( Sailing in the Ionian )
So I'm back from sailing to Ithaka and other parts of the
Inland Sea and it seems that the bills for over-exertion are past due - but it
was fun. I'm actually past the worst of it, the first few days felt like
someone had given me a thorough working over with a club, but not to the point
I regretted going.
Pushing past your
limits to occasionally do things you know will be fun, but bad for you, is one
of those double-edged choices disability forces upon you. You know you'll have
fun doing them, but you know there'll be a cost to pay afterwards. But in the
end you can't let disability stop you from living your life.
Slightly more worrying than the aching are a couple of
new/aggravated injuries. I felt something tear in my knee when I was bracing
myself in the cockpit in fairly mild seas and it's clearly not happy and
possibly a little swollen. Ironically I already had a knee brace on as it had
been feeling wobblier than usual before I went -- I may need to consider a
heftier brace for any future trips. The second problem is C-spine, probably the
same thing I'm still waiting for my consultant to get back to me on. I'm
walking around with my head canted to one side, so I'd guess there's swelling
or nerve impingement on the opposite side of the neck, and the arm there is
aching down to the elbow -- judging from the position of the ache something's
pressing on the C7 nerve root. Nothing I haven't dealt with before and putting
a collar on gives me some relief. Hopefully it'll hang around until I see the
consultant in early August and I can say 'look, this is what I'm talking
about!' as he's only had a description of the intermittent symptoms before, not
seen them himself.
I went with a group of friends: Kim, who organised
everything, his wife Jo, her sister Cath, Rob, Jon and Pete. The guys all
worked together many moons ago, though we've since scattered to the four winds
and we've all holidayed and sailed together before, doing training courses in
the Canaries with Canarysail that mean everyone has the Royal Yacht
Association's Competent Crew certificate and Kim, Jon and I our Day Skipper
certification. The problem is we've been hot-housed, with a lot of training and
not a lot experienced, so with little chance to sail between holidays a nice
sedate flotilla holiday was precisely what the doctor ordered in order to build
up our experience.
With people coming from Belgium and Germany getting together
took a little coordination, but we managed to make it to a pre-holiday curry
night, even if Jon and I scraped in on the last dregs of charge on his iPhone
after my satnav went berserk and tried to take us to entirely the wrong town!
Next morning needed us at Gatwick for a 6AM check in, so it was up at
cock-crow, which at least got us there before the M25 had a chance to get busy.
Gatwick turned out to be less trouble than usual. Someone
spotted my crutches as we joined the
main queue for security checking and waved me through a door to shortcut the
process -- better still they let all seven of us through, so no losing everyone
for an hour as happened at Tenerife last time we were away. I still ended up
being frisked by a six foot gorilla, but possibly not quite as intimately as
last time. And they still wanted me to hand over my crutches and walk through
the scanner, which would have pointless considering the amount of metal on me
(knee brace and TENS both set off the wand when they used that instead). When
told to hang onto the edge of the x-ray machine while my crutches went through
I pointed out that they really should be providing a chair, only to be told
'Oh, if you needed to sit down you would be using a wheelchair'. I don't think
the woman saying this realised quite how contemptuous she was being of my
disability and she obviously didn't care about basic human dignity.
The flight down (Thomas Cook A330) was as good as these
things ever are, we lucked out on seating and got the first row of 2-3-2, which
meant there was room behind the last row of 3-3-3 to stick my leg into space
without obstructing the aisle, which made the seat almost tolerable.
The best you can say about Preveza Airport is that it is
pretty basic (and with its military side it is paranoid about security, lots of
warnings not to take pictures as people have been arrested in the past). It
seems Sunday afternoon is their weekly rush hour and the ground staff struggled
to cope with several jets coming in and out. Immigration wasn't an issue, so
long as you can tolerate queuing in the sun just to get in the door, but the
baggage reclaim process was extended by their three luggage carts having to
make several trips to get all of the baggage off the aircraft. This at least
allowed us to send Jon off to find our bus and Jo to make a claim for the bag
that had been damaged in transit. It was something of an omen when I went to
use the disabled loos and found them locked with an out of order sign. The
alternative in the regular gents offered an infant height pan and no seat,
getting down was easy enough, getting up without any grab rails was more of an
issue!
Outside the airport we were met by Neilson reps and things
ran smoothly from then on. Getting to Nidri involved an hour long coach journey
that I could have done without, but it gave a chance for a look at the Greek
countryside -- lots of olive trees, lots of abandoned building projects. We
never really got away from the sea, but it definitely started looking more
inviting once we drove over the barge (it's a tax thing I think) onto Levkas.
None of us are fans of conventional holiday resorts and Nidri unfortunately
looks like it wants to be a Costa when it grows up, but fortunately we weren't
due to be there for long.
Neilson's Nidri operation is based out of the Athos hotel
with the yacht moorings at the other side of the hotel from the road. Pool,
shower and toilet facilities were all open to us, which was nice. Once we'd
been sorted onto the right boats (Kim, Jo, Cath and Rob onto Peace,
myself, Jon and Pete onto Katja) we had a succession of individual yacht
briefings by the lead crew: Holly the skipper, Lloyd the mate and Mike the
mechanic. With eight yachts to sort out I was impressed by that, a lot of
organisations might have tried to combine all the crews together for at least
part of the info and they had an easy confidence and friendly manner that lasted
throughout the week. Any worries I had about how they would react to my
disability were quickly dispatched. Neilson actually run two flotillas out of
Nidri and it seems like they split all of the families with kids into one, the
all-adult parties into the other, which seemed like a thoroughly good idea.
Whenever we crossed paths the lead crew of the other flotilla seemed to be
making efforts to keep the kids entertained and both crews would step in
whenever a call over the radio caught the lead ship for the other flotilla out
of contact.
Once we had things stored it was time to find a restaurant
for the night. The one we settled on was outdoors by the water, but I was a
little disappointed by the food, my octopus tentacle starter was a little
charred at the edges and the swordfish stake in thyme sauce didn't set my
tastebuds alight in the way that I'd hoped, but everything was edible, the
staff were friendly, the ouzo was generous and the Alfa beer entirely
drinkable.
Sleep didn't come easy, the heat of the day took a long time
to fade and the occasional bzzt next to your ear didn't help. Next
morning showed that the mossies had enjoyed their evening meal, and the ball of
your foot is not the greatest place in the world to find a bite. Everyone had
suffered and it was a message to all of us to take more care about insects --
fortunately I'd brought a very thin sleeping bag inner that proved to be an
ideal substitute mossie net, equally fortunately Nidri has more of a problem
than the other ports we stayed at.
Monday morning brought our first breakfast briefing,
destination Sivoti, still on Levkas, but South past Meganisi. Various optional
routes were discussed, with a side-trip around Skorpios, the old Onassis island
a popular one, and each boat left to decide what they wanted. Along with routes
the briefing covered the destination harbour, talking about both docking up and
facilities there, usually including water, bins, restaurants and showers. There
were showers available in most harbours for, typically, 3-5 Euros, which the
Neilson guys always pointed out in the briefings and which many people chose to
use. I just stuck with the shower on the boat on the theory that by the time
I'd walked back from a shower, on crutches, in the sun, I'd need another one.
Restaurants were usually just where the lead crew would be eating rather than a
comprehensive review, but our experience was that following their
recommendations usually turned out to be perfectly acceptable. You might have
found somewhere with better food (likely at a cost), but usually not with
better atmosphere.
Breakfast also brought a warning -- be specific when asking
for coffee in Greece, if they think you're British they'll assume you want
Nescafe! I'll drink Nescafe in the house for convenience, but if I'm paying for
it I want proper coffee! We quickly stocked up the boat from the local
supermarket, including that hot weather staple, frozen bottles of water! These
are great, we never remembered to turn the fridge on all week, yet everything stayed
fresh and they defrost in the cockpit as you go to give you chilled water on
demand. We'd worried that no one spoke any Greek whatsoever, but we never came
across anywhere: shops, restaurants, whatever, without at least one member of
staff who spoke fluent English.
Getting ready to leave harbour was where I found it took me
longer to get ready than everyone else -- so apologies, guys, I really wasn't
slacking off deliberately ;) The time consuming part was fitting my TENS, in
ideal circumstances it only takes a couple of minutes, but moving about on a
yacht makes the electrodes much more likely to become detached, which means
taping them on, and the tendency of micropore to stick to your clothes, the
seat, anywhere but where you want it (particularly when putting it one behind
your back!) is a pain in the backside. On the other hand the consequences of
not doing it are an even larger pain in the backside, so persistence pays. I
don't use crutches aboard, stowing them in my cabin, and my balance and ability
to hold on are iffy at best, so I chose to wear harness and life-jacket all of
the time (the others only put them on in the worst of conditions), the
safety-strap and carabiner tucked into the belt until I needed them, with Jon
and Pete covering for me in most of the stuff that needed someone to go forward
of the cockpit, such as working at the mast or the anchor winch; once again,
thanks guys!
At last we got to the moment to start our engine and motor
out of harbour, and the oil sensor warning went off :( Mike the mechanic was on
it instantly, diagnosing a dud sensor and whipping off to find a new one. He
had it replaced and us on our way out of harbour by half-one, but that squeezed
our time for the trip so we abandoned the trip to Skorpios and just settled in
to remembering how to sail again after a two year break, and working out how
the rigging on the Neilson yachts -- Katja and Peace were both
Beneteau 331s -- differed from the Bavarias we'd trained on with Canarysail.
Sail-up on the Neilson boats was considerably easier than on the Bavarias, no
need to adjust topping lift, just haul out on the main halyard and then trim
with the mainsheet. One definitely necessary addition was a bimini shade over
the cockpit, though without a repeater for wind-direction on the binnacle we
ended up rolling part of it back in order to be able to see the mast-top
easily. We actually ended up having probably the best day's classical sailing
of the trip, deliberately putting ourselves through a whole series of tacks as
we zig-zagged down the channel between Meganisi and Levkas and rotating
positions so that we all got to do everything -- two years away from sailing
had left us pretty rusty, but between the three of us we remembered just about
everything we needed. (Though as a long-time yachtie of my acquaintance pointed
out when I described the process, we'd probably have reduced him and his mates
to gales of laughter). The entrance into Sivoti brought a new challenge, having
seen everyone off at Nidri the lead crew had motored ahead in Mafalda,
their yacht, intent on getting to Sivoti ahead of everyone else in order to
guide us in. This was our introduction to the docking dance, as Holly or Lloyd
(we preferred Holly for some strange reason) stood on the dockside, arms waving
as they guided each boat in for a stern-to docking, something we'd never done
before.
Sivoti is a picturesque little port on the side of a steep
walled fjord -- something that was common to most of the ports we visited --
the whole port seems focussed on the yachting trade with quayside restaurants,
boutiques and giftshops. A flotilla meal had been arranged and we all gathered
on the open upper floor of a handy restaurant for an enjoyable meal and getting
to know some of the other crews -- I had whitebait as a starter and lamb
kleftada to follow, both perfectly acceptable, and a good conversation with
Kate and Pete from Jackie, it turned out that they had just done three
or four days of training at Nidri in order to be allowed to join the flotilla.
With three of us having Day Skipper and the others Competent Crew, we'd known
that we had more training than was strictly required, but it turned out most of
the other crews had similar levels of experience to Kate and Pete, making us
some of the more experienced crews there. After dinner we wandered around to a
bar for cocktails. The White Russians came highly recommended, but I stuck with
the Greek theme and a good strong Ouzo, dozing off to sleep with it perched on
my chest. I'm reliably informed certain people didn't make it back to the yacht
until 2AM.
Next morning brought another briefing, today's destination,
Vathi on Ithaka -- Odysseus, eat your heart out ;) This time it was Peace
who had a problem, their anchor winch jamming, Mike to the rescue yet again.
The trip across the channel to Ithaka was unadventurous, mostly a long run
south, the boredom broken by amusement at my tendency to steer wherever I'm
looking -- I think it's down to my dyspraxia, I certainly have far more trouble
than I should have working out which way to turn to put the wind in the right
position for our point of sail -- but once we got to Ithaka we broke off the
journey for lunch in a bay by Frikes and our first try at anchoring out. The
bay was very pretty, though we could probably have done without the ancient
Greek sunbathing in the nude -- moving to be sitting facing the yacht with the
girls aboard was just a little blatant! A leisurely lunch out of the way, we
set off for a quick trip around the headland and into Vathi, once again down a
narrow fjord-like arm of water. I had the wheel for the entry into harbour,
which was fairly unadventurous -- just as well as I caught myself dozing off at
one point! My first try at stern-too docking soon woke me up and I have to
admit to feeling rather pleased with myself that I got it right first time,
though I daresay the rubber tyres mounted four abreast as fenders would have
dealt with most problems. This was the only port we stayed at where the
quayside was significantly higher than the cockpit, some of the yachts chose to
set their gangplanks directly between the quayside and the cockpit and had a
steep run-up from the cockpit, we set our plank onto the tyres, which worked
much better for me, giving a flat crossing and either a big step up or down, or
in my case, the option to sit on the quayside and then pivot your legs up or
down to the tyres.
Vathi seems like quite a big place, but, because we docked
at the extreme tip of the harbour with a restaurant right next to us, no one
attempted the twenty minute walk into the main town. There were a lot of yachts
in over by the main quay, including two or three very large superyachts with
multiple masts, the three-master even seemed to have a similarly scaled motor
cruiser. When we got to the restaurant for dinner we found that the other
yachts moored by us were crewed by about 20 Dutch people, and it was the night
of the Holland-Uraguay semi-final match for the World Cup. The Dutch had pretty
much taken over, with the whole place decorated in orange bunting and a ring of
chairs ready for them to watch the game on widescreen. As soon as the match
started the noise levels went up, but there was no rowdiness or anything -- my
kind of football crowd. This time I went for taramasalata as a starter and seafood
spaghetti as my main. The food was good and the portions huge, and Mythos beer
goes down just as nicely as Alfa. What I left on my plate after thoroughly
stuffing myself would still have passed as a generous portion in many
restaurants.
Getting back to the yacht I had a lucky escape as my wallet
slipped out as I stepped aboard, fortunately it hit the rubber tyres and
bounced to a stop atop them, cue me very gingerly climbing down to rescue it
before it slipped the last bit into the water.
Next morning brought a change of plan, the outline schedule
had Vasiliki on Levkas as our next port of call, but the weather report for
Thursday had Force 7 winds coming in from the Northeast and Holly decided she
would rather have us in Fiskardho if there was a change we would be stormbound
the next day, as that offered better opportunities for day-sailing. So we had a
trip north around the tip of Ithaka and across to Kefalonia and Fiskardho,
which lies a little south of the northernmost tip of the island, facing the
Western side of Ithaka. More than any of the other ports we stayed at,
Fiskardho screamed money, with several of the superyachts following us round
from Vathi. Mooring was a puzzle with over 80 yachts in harbour, both Neilson
flotillas were in and some yachts ended up moored in a raft, using an outboard
as a tender to get ashore, while Peace ended up moored bow-to on the
angle of a corner. Fortunately we ended up with a stern-to mooring on the
pontoon next to the main quayside, very convenient! Apparently it gets much worse in high season! Just after we
docked the yacht next to us left and a German yacht was in there almost
instantly. A thud against the bow while I was down in the cabin announced the
arrival of his friend and with a bit of creative slackening and tightening of
mooring lines we managed to get two yachts into a space that had barely looked
big enough for one! Moored-up next to Peace was Ed, the yacht manager
for Neilsons at Nidri, an affable Australian and all-round good company, taking
a few days off to show his sister the area. Despite being on holiday he was
pitching in to get boats moored up and kept up the same level of effort over
the next few days. In one of those bizarre coincidences it turned out he'd
recently helped out some people on a yacht that Jo and Cath had spent time on
as girls.
The evening's entertainment started with cocktails, the
Mojitos were gorgeous, almost fluorescently green, while Kim's Sex-on-the-Beach
came with a near pornographic glass that drew much admiration. Next we moved on
to a Thai restaurant just off the quayside, I thought the Chicken Satay and
Duck in Oyster Sauce knocked supermarket Thai into a cocked hat, though those
who've actually been to Thailand tell me it could have been better still.
I'm not actually sure when I hurt my neck, I suspect it was
most likely on Thursday. With the forecast Force 7 blowing out of the
Northwest, Holly had declared the flotilla stormbound in Fiskardho, which mean
that we wouldn't be moving ports, but were allowed to take the yachts out for a
day-sail if we wanted to. The main suggestion was that people could head out
towards the west side of Ithaca or sail down the channel between Ithaca and
Kefallonia, but Lloyd and Holly were willing to go out with anyone who wanted to
try the bouncier conditions to the North.
I don't know if Holly really anticipated anyone wanting to
head out into the full force of the winds in the open channel between Ithaka
and Levkas, but, having trained in the Zone in the Canaries, Force 7 probably
wasn't quite as intimidating to us as to other people (on our first trip to
Gomera, Kim, Jon and I hit Force 9 on our first ever lesson when the Zone
turned out to be unexpectedly close inshore). After a quick discussion we
decided to leave Katja in harbour and head out on Peace (in part
because it would be easier to keep a mooring open for her). Because the yachts
are only cleared for six people (liferaft capacity), that meant that we
couldn't take everyone, but Jon and Rob decided they wanted some time ashore,
which resolved that problem nicely. Once he heard where we were going, Ed got
us set up for it with second reef ready on the mainsail and the genoa cars
adjusted for the weather. And off we went. Heading out of the harbour was easy
enough, but as soon as we were clear of the headland and had the sails up
things turned bouncy, once we cleared the wind-shadow of Kefallonia they turned
really bouncy, with 3 to 4 metre swells hitting us across the port bow on our
initial tack. I'm fairly certain I heard someone mutter 'psychos' over the
radio when told we were going out into the open channel.
This is the point I think I probably hurt my neck, I'd been
down into the cabin to make a radio call and to stow Kim and Jo's video camera,
I had my hand wrapped around the pole next to the radio, the other in the
camera's pouch, itself strapped down, when we breasted a big wave and Peace
rolled to slide down its backside. That roll was violent enough my hand was
ripped off the pole and instead of standing at port aft of the cabin I found
myself lying on the floor between table and couch at the starboard bow end with
legs stuck in the air, having apparently cleared the table and bounced off the
couch. People shouted down to find out if I was okay and I had to tell them to
wait until I'd gotten myself right way up and figured out the answer for
myself! When I did get myself sorted out I noticed the video camera lying next
to me on the floor -- whoops.... Bouncing about in Force 7 seas is fun for a
while, but eventually it took its toll on people and we decided to head back to
port, tying Peace up back where she had started a couple of hours after
we had left.
We didn't fancy Thai again that night, so wandered around
the harbour looking for somewhere to eat, finally settling on a restaurant
whose owner was very eager to have us try his fish. So begins a cautionary
tale.... Fish in Greek restaurants is frequently sold by the kilo; despite the
owner saying this, most of us didn't pick it up and none of us thought to ask what
the rather large red snapper we were being served weighed. Now don't get me
wrong, it was a nice meal and everyone had plenty to eat and drink, but when
the fish turns out to be 4.3Kg times the price some of you were expecting, and
the owner's till barfs over the size of the price, you know you should have
checked on the likely bill in advance.
By next morning the winds had died away and that took us
back to Ithaca and to Kioni, right next to Frikes and nudy-man bay, but we
decided to go the long way around by sailing across the channel to Lefkas to
take a look at Vasiliki. Heading North was hard going and we found out later
that Peace motored all the way, but we stuck to sail, finally anchoring
with them in a picturesque little bay some way short of Vasiliki proper. After
a leisurely lunch we set off South for Kioni and despite both yachts starting
pretty much simultaneously we rapidly took about a mile lead -- to make matters
worse with me at the helm. Peace hauled us in eventually, but never
quite enough to take the lead and we sailed all the way to Kioni on a single
tack.
Heading into Kioni we had the only unpleasantness of the
trip. Knowing it was Katja, with me aboard, Holly made an extra effort
to get us the last stern-to place on the quayside rather than have me forced to
negotiate a raft with crutches (for a double word score it also meant she could
then dock Peace bow to bow with us and know we wouldn't mind people
walking through the cockpit to get to her). We were halfway through the docking
when the muppet aboard the neighbouring yacht decided to take umbrage. Do it
before the docking, do it after the docking, don't do it during the docking!
Kudos to Holly for ever-so-politely telling him to go away until it was safe
for her to talk to him.
Kioni was possibly the most picturesque of all the harbours
we stopped in. All the smartness of Fiskardho without anything like so much
hubbub. We started the evening's entertainments with fruit punch and dips for
the flotilla on the quayside, and very nice the punch was to! I'm not certain
how much fruit was in there, but there was certainly plenty of alcohol ;) After
that we adjourned to one of the local restaurants and another very nice meal. I
started with a huge portion of very nicely cooked calamari, which unfortunately
spoiled the main dish of chicken in a distinctive sauce for me (the dips
probably didn't help either). It tasted gorgeous, I simply didn't have any room
left for it. This was the only place we ran into a problem the yacht handbooks
warned about -- if you order starter and main course together in Greece then
you may find them delivered together, most of the restaurants seem to have
adapted to normal British pattern, but obviously not all of them.
Saturday saw us headed back for Nidri, but first we motored
across to Atokos, an uninhabited and very picturesque island just east of
Kioni. One House Bay was full of yachts by the time we got there, so we turned
around and headed back to the equally ornamental Cliff Bay, which just had a
couple of yachts there ahead of us. We dropped anchor about 50 yards apart and
settled in for a leisurely lunch, with Kim, Cath and Jo swimming over from Peace
to visit. It was here that Jon demonstrated his powers of prophecy:
Jon: Wouldn't it be funny if your anchor dragged with just
Rob aboard.
Jon (five minutes later): I'm not trying to be funny, but I
think your anchor really is dragging.
Cue Peaceniks diving back into the water.
The good news was that they made it back before they had
drifted anywhere dangerous, the bad news was that their anchor winch jammed
when they were hauling the anchor in and we spent about an hour with them
drifting around the bay trying to fix it. Eventually they decided help was
needed, and fortunately one of the yachts in One House Bay was Ed's. A quick
call on the mobile and in ten minutes he was coming around the point and
quickly rafted alongside Peace. Within twenty minutes he'd hauled the
anchor in by hand and motored off into the sunset with the theme from the
A-Team playing over his speakers.
With Peace fixed, both crews got full sail up and
turned north for Lefkas. I had the wheel and everything seemed to be going
fine, then the wind freshened, and freshened, and all of a sudden we rolled
severely, to the point I thought we were going to stick the mast in the water,
and spun in an uncontrolled 360 degree gybe. I'd been spilled onto the cockpit
floor, so Jon grabbed the wheel, thinking I'd missed the point of sail again,
only for Katja to do it twice more. To add to the confusion, the
rolled-back segment of the bimini blew free and was flapping in everyone's
faces and the radio started beeping frantically, which we realised afterwards
was an all-ships alert. Realising we were being completely overpowered by the
wind we got the engine on, the bow into wind and got the sails down pretty
smartish. With her larger crew Peace ducked behind the island, got a
couple of reefs in and came back out under sail, but with the conditions severe
enough that I was having to devote most of my attention to hanging on (even
after clipping myself on) we decided motoring was our best option. Jon actually
apologised for yelling at me to do stuff, when in the circumstances I thought
he was perfectly justified. I'd rather be yelled at unnecessarily than not
yelled at and screw-up.
We motored all the way across the channel towards Meganisi,
deciding with all the lost time to head back through the channel between Levkas
and Meganisi, rather than following the other side of Meganisi as had been the
original plan. The winds moderated as we got back into the wind-shadow of
Levkas and we stuck the sails back up, handily outpacing some of the motoring
yachts near to us. Halfway up the channel we decided we needed to go back to
motoring and I helmed us back into Nidri and our final docking. Peace
turned out to have stuck to their original plan, rounding Meganisi under sail
and following us back into Nidri as the last yacht in the flotilla back to
base.
The last evening was another flotilla social, starting with
drinks around the Tree Bar at the hotel (the mojitos were good, though not
quite as good as at Fiskardho), followed by a buffet at the hotel that turned
out to be quite passable. To round things off Holly, Lloyd and Mike had a few
bar games for us and each crew was presented with a certificate for something
or other, in the case of Peace and Katja for taking on whatever
they threw at us.
Sunday was our flight home, but we didn't leave until
midday, so having stripped the yachts of our gear we spent the morning around
the pool and propping up the bar. Flying home from Preveza we faced the same
problem of small airport, lots of passengers. Rather than the normal British
practise, you have your baggage scanned before check-in and unfortunately the
queue for the security scanner stretched the length of the concourse, and back,
and out of the door. Ever-practical Jo pointed out I didn't actually need to
stand in it myself and could sit until the others were just about to be
scanned, which was doubly welcome as my neck was now killing me. Having checked
in we promptly walked back out of the airport (making the scanning of our
hand-baggage completely pointless), across the road and into the taverna for a
last Greek beer and a sandwich (I do wish we hadn't picked a table downwind of
the loo). All too soon the taverna owner appeared telling us they had called
our flight and it was back to the airport to have our hand baggage scanned yet
again. This is where I had my lasting disappointment from the holiday: the security
gorilla at Gatwick gave me a thorough patdown, the Greek goddess in his place
at Preveza, to my mind the prettiest girl I'd seen all trip, just waved me
through. There is no justice :(
The flight home was pretty much a repeat of the flight down,
helped by having to fight to stay awake. Immigration and Customs weren't a
problem, though Gatwick's immigration hall is an incredibly tatty welcome to
the country. Grab the bags at the baggage claim and another holiday was over
with everyone scattering to the four winds until next time. Despite the traffic
on the M25 I was even home in time to watch the World Cup Final.
Sailing wasn't quite done with me; I had planned on some
serious sleeping once I was home, but I hadn't got my land legs back and every
time I closed my eyes the room started pitching and rolling. I think I got
about an hour's sleep. And by Monday morning my neck was stiff as a board with
referred pain all the way to my right elbow, and my knee was wobbly as hell.
Fortunately at home I have the time and the braces to coddle them and a week
later they're settling down back towards normal.
I had great fun and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I'd
definitely recommend Neilson and the Ionian islands based on our experience,
but I'm going to have to give the hanging on aspects some more thought. We
already knew it was limiting and that in some circumstances I need all my
strength just to hold my place and don't have anything left for sailing, and
people are making decisions based on that, but if it's actively causing me
damage then I may need to take more preventative measures.
A final note on accessibility in the Greek islands: there
isn't really any. I saw two disabled loos in the course of a week, one was out
of order, the other locked, and the accessibility of other toilets can be
pretty dire. Nidri, which was the nearest we got to a large town, doesn't even
have consistent pavements, it seems like each business lays one, or not,
depending on its own ideas of what is an appropriate height. A 30cm or higher
kerb wasn't at all unusual and the nearest I saw to a dropped kerb was three
kerbstones laid on their side, which didn't really cut it. Definitely not
wheelchair or walking aid friendly. While the steep sided harbours aren't
really disability friendly by their very nature, it struck me that disabled
people were all but invisible, pretty much the only other disabled people I saw
were Brits and most of those at the airport on the way home. It's doable if
you're fit or have willing helpers, but don't expect UK levels of
accessibility.
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