After we had settled Basil down for the night on board “Superfast II”, Sarah, the dogs and I went up on deck to have a beer while we waiting for the ferry to depart. Superfast II is a very modern ferry, but small by comparison with the Hull Zeebrugge ferries with which we are most familiar. There was just one small self service restaurant, which merged into an equally small bar/cafe. The largest area was a space under cover for the lorry drivers to smoke!

There were a couple of, yes you guessed it, small open deck areas so Sarah and I grabbed a couple of the wicker chairs from the smoking section and sat down with a view over Bari harbour. A waiter was happy to serve me a large Heineken and Sarah a Strongbow, which was unpleasantly sweet. They seemed to go down well so we had another round, with Sarah opting for Greek white wine. Superfast II lived up to its name by slipping its moring on time and we watched the, by now, lit up skyline of Bari disappear. The waiter was equally prompt with the bill – €19!!! Considering in Italian supermarkets basic lager is just over €1 a litre and perfectly palatable local wines can be bought for €2 a litre, we were not impressed and skulked back to Basil for a sandwich. The one disadvantage of camping on board is that cookers cannot be used and so cold food it was.

The crossing was super smooth. The sea was like a mill pond. Most amusingly before bed I tried to get the dogs to do their business! I spent half an hour walking around the car deck amongst the tightly packed HGVs. Eventually, very reluctantly, Melek produced a wee, but nothing was doing from Mabel. In fact Mable held her bladder for an astounding 18 hours between wees, despite repeated encouragement! Melek, who usually wees on anything that moves, only wee’d twice in the whole 18 hour crossing.

The boat stopped at 4.30 am at Igoumenitsa. I, unlike Sarah, slept through all the commotion. When I awoke in the morning I found that 90% of the vehicles had departed and we were now almost alone on an enormous car deck. We slipped between beautiful islands and along the mountainous Greek mainland as we approached Patras on a smooth turquoise sea. Our final act on board was accompanying Melek as he did a huge poo in the middle of the car deck with a group of students spectating from the deck above. They all had their phones out, so if you see an hilarious video on snapchat, facebook, youtube or anyother social media outlet of a little one eyed dog squatting on a vast empty ferry, while an overweight embarrassed man looks on, you’ll know who it is.

Disembarkation was as chaotic as boarding. No one directed the traffic and Basil duelled with HGVs to get off. We then drove 50 miles on roads, which on initial impression appear better than Italy. One quirk we have already seen is our main road was two way with a small breakdown lane on both carriageways. All the heavy and slow vehicles drive half in the breakdown lane and half on the road. The central part of the road is then used as a de facto suicide lane for vehicles overtaking in both directions.

Basil’s new spot at Camping Ionion Beach

We are initially staying on the campsite Ionion Beach (37.834973, 21.132542) about 50 miles south of Patras on the Greek Peloponnese. It is probably the best campsite we have been on so far, but also the most expensive at €19 a night using the ACSI card. Very smartly kept and located on a sandy beach. It is currently very empty with less than 10 of us on site but the owner says the restaurant opens tonight so we might give it a go.

View from Basil

I think we will stay here at least 3 nights, because Sarah wants to slow down more, if that is even possible, and I need to do some planning for our 2 months in Greece.

Ionion Beach