Death by Honey - with Extra Jam - Tuesday 3rd October

We have had 10 great days with Chums of Cockroach Creek (aka Clive & Jane Williams of Talisman fame). The visit is best described by subject or bullet points rather than destination. In terms of places, we zig-zagged from Kerkira (Corfu) Old Town and fortress, to the mainland (Mourtas), out to Paxos (Paxi) island for circumnavigation and visits to lovely villages and coves, down to Anti-Paxos for lunch and back, over to mainland again to Parga (with Venetian castle) and End Bay; eventually back to Corfu (Kerkira) and appropriately spent the last night in Mandraki Port underneath Corfu Castle Fortress.

Highlights and Lowlights (not many of those so will get them out of the way first!):
Vision of Hell (or wet purgatory)
Tripper Boats: They are packed in like sardines, standing room only. They have Sergeant Majors for crew who shout disembarkation, swimming and boarding instructions at the punters. So here we are in a quiet anchorage and these arrive, disgorging the hordes to the rat-a-tat of orders. "You- go swimming Now - not too far from boat. No, not you yet! Come back Now, get on boat Now". And the poor souls get their allotted ten minutes of paradise.
Nosebleeds: Misery on a boat is usually defined by lumpy seas, rolly nights and the like. In Clive's case, misery consisted of a continuous nose bleed that refused to be stemmed for some time - back to the plastic bag covering the pillow - reminiscent of W's crack on the head earlier in the summer. Not a pretty sight!

Highlights:
Food: We gorged ourselves on honeyed desserts: gooey round things, baklavas and shredded wheat with almonds and honey. Our teeth will never be the same and we are surprised we have survived. A slow death by honey might be quite pleasurable…..

Clive, Jane and Richard used croissants and bread as mere receptacles for copious amounts of jam - myrtille, cherry & plum - much to W's disgust. She just had more honey. So much sweet stuff attracted the wasps too, so a special Francisca wasp trap was made out of a jumbo gherkin pot - Blue Peter would have been proud of us.

Sun and sea: We had crystal clear turquoise wter, swimming and snorkelling every day in little coves and off rocks. We visited rock arches and caves on our Paxos circumnavigation. And we had rock-hopping (heart-stopping) eyeball navigation into sheltered bays and inlets, in one of which we met up by chance with friends Colin & Shirley on their Malo37 and another HR(46) Ocean Rhythm. We saw kingfishers and large shoals of small fish, climbed up to Parga's Venetian Castle and hunted for leather bargains in the narrow streets.

More food - Diogenes and Francisca's House: We had barbecues - sea bass from Parga and monster steaks and the rest…. Greek salads and olives galore …. we did not go hungry! We were treated to dinner by C&J at Diogenes Taverna in Lakka on Paxos. Calamari and whitebait to start, followed by typical beef and lamb dishes and strong, tiny silty coffees. This was recommended by a friend of Clive's, Francisca, a fellow artist who has a house on Paxos. She invited us up to lunch one day. We were collected by husband Chris and driven to the most beautiful house perched on the hillside overlooking blue seas below and the mainland in the distance.

The house is something else, built of local cream and honey-coloured stone with high ceilings and cool verandas and terraces, indoor/outdoor kitchens (3!), a round house (like a mill house) for guests, and everywhere artwork and objects of interest, pots, steps and paths and carefully placed driftwood seats and sculptures. The whole effect is stunning and I fell in love.

Sailing? But back from luxury to tiny boat. We motored a fair bit in the calms, but sailed when we could, with endless tweaking by Richard and Clive as C&J have an identical boat to us. When sailing, we identified other sailing yachts to target, Not Racing you understand, but obviously needing to overtake them at all costs. As reported by Clive, the competition were all Dead Meat and of course we left them standing!

And so: A wonderful time. We have been fortunate with the weather. We had free wifi almost everywhere, the locals are amazingly friendly and helpful, the town quays are free and we even managed to fill up our water tanks from a funny little water van for a small fee (see pic). And plinky-plink (or is it plonk?) music was thankfully rare. C&J are now back in the UK recovering and we are making out way south to Preveza, where the boat will be lifted out for the winter. And storms are on the way. xx