Earlier this season, Trip had read about a book about the myths of Greece written by a fellow sailor. We’ve had a great time using the book for the island of Ithaca, as the author is a wonderful writer and includes anchorages in the book to make exploration fun as well as practical. Leaving Vathy we decided to try one more spot, Pera Pigadhi, the site of the spring of Arethusa.

Pera Pigadhi

The anchorage was exquisite. Room for boats to both take lines ashore and free-anchor, no one had to crowd in. The water was the most beautiful shade of blue and there were fish absolutely everywhere. We attempted a stern anchor to keep us in the same direction as everyone else, but gave up when some big wind gusts dragged it and it threatened the anchors of neighboring boats. (Trip used his new free-diving breathing skills to actually move our stern anchor on the bottom!)

Ready to row out a stern anchor

After a bit more research we decided not to go looking for the spring (it wasn’t much more than a hole in some rocks with the water not very accessible), but simply lounged in the beautiful water and enjoyed ourselves for the day.

Beats a steep climb in the heat to find a hole in the rock