain, heading for Katakolon, which is across on the mainland. Even though it was a bit cold and rained continuously we had a perfect sail, 7.8 knots, and a friendly sea, we even thought we may head further South to Kiparissia, but the wind was due to change, and it would have been another 5 hours, even with the wind in the right direction, plus we thought it would be rather nice to get a train from Katakolon to Olympia, the dogs have never been on a train before!
  Moored safely,  still raining, and completely grey and misty, so we are having a beer while we consider what to do!!

This is a draft I had written that must have got lost in the realms of wi fi land, so a bit out of time but publishing it anyway....Kalamos to Fiskardo...........Having got up at six am, walked the dogs, taken the rubbish, then had an orange juice at Georges, we were ready to leave Kalamos, the weather looked good and winds forecast should give us a good sail to Cephalonia. Tom and I were aware that Clem and Paul, moored next to us had gone out in their dinghy last night in the dark and dropped an extra anchor, but we were still not prepared fro said anchor, or rather, rope to get tangled in our bow thruster, and also over our chain as we left, Paul came out in the dinghy and managed to get all untangled, as I sat at the helm then on Tom's instructions maneuvered us out of the harbour. All good fun, this sailing lark...never a dull moment!

  Calm at last, but no wind so we motored for the first couple of hours, as we turned towards Cephalonia, we were fairly tight into the wind, but still managed to have a good sail with 6 knots on the clock until we were too close for comfort to Ithaka's rocky coast line, and we had to start engines again.  Came into Fiskardo to see that there were a fair number of yachts already there, but there were a couple of spaces on the town quay, so we dropped anchor and proceeded to go stern to. As we got closer, I saw there were police cones there, and then a man came out and told me that we couldn't go there as the police would move us. So we sort of circled around looking for a place to go, meanwhile ferries came and went and came again,  We eventually went stern to on the end of the South quay, but we were not happy there, so whilst Tom had lunch in a nearby restaurant I walked round the key to find out what all the cones were about. I went to the Port Police, where a delightful young man, who looked like he shouldn't be out of nappies, told me they were expecting a big day trip boat that would be staying the night, he then said that we could go on the ferry quay as soon as the ferry left, so that is what we did, meanwhile another two boats had parked in the no parking zone, though I did tell them they would probably be moved at some point. Low and behold, out came the young port policeman, and then they all wanted to squeeze in beside us, which they did, so we are all very cosy now!!

After saying in my last post that we were not plotting a course, and that there would be fair winds, we set off from Spartahori, in beautiful sunshine, spotted one lone dolphin, and thought we would have a lovely relaxing sail to Kalamos. After rounding the East side of Kalamos the wind suddenly went crazy, and totally took us by surprise, huge gusts of up to 45 knots, tipping Silfrania this way and that, and flipping the dinghy over, though luckily with no rib attached. We were within view of Porto Kalamos, so we thought that was our best bet, as long as it was more sheltered there. The wind must have changed direction what seemed like every ten minutes, battering us and churning up the sea into a very messy concoction of waves. Luckily it was more sheltered within the harbor, so after instruction and guidance from George ( he owns the restaurant there, and always guides everyone into the harbor) we moored safely and I must say with some relief. Although a dear ( older) man on a little classic yacht next to us was surprised when I said it had been lucky we had had no sails up at the time the wind came...what?, he said, you weren't sailing? He made me feel a bit of a wimp!! His name is Clem,  and we spent a lovely evening in our cockpit yapping and downing Amaretto's and his whisky. He exclaimed that he thought he would pop out the next day to buy himself an Amel, and said, much to Tom'd delight, that Silfrania was the creme de la creme and the Rolls Royce of yachts. He brought his wife Roz on boarde today for a look round, plus everyone from the yachet next to them. Clem's little yacht is a sort of time share deal with a friend and they keep it in Nidri in Lefkada. What a delightful couple
   Today the weather was much the same, with gusts of 45 then 37 all morning, our bollard that our stern line was tied to snapped in half...Greek concrete!!!! Just hoping all the others on the key hold with more wind we are expecting tonight. An early night tonight, and weather permitting, which we think it will be fine, we will be off to Fiskardo in Cephalonia tomorrow.