Diving down & climbing up

Posted by Johnny

From Lakka we sailed south to Antipaxos and back to Voutoumi Beach to give it the time it deserves.

The water was crystal clear with visibility up to about thirty metres.  We wasted no time getting our fins and snorkels on and dived in.

Just a few minutes away there was the only beach with white sand rather than pebbles so we went to investigate.  Upon taking the dinghy ashore we found the beach strewn with rubbish so we did our good deed for the day and then went off in search of sand.

Later on we pulled up the anchor and headed to the town of Gaios on Paxos island to find a spot on the town quay.  We were tacking into 28 knots of wind and getting nowhere so we reluctantly dropped the genoa and motored in.  Gaios appeared to be nicely tucked away from the strong prevailing winds - we were surprised by the available mooring space as the pilot book advised we might have to fight for a berth.  Inside the town is a maze of quaint little streets and touristy shops.  While heading back we were relieved of a few euros by some business minded little girls doing a roaring trade in seashells.

So far in this blog I've not really mentioned the technical bugs and fixes we've been dealing with.  All have been fairly minor and easily overcome after a bit of head scratching. The steaming lights on the mast have been tricky but are now fully working.  Julia winched me right to the top this morning to fix the mooring light that had been playing up, quite a feat of strength.  While up there I took some photos of the view before the handle ripped off the bag containing my camera, multimeter, tools and fell twelve metres down to the deck below, landing on and cracking one of the hatches.  Amazingly the camera still works but is a bit beaten up.

Once back down on terra firma a large boat made a complete mess of mooring nearby, catching his prop on our neighbours anchor chain before coming very close to catching ours as well.  Later on I dug out my painting kit and started a sketch of one of the fishing boats in the harbour.