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Update 3 : Storm Bound

Just a quick note about the 2 days and 3 nights we spent in Plitra. First of all the place is a tiny holiday resort, which was virtually closed for the off session. Beginning built in a grid formation with wide deserted roads and a stop signs on every corner gave it a strangely American feel. The one mini market was shut and so we had to cycle the 4 km into the next village to get supplies. Unfortunately we were out of the heavy stuff, all kinds of liquid, and so two trips were necessary. Lucky for us it was basically flat to get there and the wind was with us on the way home. There was very little bandwidth in Plitra. Phil tried his best to gain internet access by pegging the dongle in front of a metal sieve and holding up in different directions. He claimed that this improved things enough for us to get the weather but not much else.


We ate in the nearest taverna of the two, which was directly at the end of the key. It was a nice place. No menu as it was out of session but we were able to eat well enough the twice that we went. The owner gave us red hard boiled eggs on the first night as it was Easter Monday. The Greek tradition is to have them with your meal after mass on the Saturday night but we did not mind. She also gave us a piece of their Easter cake. I had been envious of these in the bakeries. They looked spectacular, both in the chocolate and cream designs and in the calories that they surely contained. This taverna was also the place that people kept buying us beer for apparently no reason. The first night it was a gentleman who had helped us in, which we thought was surely the wrong way around, and the second a family out for lunch. Both just seemed to want to wish us a good stay. It made us feel very welcome.

The nights in Plitra were much less pleasant. The first night we did not sleep due to the strength of the wind shaking the rigging and us worrying constantly about snapping more lines. The second the wind eased a bit and was replaced by swell and thunder storms. The lightening was impressive and lit the boat up like a Gothic horror film. We did snap two more lines in the swell, mostly due to chaff. We now just have enough string and are eagerly looking for chaff prevention. The third night we slept, as the wind dropped and the swell began to subside about midnight.


The next morning we were off, after first un-jambing the mail sail. This took about an hour and a half of , sail goes up, sail goes down, sail goes in, sail goes out, repeated more times than I wanted to count before breakfast. But at last we were off again.

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