Brian, Lorraine, Lois, Terry and Sandra at Birthday Lunch


John Menzies, Lois and Terry in Corfu Old Town


Captain Lorraine?


Sarah, Lois and Chris on board "Infinity"


Terry enjoying his birthday lunch Lobster


Corfu – 17 November 2008

Doris and Brian departed at the beginning of October and since then we have had a further three lots of visitors; Maurice and Gill Atcheson (Auckland), Carol Ann and Thomas Johnson (Atlanta, Georgia) and Andy Yavasis (we stayed with him in Samos) or otherwise known as ‘Moutsos Rangi’ – a total of 3 months with visitors on board by the time Andy departed at the end of October – we enjoyed ALL of it!!!!

The McAra’s hold the record now for visitation previously held by the Watts of Washington State (14 days) – Brian for 2 months and Lorraine for 5 weeks – we had the best time and both of them fitted into shipboard life very well considering the length of time. Contrary to popular belief, Terry and I generally as a rule of thumb do not partake in lunchtime drinks unless our visitors persuade us otherwise however at this time we threw all those rules ‘overboard’ and generally partook in a aperitif at lunchtime everyday!
I do miss my lunchtime vodkas with Doris – such a treat!!! We managed to come up with a few variations on our normal vodka, roses lime, squeeze of fresh lemon and lime – this is our normal drink and when we met 23 years ago this is what we drank then! Absolut PeachVodka with the same condiments as well as Absolute Grapefruit. Absolut Raspberry with raspberry sorbet – also great as a shot!! All delicious especially the Peach Vodka which seems the most unlikely contender. For those in the southern hemisphere a fabulous lunchtime drink for summer coming up!

For Terry’s birthday on the 30th of last month we sailed around to the west coast of Corfu and anchored in a cove at Paleokastritsa. We were told about this great restaurant near a Monastery.
Doris and I checked it out the day prior and reserved a table overlooking the sea and cliffs. It was a fabulous day which started with a Raspberry Vodka shot on board AC before we headed off – as you do!! The day was sunny and warm which made it all the more special. We also had Sandra, business partner and friend of Doris, who arrived the day prior to share the last week of board for all of them. The recommendation was to try the Lobster pasta but Terry opted for one whole broiled lobster which he savoured! It was great to have our special friends to share in the day’s celebration which made it all the more special!

Sadly – the next week went very quickly and it was ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ (just had to play this) to Doris, Brian and Sandra on the 6th of October and now can’t believe we had that quality time together - we are so grateful they could make the journey to spend time with us. It has certainly given us some ‘new cocktail talk’ (as our friend Don Watts would say) and some great memories to look back on.

As you would appreciate now that we have been in this area for a while we are fairly familiar with what’s on offer in terms of anchorages and tavernas etc. As Doris has already said – we could be charged with loitering at this particular Bay called Agni – a little way up the east coast from Corfu town. It has 3 great little tavernas in this small bay – one of them, Nikolas, we have tried for both lunch and dinner with the McAra’s (last Greek night of the season) in the same day – a sterling effort! And the other, Agni Taverna, a couple of times for lunch, one with Atcheson’s and another with Andy! Very popular but very low key – the food was excellent.

Corfu old town is lovely and we have been in a few times during the day for lunch and once in the evening with Carol Ann and Thomas during their visit.. It is a delight to wander around!

On the last evening Carol Ann and Thomas were with us they took us to dinner at the restaurant on the dock of the marina – great setting and very pleasant. During the course of the evening we got chatting with the host of a group of English people led by Tony. He is a gregarious fun loving man and he invited us to join the group after our dinner as he had arranged for some entertainment!

He has been coming to Corfu for a number of years and so is totally familiar with the place and obviously has a number of local friends who were joining the group as well – some of these were professional entertainers. What a great evening – the best Greek entertainment we have encountered during our time here!!

We found out later in the evening the get together had a rather sad touch to it as it was supposed to have been a celebration for Tony’s wedding but that was called off some months before. However all his lovely friends decided to rally around and come to Corfu regardless.

Very fortunate for us, Tony invited us to be his guests at the dinner on Saturday evening he had organised for the group at a lovely hotel nearby the marina. It was a la carte style and just stunning! His great group of friends made it such a fun evening!!! The next day or so we had a number of the group pop in to AC for coffee – Alpha Crucis Café it’s called!!

We have been in the marina since Andy left us, busy getting through the long list of jobs that need to be done. The weather has been perfect – warm and sunny by day for weeks now and I have finally done 4 coats of varnish, some painting and just about finished polishing the boat! Terry has equally been busy with many trips to the top of the mast, fixing lights etc. And of course the usual never ending engineering maintenance – we are getting through the list!

There is really good community feel here in the marina – many boats wintering over including a few larger motorboats. One being a NZ super yacht – T6 owned by John Spencer from Auckland. We met John and his Captain John Menzies (also from Auckland) when we arrived back in the marina to drop the McAra’s off – they recognised the RNZYS Flag we were flying and helped us tie up! That ended with John Spencer inviting all of us on board T6 for drinks that evening.

Stunning boat – designed by John, built in NZ - a very impressive vessel, complete with helicopter and fast tender under the aft deck! We have subsequently spent a couple of great evenings with John on board T6 and he on board AC! Great to have a couple of fellow New Zealanders around for a change!!!

We have had a couple of fun lunches in old Corfu town with John Menzies on his days off! He is a cherry fellow, good company and has been most helpful in giving us direction in terms of suppliers etc! He will often wander down to AC for a pre dinner drink! Then there is the lovely Sarah (from UK) – she works on one of the larger motor yachts here which is wintering over. She has joined us a few times for drinks and dinners over the last month or so and the other evening cooked a lovely dinner for a group of people which included us. In addition there has been a number of others we have had on board for drinks! So as you would expect we are not without our social activity during our ‘work in progress’ time!!

At this point we will probably be in Corfu another week or two before we head south and then to Malta. However as we cannot have a berth in Malta until the 12th of December we don’t want to leave too soon.

For many of you in NZ I guess you are looking forward to summer and for others like ourselves winter is setting in although we cannot complain about the wonderful autumn we have been experiencing here in Corfu – many warm and sunny days!

Next update will probably be once we leave here.

Love

The Jolly Rogers (nearly that Jolly time of the year again!)