Greek Salad

Let’s talk about sailing, and Greek salad.  You know it’s going to be a serious passage when the dinghy motor gets hoisted and locked away.

You know it’s going to be the best Greek salad you’ve ever tasted when every dinky store on the island sells fresh feta cheese and home grown olives.

  Where do these two seemingly unrelated tidbits of information meet?  In the Strait of Corfu. 

Yet another thing I never heard of before we started this sailing life, is the Mediterranean hurricane, nicknamed the Medicane.  According to the European media, there’s been one brewing in the Ionian for over a week now.  Although the hype didn’t excite us much, we we were watching this low carefully.  Yesterday we decided that we’re going to sail on the back side of it, because it finally moved south, and out of our path to Sicily.

I’m writing from Gerty’s navigation table, taking time out every 15 minutes to scan the horizon, but I don’t expect to see much.  We’re in the middle of the ocean again (N37 47.4’, E18 15.1’), and it’s ferocious.  Churned up 4 meter waves are tossing us around, like a toddler tossing a bathtub boat, but we expected this.  We wanted the wind (22-30 knots), and you can’t always order it up with a side of smooth seas.  The good news is that we’re dashing along at an average of almost 9 knots, the cabin is water tight, and neither one of us have vomited yet.  We’ll make it.  I’m sure.

We had a lot of stuff to do to prepare for this passage.  Michael checked the weather.  Then he put on the backstays, and motored us from Paxos to Corfu Town. while I unloaded my character’s thoughts into a google docs file, titled Draft Two.  Next, Michael checked the weather.  Then I checked the weather.  Then Michael went to the customs dock to check us out of Greece, and I went to the Corfu Central Market to shop alongside the Yahyahs and Papooshes.  We checked the weather again.  Then Michael ran the dingy gas tank to empty, lashed the anchor with a flourescent green line, plotted our course, and secured the dinghy to the arch with an elaborate web of dyneema.  I made up the aft berth, sent a sail plan to our family, and cooked umteen tupperwares full of microwavable meals.  We both checked the weather, again.

Around 15:00, as the islands shrunk into the horizon behind Gerty, we ate our last Greek salad and had a chance to reflect.  Hiking the countryside in the crispy Fall air this past week was inspiring.  Sometimes the vibrant water would crash up against the jagged white cliffs, and pop! One of us would get a good idea.  Michael for the hard dodger he is designing and me, for my book.

It was hard to leave the olive tree forests, the winding cliff trails, the tiny villages, the souflaki, and the friendly Greek spirit behind.  We will have to come back.

Sicily is significant, because it represents the first end to a sailing season that we’ve experienced as liveaboards.  We’ll moor Gerty in a marina (bet you never heard us say that before) for five months, and make shorter sails from there, only when the less predictable, winter weather suits us.  It’s the safe thing to do, but the feta won’t be as good.  We’ll have to eat mozzarella.

Last Remarks:

• It is hard to absorb how far we have come this year. About this time last year we were in Virginia looking for a low to ride to Antigua (https://svgerty.com/childbirth/). What a ride it has been!