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This morning we walked to the top of the ‘new’ fortress. New is a relative term of course, as it’s almost 500 years old. Good views.

Old Fortress in the distance.

Airport on the edge of town.

These lizards are the fort’s only residents nowadays.

Later we walk down to the old fortress. This is 1500 years old. It served the town well for 1000 years until its design became obsolete with the invention of heavy calibre firearms like naval cannon. The Corfiots abandoned it and built the new one.
True to form, the Turks amassed an army of 35,000 just off Corfu. The Corfiots, commanded by Johann von der Schulenberg, numbered just 5000. Schulenberg and his men prevailed, and he is celebrated with a fine statue down by the old fortress.

Here’s Val standing nearby.

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Last night we popped into town and had a few drinks followed by a mixed grill at a hole in the wall giros place. The food was great but it started to rain so we got a bit damp.

This morning it was still raining, but we managed to get out into town in between showers. Lots of people about, and here’s the reason.

In addition to the cruisers, high speed hydrofoils ply the route from the mainland.

In a corner of the huge harbour we find the fishing fleet. Fish is very expensive in Corfu so we tend to avoid it, having eaten our fill in Preveza and the islands.

It’s still raining, so tonight we’ll be having a sprint down the street to the nearest cluster of bars and we’ll grab whatever we can.

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We got a taxi to the airport this morning for the short hop to Corfu. The airport was closed – locked up,  nobody in sight. After a while a few staff began to turn up and eventually we got into the building. There were no other passengers at all.

Our check – in girl confirmed our suspicions – we are the only passengers today. Anyhow, our plane arrived on time and we hopped on. There were already a dozen or so passengers on board who had caught the plane at its previous stop on Kefalonia.
Bye bye Preveza.

The flight took 20 minutes. Here’s our little plane.

Corfu is nice. People have been fighting over it for the past 1500 years so it is heavily fortified.

Lots of Venetian influence, as well as British – there’s a cricket pitch on the right of the photo.

Also a popular stop for the cruise ships.

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Ok they were knocked out of the footie this week, but the Greeks are undisputed champions of. …. Nibbles.
Having done nothing all day we weren’t exactly starving tonight, so we decided to play the nibbles game where you eat for free by drinking beer. With our first round we got warm roast pork with mustard and cheese.

Next up was chicken and cheese pie.

And finally cheese and salami.

We stagger back to the hotel and have a couple of fruit croissants (rescued from the boat) for desert, and that’s dinner done for nothing. Happy days.

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It’s the end of the season here in the Ionian, and Konstantinos needs to come out of the water so she’ll be safe over the winter months. We sail over to the boatyard at Aktio and tie up.
A huge tractor and a hydraulic trailer appear, and from here we’re no longer in charge. A gang of men manoeuvre the boat on to the trailer and very slowly she is lifted from the water.

A few minutes later she’s high and dry on the trailer and on her way to her winter berth.

Once she’s secure we climb a ladder to get on board and do the last of our laying-up chores. After a last check we lock her up and jump in a taxi back to Preveza.
Haul-out day is often very hard work according to other yachties that we’ve spoken to, but thanks to a lot of help from Paul and Hayley with the preparation it’s not too bad for us. We enjoy a beer in town to celebrate. When you buy beer in Preveza you get snacks of cheese and ham. The local cats know all about this.

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Routine day today. We move our stuff to our usual hotel and get settled in to a nice suite. Next we’re off to the marina to pay our bill and give the boat a final clean before she goes ashore tomorrow.
We need to find a ticket agent who can sort out our flights for Thursday, but they’re all closed during the afternoon so we have a walk down to the entrance to the bay. It has a sort of fading splendour.

Along the quayside lots of people are fishing. This guy caught one that was easily big enough for dinner.

We stop for a couple of beers and I finally find an agent to issue our Sky Express tickets.

Val wanted moussaka for dinner, but they don’t really do all that Greek stuff here – it’s just fish or meat. We choose one of the less fashionable restaurants and decide to go with the flow.
Before we get a chance to order anything 2 glasses of ouzo arrive, with olives, tomatoes and feta. This is followed by a plate of chips. Half an hour later we are greeted by prawns and fresh squid in vast quantities. A litre of local red helps it all go down.

The whole lot cost less than £25.

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We had, as forecast,  a big storm last night. High winds, thunder and heavy rain. This morning a very sad sight awaited us on the quay.

It’s the mast and rigging of a little yacht called Kastos which was moored here overnight. She has sunk at her mooring,  presumably battered onto the quay by waves and wind.
The port authority staff arrive with a crane and begin to raise her. The damage is severe.

After pumping out the water she is lifted onto a trailer and taken to a boatyard.

Very sad.

The day brightened up later.

This is the view of the big boat yards across the bay. We’ll be taking Konstantinos over there in a couple of days to add to the forest of masts.

Paul and Hayley left this afternoon, have a good trip home chaps!