Leto and Rum Make for Great Greek Sailing

While the title of this article might leave you confused initially, by the time you've finished reading you should understand.

Sunset onboard the ferry to Greece

Our first full day of the tour started early. We were on a tight schedule to get to the ferry in Bari en route to Greece so we all piled into the bus quickly. Our overnight ferry wasn’t very eventful, but gave us a good chance to get to know the group more especially Shae and Shannon (Shaz) at our hilarious dinner with the ship's captain. This included a terrible dessert and grappa, but a free bottle of olive oil. The Wi-Fi onboard was well received by just about all of us, resulting in a bit of the fight to get time in front of the computers (hello iPhone, thanks for coming to Europe with me!)

We were due to set sail on our own boats from Plataria, a tiny town of the west coast of Greece and when we arrived we found 10 brand new (and sparkling) sail boats waiting for us. Our boat's name was "Leto" and we guessed it was named after the singer/actor Jarryd Leto so we nicknamed it "Jarryd". While our captain (Paige) and her first mate (Nic) got a crash course in sailing a boat from our head sailor, Ben, the rest of "team Leto" - Corinne, Courtney (another one – but she goes by “Cork”), Ash and I hit the supermarket for supplies. We were supposed to be getting food to last us for 3 days (from the smallest supermarket ever), however we all had other "supplies" in mind and headed straight to the liquor aisle. So here's what we got:

• 3 bottles of Vodka
• 1 bottle of Malibu
• 1 cask of wine
• 1 bottle of Bacardi (for me!)
• 6 cans of Coke
• 2 bottles of Orange Juice (for mixers not nutrition)
• 1 slab of Heineken beer

We set sail at about 1pm and made it to our first port without any dramas. It was pretty smooth sailing with our motor on the whole time. Port was a tiny little fishing village which I can’t even remember the name of. It only had 1 restaurant/bar which we occupied for the whole evening. Dinner was brilliant (fresh calamari caught that day), the greek dancing was lots of fun and the rum went day way to easily. I stumbled home at an unknown hour with Ash and Shae wishing I hadn’t drunken so much as I will probably struggle on the boat tomorrow.

Team Leto

As predicted, my hangover did arrive early in the morning, but it wasn’t as bad as what I thought it would be – perhaps the fresh sea air helped. Although it was an overcast day I was glad for the swim stop and the chance to jump in the beautiful blue water to overcome the effects of the hangover. In the afternoon I had a go at steering the boat for a couple of hours. There wasn’t really much to it and it really was quite boring but at least I can say I did it (unlike a couple of others on our boat). We arrived in our second port for the trip, Corfu, at about 5.30 and headed into the town for dinner with the rest of our boat (minus Nic) so we could get some food in our tummy before the much -anticipated pirate party. Corfu was very beautiful but quite busy with tourist. Paige, Corinne, Cork, Ash, Billy and I got ourselves prepared for the party by playing a quick game of kings. The pirate party was held on the pier where our boats were moored and while it was great to see everyone dressed in there pirate gear it certainly wasn’t a huge night. After the tug of war competition (in which our team lost terribly) I decided to call it a night (along with many of the others) as I wasn’t too keen on getting drunk enough to fall in the water while getting on our boat (there was quite a gap between the pier and the boat). While a few kicked on at a pub in Corfu, Cork and I lied on the deck of our boat and chatted for a bit before turning in pretty early.

Ahoy, me hearties

Our final day on the boats started with me waking up hangover – free, while a few others on our boat were carrying some sore heads. Our captain believed she was still drunk when we left the harbour which could account for why we nearly crashed into a $20million super yacht and almost giving Ben a heart attack. We sailed for a bit (dodging giant ferries while crossing the ferry channels) before visiting a beach that was set up like a mini resort with sun shelters and water sports. While I took the chance to nap under the sun shelter alongside Sarah and Jodie, Ash went parasailing, jet skiing and banana boating (little thrill seeker!). Our final night on our boats was back at our starting point (Plataria) but just as we arrived one of the other boats broke down so we were all delayed getting back in the harbour while it was repaired. When we finally made it into dock we started the task of cleaning our boats. We had been told that the owners were absolutely fanatical about the boats being left spotless so we made sure we did a bloody good job. Once we finished cleaning we had the chance to take a shower and despite the water being cold and the shower block being pretty grimy, it was absolute heaven (after 3 days without a shower). We had dinner as a whole group at a local restaurant to say farewell to Ben who told us we were one of the best crews he has ever had (woohoo!). We all headed to bed pretty early because we had to be up early tomorrow to finish cleaning the boat before a 9 hour bus drive to Albania.

Highlights of Greece

• Freshest calamari I have every eaten
• Swimming in the stunning blue water of the Ionian sea
• Sailing a $100,000 sail boat