Sunday 14th September

Be and my big mouth......  Sarah and her predictions.......

No sooner had I pressed 'send' last night to waft the day's blog off into the ether waxing lyrical about the peace and solitude here in Vlikho bay, than one of the tavernas along the far shoreline cranked up its sound system to deliver 5 hours of uninterrupted Greek 'rock' interspersed with age old Greek dancing numbers. Should have guessed really that they would want to impress the visiting flotilla.

Then to cap it all the day dawned cloudy, by which I mean real clouds. Dark things that looked for all the world as if they might actually hold rain and stuff! Never developed into anything but we had a pleasant breeze all day and the temperature stayed reasonable.

We stuck to the plan of staying here for another day with fingers crossed for a quieter night tonight.  During the morning we watched a large number of the boats move off leaving the big bay quite empty and by and large it has stayed that way with very few boats arriving. Sarah though, was more than a little put out by an American yacht that with several square miles of open water to choose from, dropped their anchor barely 20 metres from us.

Ewan made the day for me when he texted news of the Worcester Warriors win over Wasps. 10 - 11 sounds to me like a damn good thrashing, (and 3 points!)

Went ashore for a meal in the evening, eating at a very nice old style taverna (Elena) on the Eastern side of Vlikho.

Monday 15th September

Well we had to have our first storm of the summer sometime. It seems that we are not going to get any quiet nights here in Vlikho because at 2.30am the wind started to rise dramatically and so we got up and took down the bimini as it adds a lot of drag, putting additional strain on the anchor and its grip on the sea bed. The sky to the North, beyond the mountains was lit by the constant flash of lightening, but not the normal intermittent strikes, but a steady disco effect, reminiscent of the newsreel films of artillery barrages, which was ominous.

Got this done just in the nick of time as it then started to rain, not your average heavy rain but the harbinger of a full scale Greek electrical storm, which is exactly what we got! The wind came in great handfuls with sudden blasts taking the wind speed indicator from 2 knots to 30 knots in just seconds. Almost immediately there were boats in trouble in the anchorage and we could see them moving around in the pitch dark trying to recover their dragging anchors and looking for a new safe spot to moor. In their headlong rush to get underway most forgot to turn on navigation lights, so there was certainly a bit confusion as they wheeled around.

Fortunately our anchor held rock solid as did the American's that had moored so close to us last night, so although we kept a careful anchor watch, it was more about watching that no one hit us rather than vice versa. After just over an hour and a half, things started to settle down, but not before the usual 180 degree wind shifts that we had expected, having experienced this sort of storm back in 1981. We eventually went back to bed, but sleep was fairly elusive and then around 6.00am it all started again with very heavy rain, blinding bolts of lightning, crashing rumbles of thunder and massive blasts of wind in squalls that came from a different direction every time. This helped to exaggerate the way the boats were all 'sailing' around on their moorings and so the scene all around us was quite bizarre with boats facing in all directions, swinging around and changing their headings constantly. The good news was that Sarah made every effort to doze right through this second round with great success!

By mid-morning the wind was generally easier and the rain had stopped, but whenever you thought that it was all over the gusts would return and heads would pop up from below on all the boats as we each checked that we were still OK. Quite a few boats had moved on by now, presumably because of schedules to meet or possibly seeking better shelter from the Southerly wind. We decided to stay put as we clearly had a good holding and were in no rush to head for our next stop which is Sivota Bay, only around 10 miles South of here and particularly as we knew that there was at least one flotilla turning round there yesterday and it was unlikely that they would be moving off today with the new customers fresh from the UK only arriving late last night!

By the evening things certainly had improved, although we did have more rain and blustery squalls in the afternoon, so fingers crossed that perhaps tonight....we will get some sleep!