Amaris Sails the Globe

8/28/2013

Position N 37.41.05 E 20.50.35

Town of Keri, Zakenthos

anchored 15 feet - sand in crystal clear water (one can honestly see down 60')

Land Ho!

After a delightful sail across the Ionian Sea we are anchored off the small village of Keri.  Because of something Shawn ate, we are flying our "Q" or "quarantine" flag where we should be flying our Greek courtesy flag, which of course has everyone looking funny at us.  In actuality, we have yet to clear customs into Greece and plan to accomplish that later today.  We have hopes that clearing into Greece is easier than Italy.  Knowing that we need to pay the equivalent of a "cruising tax," we expect to find the customs office with a bit of ease.  Then again, entering a new culture means guessing when the locals close for their afternoon naps and how late they stay open before going home to have a glass of wine or shot of ouzo.  

Crossing the Ionian was a bit of a breeze- excuse the pun.  Although the wind didn't pipe up to the predicted force 6 (25 knots) we did have some nice periods of winds in the mid-high teens on the beam - which made for a nice crossing.  It was our first overnight with just the two of us.  There was almost no shipping traffic - which was surprising.  Shawn of course was grateful for that (nothing to hit us in the middle of the night), I missed the challenge  of navigating with and commodore of other vessels.  We did however hear a British warship asking another boat for right of way.  

We missed having Cody aboard as he was able to stand a watch during the overnights (while i "slept" outside).  Cody usually had a few opinions that we needed to correct him on as well.  "Awake time overlap" during our big sails better allowed for dialog.  Alas, it is now up to his teachers to get that mind working now.

The town of Keri isn't really much to write about.  We were attacked the second we "may have gone ashore" by restaurant vendors and tour guide sales people.  (Recall we have not yet cleared customs - so if we did, this is what we would have found).  The guides were selling tours of the local natural stone arches and caves indented into the cliffs surrounding the area.  As were we leaving we made a point to sail by one of the small islands guarding the bay.  Of course it was crawling with dinghies, glass bottom boats, and hundreds of people looking for turtles through masks and snorkels  --  basically, enough people to motivate us not to spend another night and start our trek of finding the customs office.