Greek Islands

Long lazy days sailing around the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean with the sun on your back and the wind in your hair. Tying up each night in small fishing villages and chatting to the locals, sampling seafood that was caught only a few hours ago and washing it down with a few ice cold beers before being rocked to sleep by the gentle motion of the waves. Sounds like a dream, right? Something attainable only by the rich and famous? Well, it’s not! Gather a few mates together and prepare for the holiday of a lifetime…

So after 48 hours back in London (during which time I hung out with Bec & Craig and reacquainted myself with the delights of Harrow on the Hill, a throwback to when I lived nearby a decade ago), it was back to Gatwick for another charter flight to the Greek islands – in this case Kos, on the Aegean side.

Up, up and away around 10am for an easy couple of hours motoring to Fiskardo, on the island of Kefallonia. I helmed for quite a while, which was awesome! After tying up and having lunch, we hired a little VW and drove along some suitably hair-raising roads down to Assos, a picture perfect little town of brightly coloured buildings perched beside a hilltop Venetian fortress. We hiked up to and around the castle, which was heavy going in the afternoon heat but made for some stunning views over the township and peninsula. Back down to the waterfront for a well-deserved Mythos before tackling the roads again for the short drive to Myrtos Beach, one of Greece’s best apparently.

After the obligatory ‘roll out of bed and into the sea’ first thing in the morning, we headed out of the harbour and down the Meganisi channel, stopping halfway to row into a cave in the rocks for a look around and a swim for a while. Back out into the channel and it was such an idyllic scene seeing all of the other yachts under sail that we just had to do the same. Sails were unfurled, the motor was cut and there were, sailing on the cool and bright clear water, as the Little River Band would say. As the Little River Band did say, in fact, given that Cool Change was featuring heavily on the playlist at the time. It was truly heavenly, and strangely both incredibly relaxing and highly exhilarating at the same time.

After leaving a suitably cold rainy day in Putney, Pete, Dean and I met Trudy at Victoria and took the train to Gatwick. In typical British Rail fashion, it cost the same amount to buy four tickets as it did for two, so long as we travelled as a group. After being referred to as ‘The Group of 4′ by the ticket agent, the guys at the barrier gate and the train conductor, we decided to adopt that name for the rest of the trip. Never gets old.