A day in our new life.

We've been living on Kefalonia now for 4 months - so what's daily life like? Just to give you an idea, here's an average day in our new life.
First thing in the morning, it's a cup of coffee on the patio. The sun hasn't reached the top of the mountain yet so it's cool. Then we take Rocky and Bobby for their walk along the coastline of Sami and Karavomylos in Sami bay. Stunning scenery which I hope we'll never take for granted.

Panoramic shot of Sami bay from the mountain - Sami and Karavomylos just visible on the left.

Sami bay - Sami on the left and Karavomylos on the right.

Rocky and Bobby swimming ashore from our yacht (I wish!) to cool down.

Eucalyptus trees along the way offer some shade

Early morning walk to avoid the heat. Mr T and his family live in the brackish stream behind the bamboo (Balkan Terrapins)

Mr T

There are usually some yachts moored in Sami bay and of course my new hobby, if you remember from my previous post, is yacht spotting. Not just any old yacht you understand, preferably old 1930's and 1940's yachts that look great and with a bit of history to them. I'll know what they're called because before leaving home I will have looked at my new app on my phone. I'll also know their call sign, the year built, length, breadth, gross tonnage, deadweight, ship flag, destination, average speed latitude longitude and speed - No really - Just kidding! I suppose it's the scientist in me that I have to do some research and find out the whole history of the yacht - Hello Google!

There was a yacht moored in Sami bay for quite a while recently, called "Nirvana Formentera". Not an old style yacht but the fact that it remained in Sami bay for nearly 2 weeks made me want to find out who owned it, so I did my detective work and found out it belonged to Isak Andik, founder and CEO of Mango. So from then on every day when we arrived at the beach we started singing "Underneath the mango tree ...." from the James Bond film.



The other day, quite by chance,  I found a very distinctive looking yacht on my app. It was called Amphitrite and it was moored in Argostoli. When I looked at the photo of it on the app, it looked very like a photo of Johnny Depp's yacht which I'd seen on the internet. They were in fact the same yacht but how come the different names? Detective work ensued and I found out that JK Rowling had bought the yacht off Johnny Depp for a cool £22 million. The name was changed either by Johnny Depp or JK Rowling - not sure on that one.  I got really excited about this yacht (I know-really sad) and remember running into the garden where Mark was, and shouting "I've found Johnny Depps yacht"! I thought I would track it's voyage around Kefalonia and low and behold - within a few days, where should it end up but Antisamos! Just around the corner from where we live. So..... you know what comes next - yes a trip to Antisamos. We were actually on the beach the day before - typical! Here's a photo anyway. Beautiful yacht and just a bit different.

Antisamos beach - the large yacht behind me is Amphitrite

You can see why Johnny Depp bought it!

Another yacht which we recently came across while snorkelling at Aghia Sophia was Shemara.

Beautiful yacht - launched in the UK in 1938 as a pleasure boat, and almost immediately requisitioned by the Navy during the Second World War in 1939 and used as a training vessel for anti-submarine warfare. It was during a training exercise with HMS Shemara that the submarine HMS Untamed was lost with all her crew.
Sir Bernard and Lady Docker took ownership in the 1950s when it became notorious for lavish parties with guests ranging from King Farouk of Egypt to a party of miners from Yorkshire.
In 1965 she was sold to Harry Hyams. Though she was used on a number of Mediterranean cruises she was largely left languishing in Lowestoft.
Her third and current owner Sir Charles William Dunstone, is the co-founder and chairman of mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse.
Shemara was towed to Portsmouth. Shemara Refit LLP was set up to be run by friend and business partner Peter Morton, who then set about recruiting naval architects from BAE along with several subcontractor companies to bring her back to her former glory.

Enough of yachts! - Getting back to the dog walk -after about an hours walk, we sit down by the camper van, and just chill while the dogs have a drink and Bobby chases lizards and pesters us to throw the pine cone for him. Job done and back home.
Once the dog walk is finished, we head home for breakfast. Time to water the plants, especially the ones in tubs.
Our time now, and we head out to do some snorkelling. We like to try somewhere different every time. Just local. There are numerous little coves nearby on the road from Karavomylos to Aghia Ephimia.  This is one of my favourite roads on the island. As we drive along, the water is shades of deep blue, turquoise and emerald green and the island of Ithaca in the distance is under a royal blue sky. Aghia Ephimia in the distance is so picturesque and you can almost touch the water from the camper van. The photos on my blog are not photoshopped in any way - the colour you see is the colour that was captured by the camera.

It's not ELO and Mr Blue Sky anymore - it's Rod Stewart and Blue Skies.

Rod Stewart and Blue Skies




 

A few coves we have used for snorkelling just recently.

Mark snorkelling

Mark snorkelling

Aghia Sophia

Horgota beach

As you drive past coves you quite often see people just bobbing around in the water, sometimes quite far out. Treading water in the Ionian Sea is extremely easy as its salty and makes you very buoyant. None of this flapping your arms and legs around to keep your head above water. The new motto -  KEEP CALM AND BOB AROUND.
There are lots of different fish to see, large and small but on a recent trip to one of the coves, I swam alongside two weird looking fish which were about 4ft long. Their eyes were one third of the way along their body. I didn't know what they were at the time but on returning home I googled them and found them to be cornetfish. We don't have an underwater camera so the photo below is courtesy of google.

 Cornetfish at Aghia Efimia (Photo courtesy of Google)

 

At Horgota beach I came across a shoal of barracuda. I didn't know what they were at the time. I followed them and swam alongside them trying to pick out and remember some identifications so I could google them when I got back home. Fortunately they weren't hungry!

Barracuda ((Photo courtesy of Google)

We usually spend a couple of hours at the coves, most of the time in the warm water. It's great not to have your breath taken away when you walk into it. Snorkelling is great exercise and we just couldn't do this back in the UK without wetsuits etc. Swimming in the North Sea, to me, is something you do only if you happen to fall out of a boat!

Its been really hot here recently - 34 degrees, so about 1.00pm we head back home to have some lunch.
After lunch it's chill time and I will write a bit of blog, Mark will do some gardening and take a nap and then it will be time for the afternoon dog walk. We usually get back about 7.00pm by which time it's time to make dinner and then have a cuppa on the patio.
Somehow we have to fit in the usual food shopping, washing clothes etc. Will we ever find time to do everything we want to do?


A day in our new life...... A day on Kefalonia.