Patras bridge passed – one night at a buoy

5 a.m. Cast off and set sail with the first bit of light. At first we have relatively smooth seas, but that changes again after just one hour. Poseidon has probably noticed that we are sailing on and sends his greetings with wind and waves, and then again a good 40°C, the very warm wind doesn’t really cool us down. Lefkada is an island connected to the mainland by a bridge that is like a ship. Every full hour the bridge ship leaves for 10 minutes, you can pass or you have to wait. In any case, it saves you the tedious walk around the outside of the island. Behind the bridge, a canal-like passage awaits us and first a petrol station, diesel in Greece between 1.85 and 1.95 euros. Now I am not sad that we are travelling slowly, the consumption per hour is now only 20l, before it was sometimes 50l at 25 knots speed. Passing Kalamos, Itaka and Kefalonia, with Zakynthos in sight, we turn into the bay of Patras. We leave Patras on the left and reach the Strait of Corinth at the bridge of Rio. Patras would have been too early to anchor, so we continue. But there is still a lot of wind and waves, so we don’t make it to the next marina (which doesn’t exist either, as we saw the next day). In a mini village near Seleanitika we find a fishermen’s buoy and moor up, which the friendly contemporary allowed us to do afterwards. Very restless night, checking the lines every hour, because we weigh much more than a fishing boat and are also longer, who knows if the buoy anchor will hold. In addition, there was a good swell all night. Meaning: 5 o’clock we let go of the line, hardly slept and had a good shake.