2 August 2013, Pass

A 2^nd look at the weather forecast for south Peloponnese revealed that heavy winds (>20m/s) right in the nose was expected half a week ahead for several days without any break. With the delays we already have had we could not afford to be blown in some harbor for several days. So my dream of rounding Peloponnese has to wait until another year when we have more time.

Taking the other route, the Korint Gulf and Canal, we could expect a rather smooth journey with few surprises. It was also much shorter, so we decided to stay another day in Katakolon and drive a bit further away to visit the Apollo temple. And on the way there we could drop off Kimberley at Pyrgos bus station.

We waved Kimberley goodbye at the bus station for her bus to Athen. We have had a wonderful week together and it felt empty now when she had left.

Halfway to Apollo’s temple by car we heard the phone ringing. I thought it was one of my phones, one of these Swedish sales men ringing so I wasn’t that keen taking the call. But then we found out it must have been Sally’s – which was lying in the back of the car. “It can wait” Sally said. “But think if it is Kimberley”. Ok, we stopped the car and Sally discovered it had been Kimberley calling. So she returned the call – Kimberley was already 1 hour away towards Athen in the bus and was missing her passport! I had to take all passports to the port authorities who never came in Sankt Nikolas at Zakynthos. So all passports, including Kimberley’s, were still in that big envelope where I carry the boat documents. What to do?

After some calculations we realized that the only option for Kimberley to catch the planned flight was that we took our car and drove after her after a visit on the boat first of course. So we did, Apollo have to wait until another occasion. Kimberley had jumped off the bus outside Patras and two hours later we picked her up there and managed to get in time for her flight at Athens International Airport! Puh! So we took another farewell to Kimberley, and hoped her continuous journey back home now would go more smoothly.

Being in Athens we took the opportunity to visit a good marine shop in Piraeus to buy some new fenders that we had lost in Zakynthos. We also bought some new lines so that we would be able to take down the main sail more easily and directly from the cockpit and also to make it able to lift the boom from there.

On the way back to Katakolon we took the road over Tripoli, we have heard this was a faster road. And it was, but only to Tripoli. We did the mistake taking the exit just before Tripoli towards ancient Olympia, that seemed to be the shortest way on the map. It might have been, but it was also definitely the slowest way as well. We are talking about some 120 km mountain road, where if you are lucky, you could drive 50 km/h. But at the many zig-zag roads you could only drive in 20 km/h. We passed may surely very beautiful places and small villages/towns on the way, but it was pitch dark so we did not see much. We arrived Katacolon 01:00, extremely tired.