So today was the day, so of course I woke up at 6 am waiting for the excitement. Of course I went right back to bed and then woke up again every 15 minutes until it was time to get up. Today was boat days kids, the day 2 years ago when i started to plan for this trip, and picked Lefkata as the island we would go to after Corfu, and Nydri was the town I chose to stay in because of this wonderful and cheap hotel, and then the main attraction being boat tours around the various small islands near Nydri, and then I found a place Iranian Cruises who will rent a boat to anyone with a pulse. I remember when I told JW that we were going to rent a boat, and I think from that day all the way up until yesterday when she saw me practice drive the boat around the harbour she thought I was fucking crazy and we were going to die.
Baby Jesus, we did it!
So we woke up finally around 8 and gathered some provisions before heading down to the breakfast bar which was not so great, but knew there were 3 bakeries between here and our boat, so we sauntered down the main drag and stopped at a wonderful bakery that also had espresso and we got our stufff and made our way down to the dock where our boat was waiting.
We slowly backed away from the dock and flipped around and before we knew it, we were driving a boat on the open Mediterranean Sea, with just us and Poseidon watching over us.
My very first agenda point was to see the cave on the eastern side of Meganisi. The boat guy said go there early before the winds picked up. We had various trial and errors with the proper speed the boat should go and decided anything over 40 knots was way to go. JW went from sitting on the tiny bench behind me to clutching the cushion so n the front of the boat, which meant she was facing the wrong way most of time. We had gone maybe 20 minutes out when JW said there’s a boat coming, and i looked behind and sure enough a giant tourist boat was headed right for us. As we got nearer and nearer to the end of where Lefkada ends and we were actually in open water, the wind picked up and the tourist boat was headed straight for us. JW thought we should just stop and let them pass, but i knew their wake would crush us, so i tried to veer out and away from there wake instead of merely stopping in open water.
As it turns out, the boat sped past us and nearly overturned the boat. It was fucking horrible and JW nearly cried from fear. I told her don’t worry, these boats are made for this, but inside even I feared for our lives. The wake was gone and past and we paused to collect ourselves before continueing on towards the cave. JW spotted a cave and said, is that it? And I said it must be, so we swung around and snagged a picture and headed back the way we came.
At this point we’d been out an hour already, and i noticed the fuel gage kept bouncing around between 3/4 and 1/2 a tank. It was also only 10 am, and we had the boat until 6, but i told them we’d be back at 2.
I was seriously worried about running out of gas on the open water, but i also had a plan, and the plan was to drive around Meganisi and eventually wind up at the city of Vathy were we would have lunch. After seeing how chopping and terrible the open water was, and also seeing how much gas we used just to get here, I made an executive call to head back the way we came and see how far we can get on the gas we’ve got.
We came around Meganisi and headed towards Vathy, knowing for sure it was too early for lunch, and JW suggested that she really needed the bathroom, I suggest brunch followed by an early dinner.
This seemed like a great plan, so we hugged the shoreline going fairly slow and whipped into Vathy harbour not having any idea where to park a boat. Close to the city center were a couple boats like ours tied to the dock, so eased us into the spot next to them, JW jumped off the bow and tied us up. An old man drinking coffee said Good Job. And we knew we’d made it!
We walked down the water front looking for anywhere open before getting to the very end where a coffee shop that promised breakfast sat in the corner of the bay, open and read for business. We both had some eggs and espresso and just chilled out while the breezes of the bay floated in our faces and sweet little kitten crawled into my lap looking for food.
We got our brunch and bathroom breaks out of the way and untied the boat and headed back at sea. By this time, both of us were old pros. We headed to the nested island over Scorpio which at one time was owned by Aristotle Onassis, who you may know from the Jackie Kenny thing. He bought the island a long time ago and there are signs all over about trespassing. Both he and his son is buried no the island, and when he died, he left it to his daughter, who eventually sold it to a Russian oligarch and now they are turning it into a touristy island, though we were told by Chris at the Blue Cat that all work has stopped since the American’s froze all the Russian bank accounts.
We drove around the island and it was fine, and there was another island next to it and so we drove around that one too. I have no idea what we’re doing now except wasting gas, driving around on a boat and looking at islands that look exactly the same from the water. Imagine a green chia pet island with rocks all around. There, now you see it.
It was still now only 12:30 so we had another hour and a half to kill, so dropped down to 30 knots and we buzzed the shoreline looking for our hotel, which we found.
Then we went towards the giant inland bay that Nydri is known for, and saw all the boats, just anchored in the middle of wherever they wanted to be, with no direction whatsoever and we were just flubberghasted by the whole thing.
The gas gage kept going from 1/4 to empty, I was so scared it would run out of gas, so i flipped around and headed back to our dock and parked that thing and called the people to get the keys.
They sent a guy.
I’m still waiting to pay for this whole thing, because as of right now, the whole trip was a free boat ride for 6 hours.
We headed to the car and hopped in to go see the Nydri waterfall, which is a sight to behold, another ride through tiny 1 lane two way roads and finally a spot in the shade. The path up to the water was perilous and fraught with danger, but we arrived to 2 old German ladies taking 78 pictures of the water in the only spot you could stand and get the whole thing. I climbed down behind them and stood there waiting for them to get the fuck out of the way. What i actually got was the gorgeous waterfall and the fat ass of one of the ladies as she almost got out of my way.
We headed back down the trail, which was filled with the sounds of frogs mating loudly in the gorge. They sounded terrifying. We stopped at the cafe at the bottom of the hill for a beer and the two ladies came down and sat next to us and lit up and blew smoke our way.
GERMANS!
We got back in the car and headed to a tiny village on the southern shore called Mikros Gialos, but it was so uninteresting that we didn’t even take a picture of it.
We spread back to Nydri with JW fast asleep and got back to our wonderful parking place and immediately beat all the crowded by going to dinner an hour early. All the places on the waterfront that were packed last night at 7:30 were still completely empty, and we chose The Barrel because it was close and they had Lamb.
The meal was fine not great and we sat and watch the place will up with the oldest should be in a nursing home European retirees you have ever seen. The Barrel sat on the corner where everyone entered the seafront, and every couple of pack of old people that came around the corner was a pathetic as the one before it. It was amazing people watching, and we knew that Nydri was as Florida as anywhere in Greece we’d ever been. In fact we were easily 15-20 years young than everyone eating there this night.
After dinner we went for a drink at the Blue Cat, which seemed like a pretentious bar, but turned out to be an OK hang, and we hung with Chris the bartender who gave us the scoop on Nydri in the winter, and all the questions we had about living and growing up in a tourist trap. In the end we both shared a shot of Don Julio, because this is the first bar we have been to in Greece with decent tequila.
We came back to the room and are now preparing to head back to Athens in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment