High Point: Vonitsa town quay is home to an assortment of cruising folk of different nationalities. Once here, most boats seem to stay quite a while. Our neighbours are Frank and Anneke, a Dutch couple aboard Panteleimon, a Victory 40. They tell us stories of their voyages which are uncannily similar to our own – fire in engine; running aground, and so on…Maybe they’re common to everyone. And we have exactly the same anchors, instruments, etc; and the same outlook too. They’ve just returned from a cruise along the coast of Albania. There’s a German couple on a home-built catamaran who are spending the winter here, and several English, including Derek and Lynne from Essex (who’ve spent 6 summers in the Ionian and have no desire to sail anywhere else); and a slightly manic looking couple who’ve brought 5 chihuahuas onboard with them.
It’s a ready-made community in which we swap boat bits; borrow each other’s manuals and pilots; share what we know about places to visit and how to fix things. I can’t see us leaving in a hurry.
Low Point: It’s blowing hard from the southeast today, bringing low scudding clouds and frequent showers. The usual view across the gulf is shrouded in mist, and the sea is flecked in white. Our kedge line is taut under the strain of holding the stern beam-on to the wind. Yesterday afternoon we had another thunderstorm with strong gusts and heavy rain. We’re glad to be tied bows-to to the quay, snug in the lee of the Venetian fort whose walls tower above us on the hill. We’ve got the duvet back out, and Gordon the ship’s mascot has his dungarees and sou’wester back on. Autumn is here – now our thoughts are turning to the winter jobs and where we’ll cruise next year.
Vonitsa lies inland on the shore of the Amvrakia gulf, some 8 miles from Preveza. The gulf is a 150 square mile inland sea which – unlike the Med - is rich in marine life, and is a fantastic sheltered cruising area. With the strong southerlies on the way, we decide it’ll be a much better billet than Preveza.
We spend our first night here anchored to the east of a small island which is linked to the land by a causeway. There’s no room on the quay as the Sailing Holidays flotilla is in town. We go for a walk through the pine woods growing on the island and come across a tiny white painted chapel dedicated to a stern looking fellow by the name of St Nektarios. The open door lets the sunlight fall on icons that depict more unfamiliar Orthodox saints, each one with a hand raised in the same gesture of benediction.
Vonitsa’s most prominent landmark is the Venetian fort on the hill above the town. Once we’re moored on the quay, we climb up to the battlements to be rewarded with some amazing views of the gulf - a scattering of islands and plenty of green wooded inlets to anchor in, with mountains in the distance. We spot a tortoise in the undergrowth munching its way through a rotting prickly pear. Later we go for a swim off the pebbly beach. The water’s still pleasantly warm, although the shower on the beach afterwards is bracingly cold. We keep a watchful eye open for ‘Myrtle’ the resident loggerhead turtle, which Leighton’s convinced would give you a nasty nip given the chance. We saw it earlier in the harbour and it’s an awesome size.
Vonitsa town has an authentic feel to it – it’s the first town we’ve visited that isn’t a resort catering to foreign tourists. Here elderly men with leathery faces sip black coffee over a game of backgammon in pavement cafes. We notice one man is missing his right hand – the disastrous consequence of the now outlawed practice of dynamiting for fish. We count seven different varieties of goat bells in the hardware shop. Cats press against the doorway of the fishmonger’s, waiting for scraps. The town’s only traffic lights don’t work and holes in the pavements trip you up if you don’t watch where you’re walking. Most of the shopkeepers speak little or no English, so we have to make our few words of Greek go further with smiles and gestures. It motivates us to keep going with learning the language.
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