An Evening in S.Mourtos

It was another beautiful evening and after a glass of wine sitting on deck we get ready to go out. Every evening has been really casual on this trip, wearing a t-shirt and shorts actually feels like getting dressed up after spending the day in your swimmers.

We head down to the taverna, part of a villa complex, for dinner and decide to have a cocktail or two before eating. I enjoyed a coupled of martini’s and Colin stuck with the Greek beer, Mythos.

The beach front terrace was lovely and looked to be filled with fellow sailors from our flotilla. We ordered a broccoli and cheese pie and baked feta wrapped in filo pastry with honey and sesame seeds, both were delicious and I’m definitely going to try and recreate the baked feta back home. Cheese appears to be predominate ingredient in Greece, although I did speak to a lady who was dairy intolerant and she said she’d managed to avoid it ok during her trip.

I opted for chicken with mushroom sauce and Colin went for fillet steak, medium rare. Unfortunately the steak wasn’t up to much and we ended up sharing my chicken which was really tasty. Both dinners came with chips and both commented we should have asked for salad and actually could have just had the starters with a Greek salad, it would have been more than adequate.

They bought us water melon for dessert whilst we enjoyed the sun setting behind the hills. The sky turned a beautiful pink giving an ideal photo opportunity of our yachts looking pretty in the bay. We finished dinner about 10pm, just after the sun had set.

All this sun and sailing makes you super tired so we headed back to the yacht for coffee on deck before going below to sleep.

Looking back at the restaurant from our yacht

We are now sailors

Yep, we are now sailors! Well, we’ve done one day sailing, and I think we did pretty good for newbies.

Today started early. Colin’s alarm went of at 3am, not impressed ! Forgot to cancel it after our early morning for the airport run the day before.

I needed up sitting out on deck at 5.30am as I couldn’t sleep waiting for the harbour to spring into life. First briefing wasn’t due till 9.30 so I was a tad impatient.

Once Colin was finally up we did a food shop and stopped off for an amazing breakfast in a water side cafe. Mine was chia seed, spinach and feta omelette and Colin’s was Greek yogurt and fruit, both were amazing.

Next stop was the morning briefing where Tilly, Benjo and Yorkie, our lead boat crew, explained to us what’s going to happen this week and where we’re heading.

Next was 2 more briefings including lots of important stuff, how to lower the anchor (crucial for stopping in the beautiful bays), how to start the engine (even more crucial for getting out to sea), what all those ropes are for (still can’t get a grip with which is for what) and how to empty the toilet out at sea (not sure what I thought happened to all that but wasn’t expecting to empty it out in the ocean).

We are having a skipper on board for 2 days to get us up and running, his name is Henry. Looks really young, as do all the staff, but then must admit what a great life for youngsters to be sailing round the Ionian Sea all summer. Wish I’d known about jobs like that when I was younger.

Straight after our briefings we got underway, we were first off the dock, raring to go. We headed straight out of the bay and eagerly put the sails up, turned the engine off and ………. stopped ! Moved the sails around to try and catch the wind and …….. waited. Yep, you got it, no WIND ! We kind of moved along slowly with anticipation that this big gust of wind was going to catch our sail and move us swiftly along but after watching the other flotilla boats motor on by we decided to switch to motor for a while. We sailed up the side of Lefkas and passed Meganisi out into open water where we did finally get the sails up and catch some wind.

We spent the next couple of hours heading North, did a bit of tacking (zig zagging to you and me) and arrived at a really beautiful spot called Goat Bay. This was the perfect stop to teach us how to drop anchor. We spent the next hour or so swimming and lunching. Baguettes for the boys and a Greek salad for me that one of the restaurants kindly made me for a takeaway.

We headed back to Meganisi where we were meeting up with the rest of our flotilla in Little Port Vathi.

Getting settled in

This boat of ours, named “Filiata”, a Bateau 323, is snug to say the least. Built to sleep up to 6 people but I recon 2 adults is comfortable.

That is by no way a complaint though, I’m already in love with my new home for the week and feel that getting back to basics is a far greater experience that staying in some 5 star hotel. Already pestering Colin as to when we can come back !

So, we packed light but already realising we should have gone lighter. Storage is not the boats best feature and luckily we have a spare bedroom to leave our bags so looks like living out of a hold-all is the way to go.

We have a cute little kitchen with a gas stove and a fridge that you access through the worktop. We’ve filled it with frozen bottles of water to keep the beer and wine cold as not sure it’s gonna get anywhere near cold enough on its own.

I guess you should be impressed with how they get a functional bathroom in here, although it’s far from conventional with a sit down shower and a loo you have to pump. Instructions – “flip the switch, pump 15 times, flip the switch, pump 15 times”. I think I’ll be seeking bathroom facilities on shore, although from what I’ve seen so far that’s what most people do and the tavernas all seem to have shower facilities, which they offer free if you eat with them.

Now I don’t like enclosed spaces, been known to walk many flights of stairs rather than get in a lift, so the sleeping arrangements was my biggest worry. Yes, it’s a small room at the stern of the boat with a pretty low ceiling but actually quite spacious. Making the beds was a mission and I left that to Colin, he likened it to crawling around in a loft on one of his house projects.

The salon is spacious with plenty of seating for the 2 of us but it’s so hot down there that I’ll be sticking to the back deck of the boat.

We’ve opted for 2 extras for our trip, Stand up paddle board (SUP) for me and and outboard motor for the dinghy, for Colin.

Looking forward to sharing our adventures on Filiata ⛵️