Island of Odysseus

 Leaving Fraxia Bay we motor towards the impressive Levkas Meganisi channel where the mountais of Levkas rise high from the sea.

Winds can be fluky here and often contrary for sailing for both directions in sections of the channel. We put up reefed mainsail and genoa in case of expected stronger winds towards Ithaka and start the beat against the wind . Many yachts are out doing the same. 

As I focus on setting up the new autopilot a lady on a yacht with Belgian flag is waving vigorously at use. We see friends Anne-Marie and Bart who have left their boat to sail with friends for a week.

We are expecting west wind after the channel to be able to sail on direct course for Ithaka butte wind is more from SW so again we make tacks in light wind towards the island. 

The island of Arkoudhi is on our path so once past it we afternoon wind picks up as normal in this stretch of water affected by the funnel of wind from the open sea between Kefalonia and Levkas.

We approach our chosen bay north of Frikes and approach with speed taking care to stay close inshore to avoid a dangerous rock shown on the chart and come to anchor in about 5 m of water.

Less than an hour later we see a yacht has gone aground on that dander area, the turquoise shallow waters clearly visible from our perspective in comparison to the deeper blue water around it. Photo below shows the incident.

One yacht stands by to help and a dinghy from a yacht anchored in the bay rushed to offer assistance also. After a while the yacht was free. Later the waves from a distant passing large ferry caused breaking water at that spot.

We like to anchor in shallow water but the island of Odysseus offers few opportunities for that. Winds are stronger than in the more sheltered area east of Levkas, but the island attracts us despite the harsh energies.

See the goats.

On the second evening we walked ashore at Ormos Khondri Pounda and a long way up the rough road to a viewpoint.

Returning to the beach we went to the kantina to see what was cooking. Two years ago it was just a trailer on the beach. Since then the made terraces, added tables and chairs and relocated the trailer.  We ate stuffed tomato and stuffed pepper with a slice of tomato pie, washed down with chilled white wine in the cooler evening air.

Next morning we motored in the calm to Vahti Town,  made washing in the air-conditioned laundry and stocked up with provisions at AB supermarket and a fruit shop.

We planned to use the afternoon wind to return to the mainland and anchored for a swim stop. Waves from passing boats made this difficult as I stand at the bow to anchor by hand. The water was an amazing turquoise though.

It was almost 4 pm and no wind so we set off  to find the wind further away from the island. At first we had SE wind, instead of NW. After time I could see white horses indicating force 4 or 5 come closer from the left. I adjusted the sails and when the new wind arrived we were on track and soon sailing fast. I remembered this strange phenomenon from a previous year.

 In the last sunlight we rounded the point, dropped sails and anchored in Ormos Marathia. The only other yacht was the Outremer 42 we have met before. All was quiet despite the informal campsite of caravans and motor caravans ashore behind the beach.