Europe Day 17: Corfu Day Two

Today was the day we were going to spend all day out on the water – on George’s Boat… but not George’s Boat. Another boat he owned driven by someone else. There was another Contiki group in Corfu with us – our partner tour but on the “backpack” level – and they got George’s actual boat. But really – we didn’t care – because today turned out to be an absolutely amazing day on the water regardless.


On the waterfront
We boarded our Not-George’s-Boat at the waterfront a little further… south I think… of Corfu city. It was a pretty nice boat – not glamourous or anything – but definitely as scary as it could have possibly been. Don’t ask me how or why – but I’ve been on a few boats you do NOT want to be in and this was nowhere near that quality. It had a bar and washrooms and lots of room for most of us to actually lie down and sun bathe.

Ana
Ana – our site rep – came on the tour with us and was a ton of fun. She really has dived into the relaxing life of living on a Greek island. She told us how really – some of it isn’t so hot – as she also has to work with the budget tours and at Contiki sites – the reps actually are the ones cooking their food and planning things for them that our hotels take care of – but she admits – the perks on the “other side” more than make up for it.

Jumping into pain
A little ways into the ride, we made our first stop in the middle of the Ionian Sea for “jumping time” where we all just dived into the water. As I watched everyone go for it there was no way I wasn’t going to go too. Silly me apparently – something went wrong. When I jumped off the boat and went barreling into the water – all of a sudden my whole head started burning severely – especially my ear canals. I thought maybe it would go away as the water emptied out of my head, but it just didn’t – and the pain became excruciating. It brought me to tears.

Tissue sponges
I had to get out and onto the boat, but after a few minutes the pain still hadn’t gone away. I went searching for some pain pills hoping it would numb the feeling – but then the captain of the boat sat with us and said it was probably cause the salt water got pushed into my ear canals and was stuck there. He told me to tightly twirl some tissue paper and make “ear sponges” – which really, were just tissue paper Q-tips – and put them in my ear to soak up the salt water. Lo and behold – the minute I did it – the pain went away. The thing is – I just didn’t get it. I’ve gone diving for goodness sakes – so salt water in my ears isn’t new. The captain said it was most likely that the water actually went into my ear canal – whereas usually it doesn’t.

Water Sports
We stopped for another swim spot a little further on and the bar was opened for drinks. After starting up again, we then headed for one of the large beaches on the eastern side of the island where all the water sports would be available for us to try.

Parasailing!
There were a ton of sports to choose from. Everything from a Banana Boat ride to water skiing was available. I, however, had my eye on the skies and convinced H-Rabbit that we should go parasailing! I think she thought that I wouldn’t go through with it – even though I had said I wanted to go parasailing ever since we hadn’t taken the chance in Cuba a few years ago. I promptly plopped my money down, so we were going – no matter what.

Ropes and Pulleys and…
Getting ready took a little doing, as they didn’t have a large selection of gear to wear. However – after we got settled, they led us to the beginning of the dock, placed us in between the ropes, and before the parachute, and gave us our instructions…

Just what?
… and what were those instructions? One line, one smile: Just walk! Can you believe that? All the guy told us was to “just walk”! Ok – he may have ALSO pointed to where we should hold our hands – but even that he said only matter-of-factly while we were still fiddling with the cables, and once we were off it didn’t matter. So – when he gave the call – we did exactly what he said – we just started walking down the dock… and we were off!

The view from up here
It was definitely one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. If you want to feel like a bird – go parasailing! The view was spectacular, and feeling so weightless was just amazing. H-Rabbit gave us a tiny scare when she leaned forward a bit and almost tipped us over, though I think if we hadn’t panicked and just fell into a horizontal position, we wouldn’t have messed anything up. Albeit – up there – so far from the water – it was a bit scary. But it lasted only a second, and everything else was great – even our decent into the water when we were done – so I’m definitely parasailing any chance I get to in the future.

More pebbles…
When we were finished H-Rabbit and I took some time to check out the beach, but it turned out it was another pebble beach instead of a sand one and I wasn’t too impressed. No matter how smooth pebbles get or can be – it simply is NOT a happy beach bed to walk on – with or without shoes.

Lunch
After some water play we all clambered back onto the boat for lunch. They served some awesome food right from the galley. I think I forgot to mention – when we got to the beach for watersports, we actually hooked up with George’s ACTUAL boat and the other Contiki group – and for Lunch our boats were strung together. We had to walk along one to get to the other.

Hilarious George
During lunch – George was selling souvenirs from his boat. The t-shirts were absolutely hilarious and extremely “dirty”. Heather and I thought they were great – but we knew deep down they were throw away items – reminiscent a la frosh gear - and that we just didn’t need them. We did take pictures of people in theirs though.

It took awhile for everyone to finish all the water sports that they had signed up for since some people almost signed up for everything. I was content to sun bathe on the boat and have more great food and drinks. Yay for delicious Frappes!

Water, water, water
After everyone finally finished all of their sports, we took off again on the water. I absolutely love being out on the water. The wind, the waves, the water, the sun – it was a perfect day. We took time for a few more swimming spots. One was a nice alcove stop, but we were told to watch out for the bottom, as there were spiky black sea urchins that were poisonous lying around. Michelle and Tash brought out their underwater cameras and took a lot of photos of everyone beneath the water. It’s the Olympus hand-held versions – and I definitely need to get one of those. Will save on ever having to buy those disposable water ones.

Winding down
After that, our boat tour was winding down – but it was a really long day in the sun so I think the timing was perfect. I am definitely going to hold today in my memory forever – so perfect.

Easy evening
Two full days in the sun can definitely be tiring. When we got back to the hotel, we had some time before dinner, so we hung out at the pool and pool bar and had some crazy concoctions made by the very friendly bartender. After feeling like we’d swum off all the saltwater – we headed to dinner where we grabbed lots of buffet food and then settled on making plans just to walk into town – though it did require a lot of convincing, as I was quite tired.

Corfu in the dark
We walked down towards the town along the hotel road and met up with Caitlyn along the way. She had headed down on her own earlier but was heading back because it was a bit scary. However – upon meeting us – she decided to tag along, as she didn’t really get to see anything before heading back originally.

When everyday life is a festival
The city life at that time of night was amazing. Everyone was out – and I mean everyone! Apparently, families in Greece (especially on weekends – i.e. today being Sunday) eat dinner really late, and they all go out into town to these huge outdoor restaurant areas along the water. It was 10pm and people were just starting to eat, tons of kids were running around, and huge families, extended and otherwise gathered in groups and were chatting away. It looked like a festival but we were told this was an everyday thing.

Night Water
We walked all along the waterfront and could see all the forts along the coast lit up. After reaching what seemed like the end of the boardwalk and a road that would lead us to roads more frequented by taxis (to get back), we changed course to head into the centre of town.

Taxi!
Problem: there were no taxis there either! We couldn’t find one anywhere. Finally – I decided to just ask someone in one of the cafes we were passing by – even though it was most likely they wouldn’t speak English – which they didn’t. However, the people were extremely nice and kind of figured out what we needed. They pointed us to an area where they said would be lots of buses and taxis. Thing was – when we got there – there still weren’t any taxis!

Magical Taxi
This would be about the time we started to freak out a little bit in our heads because we knew there was no way we’d be able to walk all the way back – a) because we weren’t really sure of the roads and b) because we were dead tired. Then – just like that – a taxi magically just drove up right in front of us. Crazy! It took only minutes to drive back to the hotel and we are immediately hitting the sack to get ready for the long drive to Athens tomorrow… as soon as I finish this post!