It was awesome to motor through the narrow cutting with the limestone walls towering a hundred metres above us. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Our passage went very smoothly – we had only a 15 minute wait to be allowed in (you can wait up to 3 hours); a freighter and a superyacht went ahead of us and two yachts went behind – one of them Cleophea. The best bit was we could record the moment as we took pictures of each other as we went through. Three miles and 185 euros later, we emerge into the Saronic- and it’s not even lunch-time!
We motor into a light headwind down the coast to berth bows-to at George’s taverna in Korfos, an almost landlocked bay 16 miles to the south of the canal. We celebrate the day’s big milestone over dinner with Mike and Corinne that evening.
Korfos turned out to be very sheltered but we’ve twice regretted our choice of harbour in the last week and have some damage to show for it. If we’re going to be berthed on a quay in future, we’ll be picking the harbour very carefully. The pilot says that Kiato harbour (our last port of call before the Corinth canal) is dangerous in an easterly, and guess what we got? A 15 knot breeze blowing from the east for less than two hours on the evening we were there kicked up a churning maelstrom in the harbour that was truly frightening. Standing beside the boat – it was too uncomfortable to stay onboard - we prayed our fenders would take the strain as Makarma pitched and bucked alongside the concrete quay.
Our next harbour on from Korfos was also open to the east. You’d think we’d have learned from our Kiato experience. But the pilot is reassuring about the good shelter at Palaia Epidavros, and it’s the closest harbour to the ancient Greek theatre at Epidavros which we were keen to see. Guess what? The late afternoon SE sea breeze kicked up a vicious little swell which rolled into the harbour and piled against all of us moored on the quay. Because we go bows-to, we were pitching worse than the other boats. For most of the evening our bow was hurtling up and down by more than two metres – with the concrete quay alarmingly close just in front of us. At 10pm it started to hose with rain. Our Danforth anchor and chum combination held well, but our friends in Cleophea were not so lucky. They abandoned the quay to anchor in the bay - something we now regret not doing ourselves, as sometime during the ghastly episode a section of our teak toe-rail got smashed – we’re not sure how.
It was calm the next morning when we made an early start to catch the bus to Ancient Epidavros. We were the first visitors into the site and for a magical twenty minutes or so we had the magnificent theatre to ourselves.
Epidavros was a centre for healing, a religious sanctuary and it hosted athletic and musical/theatrical festivals. The classical theatre is the best preserved building on the site. Indeed it’s one of the best preserved Classical buildings in Greece, and is still in use today for performances of plays and concerts. Its almost perfect acoustics allow all 14,000 spectators to hear the slightest whisper from the stage.
The sanctuary temples, the stadium and the sanatorium have not fared so well over the years.
There’s little to see apart from ruins, although extensive restoration work is going on. It is hard to imagine now that the site was the Lourdes of its day with people coming from miles around to be cured of their ailments.
Anxious to avoid a repetition of the previous evening, the minute we got back to the harbour, we left to follow Mike and Corinne to Methana. The wind was kind and gave us a fast passage for the 20 miles to get there. Methana harbour is in a completely enclosed basin that is sheltered from all directions. The only drawback gets up your nose the moment you negotiate your way through the narrow entrance. Methana sits on an extinct volcano. Sulphur springs still bubble to the surface here, turning the water a milky green colour and giving off an all-pervasive smell of rotten eggs.
We don’t mind the smell or the water colour - it’s just a great relief to feel completely secure. Beside the harbour is a spa where elderly arthritic Greek ladies take the waters for relief from their aches and pains. Corinne and Cathy join them to bob up and down in the smelly water.
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