Logbook Entry

Dates: 08/30/09 to 09/04/09
Distance: 30 nm
Sailed from: Erikoússa
Lat: 39°39’N
Long: 19°51’E

With over 1,000 boats, the Gouvia Marina in Corfu is one of the biggest we have visited.  Most of the regular slip holders here have bicycles for getting around within the marina itself which is like an all-inclusive resort for cruising sailors.  They have restaurants, shops, a swimming pool, etc.  The main town of Corfu is a 10 minute bus ride away, and we spent a better part of the day there on Monday completing necessary clearance formalities.  Lisa spent most of Tuesday in the city setting up our Greek cell phone and internet accounts.  Neither activity was much fun, but it’s a small price to pay for visiting such a beautiful country.

The island of Corfu is as lush and green as the guidebooks describe, and the coves have turquoise blue water just as we imagined.  We are glad to visit the home of the Phaeacians, who according to Homer, guided Odysseus home to Ithaka at the end of his Odyssey.  After a long stretch of good luck and relatively few boat repairs, we seem to be paying our dues this past month.  In Malta it was our engine exhaust, and now in Corfu, we have discovered a leak in our hot water heater which was installed in 2005.  We’re hoping the problem is fixed, but even if it isn’t, it won’t keep us from continuing on.

Jean Pierre and Elian (Fluer de Lune), our traveling companions  of the past week, also arrived here on the same day and are just a few slips away. They are having some repairs done, and so it looks like we will sail together for at least one or two more days after leaving here. We enjoyed another evening of aperitifs aboard their boat, including our last bottle of Prosecco from Italy. It’s time to move on to Greek food and wine, and we’ve started sampling some of the local specialties while we work through our remaining onboard stores of Italy’s finest.