Lefvkada - Sivota Bay & Lefkada Marina

June 4 - June 8

We stopped in two places on Levkada. The first was Savota Bay and the second was Lefkada marina.

Savota was a quaint bay where we tied up to the quay for free. There were many tavernas and fish restaurants. One fish taverna the fellow would always allow the girls and I look into the fresh fish and tell us the names of the fishes we were unfamiliar with. The girls loved this as it was always fun to go back to the boat and look in the fish book to compare what we had just seen.

We walked along the waterfront and took a look at the grocery store and see what was available. I was so excited to see Crunchie bars (my favourite) available. Shaun happened upon a British yaughting magazine and low and behold we found an article written by our friends Maggie and John on s/v Calidore. Shaun and I found a great taverna at the end of the waterfront that had a great vibe after the sun went down (inside there was a traditional stone olive oil press). We walked with the girls to the small beach for them to look at the rocks. We also found some lovely dresses for the girls as the temperature was rising.

We ended up meeting two families (Wales and British) who were on a flotilla. We got invited to spend some time with them after they finished their dinner and allow the kids to play. Bonus was the kids spoke english. We ended up running into the family from Wales at the Lefkada marina later that week.

On our last day in Sivota I finally went into a shop that sells local goods (soaps, wine, olives etc...) and I recognised the lady there as the one from the grocery store. It turns out she works at the grocery store but owns her own shop. Lovely lady.

the article "Food for Thought" written by Maggie Ping of s/v Calidore

We left Sivota for Lefkada Marina. Once we were out we had a great close reach/beam reach sail across. We ended up losing our wind due to another island shadowing it. We furled in the fore sail and started the motors. Jordan was inside and she happened to hear the s/v Kerpa on the radio. To our surprise and happiness it was our friends that we met in Finike, Paul and Kerstine from Sweden. We promptly radioed them to see where they were headed. It turned out they were heading to the same marina.

Shaun was concerned about the channel as on the charts it was extremely narrow with infrequent markers. Once we arrived at the entrance we were released to see many markers and they continued the whole way up to the marina.

in the channel with the dredgers

more channel

passing a dredger

a sunken dredger

the edge of the channel

some of the boats we passed in the channel

looking out to the marshlands

Before we entered the marina we looked for a spot on the town quay as it would have been a lot less. Being a wide boat there was no space so we had to bite the bullet and go back and pay marina prices. It worked out alright as the girls were able to check out the sea life. Paige worked on her fishing skills and caught 10 fish (she was very proud). Two were yellow striped sea bream that were big enough to eat. One went to the marinaros and the other I ate (YUM). We also got to see our new favourite sea creature first hand, a sea hare (a type of sea slug). I took some pictures but they don't do it justice.

On a walk along the waterfront in search of a chandlery we ran into Paul and Kerstine from s/v Kerpa and had a beer with them. We also invited them for dinner the following evening. It was so nice to see familiar faces and to catch up.

the yellow striped sea bream I had the privilege to eat.

the sea hare

The other reason (and Shaun would argue the more important reason) we came to Lefkada was our port engine had a leak in the cooling system (where the sea water comes in) which had us pumping the bilge pump in the engine room every 15 minutes so it wouldn't fill up. This leak was a huge concern as we didn't want the engine to overheat.

In the marina there was a pool which Jordan had a blast at. I met an Irish lady there who was helping with the refuge situation. She was so nice to Jordan and it was nice to chat with another adult for awhile.

Shaun was able to order the hoses that we need to repair the leak but it was going to take 7-8 days to get them so we decided to leave and head up to the island of Paxos and anchor. Once we were there we loved it so much that we had them send the parts there.

Follow our video adventures on our YouTube channel: Video adventures of s/v Element