Having spent a more or less sleepless night in the Yotel in Gatwick airport ...( a great place to stay if leaving from the South Terminal in Gatwick) I caught my Easyjet flight to Athens. Luckily, the air- traffic controllers were not on strike in Greece and we arrived more or less on time. The previous day, there had been a 8 hour delay! We were met at Athens by our 'hosties' and immediately made our way to the coach. We headed straight for Epidavros with one stop on the way ...to view the Corinth Canal which we would be bringing the boats through the following day. It was awesome! A very large cruise ship was coming through when we were there and it looked as it was touching the sides. Of course it wasnt! The boats were moored in Epidavros ..a lovely small sleepy Greek village with a pier right beside the Poseidon Taverna. All the boats were moored stern-to ..which seems to be the norm here. Our boat is a Bavaria 44 foot (the largest in the fleet) and there are only 4 of us on board so it is luxury compared to other trips that I have been on. The first evening we all signed up . I am First Mate ..but it is only for the boats papers ...and based on those who have their Skippers ticket. We had a briefing for our passage through the Canal ...basically get up to the Canal by 2pm and when all the boats were ready we would go though together ..and we did ..13 boats in all. We had to mill around for an hour waiting for the boats papers to be processed and for the lead boat to pay our fees (we al have to pay for our own boats later). The Canal was quite a sight ..about 6 kilometres long and we were followed up by a large container ship. You have to maintain a speed of over 4 knots through the Canal. We stayed in Corinth that night.
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