Well who could have predicted that when we left Vaila in Kalamata in October 2019, we would not be back until now. The Covid Pandemic put paid to all plans but luckily we are now able to get back to some sort of normality. Andy did manage to come out for 5 weeks in September 2021 and put copper coat antifouling on (a massive job taking a week) as well as other jobs. So we have a bit of a head start this time.

We arrived here on 3rd May and spent a very busy week sorting out Vaila. We decided to stay in an airbnb apartment overlooking the marina which made life much more civilised.

Vaila got launched on the 11th May and we are now putting sails on, filing up with food, water and diesel and hoping to set off on sunday 15th May, assuming all items come back on time from servicing (outboard, life jackets and life raft). This may be optimistic as this is Greece!

We have decided to leave Greece this year. We’ve had some amazing sailing here and seen wonderful places and met lovely people but, as we are no longer in the EU, the beauraucracy has become very challenging. The journey out to Kalamata is long and involves 2 flights and we are now restricted to 90 days in 180 in the EU, so feel it’s better to move somewhere more accessible from home.

So the first leg of this weatward journey will be sailing to Sardinia in the next 6 weeks. We have got an annual contract in a marina in Cagliari. Friends are coming out in the next few weeks to help with the passage making, as its 1000 miles sailing via the Ionian, Italy, and Sicily.

As we have limited data and little WiFi I will keep the posts shorter from now on.