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!"