Independence day

Kassiopi celebrates independence

This week saw the celebration of Greek independence. The residents of Kassiopi walked down the hill to congregate at the village statue, to lay wreaths while women wept to the sound of school children singing the national anthem. Meanwhile, a mooring lines throw away, Tomas celebrated in his own way with his weekly 'whores bath' which couldn't have been better timed. The patriots had no clue of the naked sailor washing himself aboard Crest Hawk.

Charlie Chaplin tash gives Tom efficient leadership qualities

The people of Kassiopi were friendly to us and so we left them with the best gift we could give: The promise of our return to Kassiopi in May.

In the mean time, we have made our home in Erikkousa, the most northerly island of the Greek Ionians and one of the most sparsely populated. Less than 30 residents make their home here, half of them having spent their working lives in NYC and the other half Albanians. When walking through the island's dense hilly forest we have discovered abandoned houses, one of which is fully furnished with a newspaper left out dated 1978. All cutlery and crockery is included, offers in the region of €250 (the old lady who died there can be included for an extra fee).

Crest Hawk's galley, in need of a sweep

Our plan had been to check out the other two nearby islands, Methraki and Othoni, but the unpredictable weather has meant we will be here for another couple of days. Lucky then that we have made a new friend! His name is Christo and he has been supplying us with more citrus fruits than we can ever eat, telling us 'the island provides everything we need'. Grapefruit for breakfast is nice, we're still working on a dinner invite though.

A red jellyfish. Potential supper?

Tom's Top Tip: "Money can't buy you love but love can buy you money"

Ben's Best Bit: "A baby being put to sleep with the Nokia ringtone, or the baby just wasn't answering his phone"

Crest Hawk from Kassiopi Castle

Hold on to your seacocks

For all our readers wanting more action from their favourite blog, this is the post for you!

This week we set sail, after some intense hail storms, for the horizon. We started heading north on Tuesday, after saying our tear filled goodbyes. The first stop was Aktio Marina, where we launched two months ago. We did not go there to recall our days in the quantum of solace, but to pick up a letter from our beloved (thanks for the money Granny) Grandmother. We also enjoyed a lovely meal prepared by Chervena Carkulka, AKA Zed's girlfriend.

Hail storm in Levkas

Dog looking for the underworld

Sivota Mourtos

Typical Algerian peasant girl

'Did somebody say PARTY?!'

Wind picking up

Kassioppi

Entrance to the entrance to the Underworld

The day after we headed for Fanari, and sailed up the river there which leads to the ancient Greek entrance to the underworld. Walking through the gloomy marshlands, we find a number of dead dog's floating around in what used to be believed to be "no man's land" between our world and the other side.

A day sufficed for that so we headed 4nm north to Parga which is one of the most beautiful town's we've ever seen. However, the town key is a death trap and we had to use the harbour as our base instead. Since the wind picked up to force 8 gusting 9 on our stern, we had to tie up to the bow anchor of a local ferry to secure ourselves.

Well reefed

With a fair wind forecast, we set off north once again and this time landed in Sivota Mourtos. Despite the fact that we were the only yacht there, as soon as we set the bow lines up we had our first run in with the port police. After an our of our paper work being checked, photocopied and 21 questions about gross tonnage, net tonnage and 'why the Spanish mans passport different?', we were charged €13 (65kilos of onions worth). Apparently it's standard procedure to charge for 2 days at dock for 12 hours.

And finally, today we made our longest sail so far, 35nm. The wind was blowing southerly and we were heading north with a breeze of 20-25 knots on our aft quarter the whole day. A couple of big gusts left us holding on to our seacocks and watching as the dinghy performed summersaults! And just as we thought we were home and dry, mooring turned into a near nightmare. Thanks to a Swedish dude (there's always help at hand when we need it most) and no thanks to Vanessa, the author of our Ionian waters pilot, we are now safely moored on the quay at Kassioppi, north-east Corfu.

Tomas has met some old friends here and they seem to remember him which must mean he made an impression, good or bad.

Tom's Top Tip: "If you're going to eat dodgy chicken, make sure you check the forecast."

Ben's Best Bit: "Finally, some meat with our pasta. Thank you Granny!"

The Winter of our Discontent

We are now coming to the end of sedentary week. The weather has just been terrible, and we have been boat bound most of the time. The temperature has dropped considerably and the wind has picked up.

On Thursday the wind picked up to a force 8 which, combined with big waves and the direction of the weather directly onto the town quay, was almost fatal for our beloved Crest Hawk. It had been blowing all night and as we left the boat that morning several huge gusts came through. Tomas ran back and we were both holding her off at the shrouds, waves breaking over the top of the quay and the beam of the boat riding up to within an inch of the concrete. Luckily the wind died down enough within half an hour that we could stop holding her off. Soaking wet from the waist down, we found some spare fenders which had obviously been blown of some other poor bastard's yacht, and which saved ours.


But that was not the end of the excitement: it was carnival!!!! And so we must apologise for the late publication of this entry since last night was the culmination of the festivities. There was a parade through the town, plenty of fancy dress and some light drinking. Crest Hawk's crew were dressed up naturally as pirates.

A shore based crew member has given the rest of the crew the chance to shower, and use the facilities. Also, some fellow travellers called Richard and Theo had us over for a lovely dinner in their boat. Richard (aka Richard the First) was ex Parachute Regiment and pretty deaf, so conversation tended to be mono-directional.

We will be leaving tomorrow for Aktio to pick up our Grandmother's letter, dropping by Vonitsa for a night or two (to enjoy a meal with Andreas and Alex) and then eventually starting to sail North.

Tom's Top Tip: If you are going to wear the same T-shirt for seven days, make sure you don't meet up with the same people more than one day in a row.

Ben's Best Bit: Managing to save Crest Hawk from certain death.

More guests than mugs

Get me the rum Jim! 

Wonky-eyed Moody 

Home Run Jack

Caves and feet

This week has just flown by. Maybe it's because we have been sailing every day, or maybe because we have been to many different places. We have seen loads of amazing things during this week, but only photographed a few because the blog just hasn't really been on our minds. We have seen the spectacular caves of South-West Meganisi, the amazing landslides of Paleros, the amazing boringness of Sivota, and the beautiful waitresses of Vasiliki, but after all that adventure, we realised it was all just empty without the company of all the friends we have made along the way (and I suppose sexy young gullable tourists).

Quick stop at weed island

Ben likes it rough

Or so he says

Dirty Mexican got onboard

Some rare sail position apparently

Sailing innit

Letting loose

So we eventually decided to head back to Lefkas (stopping first in Vlicho where we enjoyed yet another dinner prepared and hosted by our Vlicho adoptive parents), to develop our social network, with the grand finaly landing on the 17th, which happens to be Carnival. We have already picked our costumes, but we will not describe any of it (in order to have something to tell you about in our next entry).

Inside Ben's socks

Pylon innit

I would like to take this chance to reach out yet again to all our fans who wish to know us a bit better and give us their opinions or anonymous donations, please send it all to carmichael.i@live.com (except the donation, your credit card details will suffice for that). Please do not send any spam to the address or contact us if you are a pervert or even just a bit weird(with the exception of family).

Tom's top tip: Stop trying to have everyone over for dinner.
Ben's best bit: Making Tomas piss on the forsail sheets, and then whipping them on his face.

The Tale of Two Lonely Sailors

Guests

Stove

Vathi, Meganisi

Vlicho had been kind to the two sailors. Rory, the Irish landlord of the Vlicho Yacht Club, had provided them with a stove no bigger than a fire extinguisher, but warmer than a woman's boosum. Captain Pierre of the Avoret and his beautiful wife Corin of Toulouse were hosted for dinner with the Crest Hawk signature dish: pasta white-sauce and Lidl turkey sausages. The favour was returned with the most delicious lamb steak and pizza.

Aye sailor!

Comfort never interested our adventurous heros though, and thus they set sail for Meganisi. The wind blew a steady 3knots and hence the 8nm were covered in a steady 5 hours. With the shock of discovering such high cabbage prices, €1,50/kilo, the sailors slipped lines the following morning. With the wind weaker than a sparrows fart, they landed at Paleros, 8nm to the NE, that afternoon where they found enough females to satisfy the inmates at Guantanamo Bay, cheap cabbage prices to match and free showers. The sailors were sure they had reached the promised land (not Israel, the other one).

The nights could be lonely onboard and the sailors sometimes entertained themselves by writing and singing sea shanties, like the one you can hear at the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4gnH269UWg

Sea shanty

T-shirts and other Crest Hawk merchandise will be available for purchase soon.

Paleros

Pierre & Corin

Tom's Top Tip: If you're going to sunbathe naked on the foredeck, make sure Ben doesn't have the camera handy. (check back next week for the pictures)

Ben's Best Bit: A bee deciding to nest in my hair and making me look like a man possessed in the middle of a busy street