ENVOY CRUISES NORTH BACK TO CEPHALONIA

Envoy is now anchored off the Greek mainland at spectacular Mourtos, while the Blog continues at Ormos Keri – the turtle area with our daughter Amy still aboard.

Greece is not a place noted for its health and safety regulations (or indeed for observing any regulations!) and when we land ashore we find the decking of the main jetty has many holes and missing planks. We're surprised as this is the jetty used by tourists to board their hire boats, but never mind – helpful young Greek guys are on hand to help you. When walking along the many makeshift jetties here it's a good idea to place you feet on areas where the thin planks are supported underneath.

With missing planks you need to watch your step

This part is much worse and requires a big stretch

While anchored at Keri a strong offshore wind develops one afternoon. Later we see an inflatable plastic turtle blowing from the beach towards us. We imagine that some poor child is crying over this lost turtle so Amy and I jump in the RHIB, retrieve it and head to shore. As we approach the beach Amy stands up and starts waving the turtle around to find its owners who turn out to be a young Chinese couple. They're delighted to be reunited with their turtle but in less than a heartbeat they lose it again to the strong wind and again we retrieve it for them. I think these are the first oriental people we've seen in months as Greece is very mono-cultural and even among visitors you rarely see a non-European face.

Aboard our RHIB inside a cave at Ormos Keri

Ormos Keri is the furthermost point we'll be from our Lefkada home base and on 2 September we start heading back north to Cephalonia. Again we cruise up Zakyntos's remote west coast and again the swell is rolling in too much to anchor, despite fine weather and a light wind.

We try out our new trolling lures and bingo – catch a fish, but we don't recognise the species and decide not to chance our luck by eating it. Since then we've caught four more fish, but all too small to eat so back to the sea they went.

The coming of September signals a noticeable change in the weather and temperatures drop by a few degrees to mid 20s, there is more cloud around and generally more unstable weather. Usually this change doesn't occur until mid September.

Spectacular ravine at Poros, Cephalonia - in the foreground is a spillway floodwaters

Enjoying drinks in the rustic Pirate's Bar at Poros.

It's interesting how the decking and bar have been built into the rocks

Ruined houses ashore at Kalo Lim viewed from Envoy

Kalo Lim is a great sheltered anchorage

We spend a couple of days anchored at one of our favourite bays – Foki, which is just south of Fiskhardo on Cephalonia Island. Most cruisers here in the Med don't want to anchor and instead moor stern-to the shore and we spend some amusing time watching people trying to do this unsuccessfully. One large British yacht secures a stern line to a tree and a short time later pulls it out by the roots and sends it crashing into the sea amid a minor landslide of rocks and dirt.

This yacht's stern line pulled out the tree it was moored to by its roots

I'm going to write some more shortly about the advantages and pitfalls of mooring stern to shore as opposed to anchoring