Zakynthos first impressions and concerns, happy to be proven wrong!

Admitting neither of us were looking forward to coming to Zakynthos town and, on arriving, I wasn’t initially impressed. Busy town wall, noisy Main Street with busy traffic, Med mooring, being glared at by the people on neighbouring cat who then asked us to move. Why? Oh our fenders were touching theirs…what???? We didn’t move and I did explain to him what fenders were designed to do. 
There’s a chap called Dennis who offers to sort the paperwork out, it costs 15 euro per day to be there and his nominal fee is 5 euro. We readily accepted and went for a stroll into the the town where our moods improved. 
Lots of side streets which all, eventually, lead to the pedestrianised area with tavernas, cafés and shops galore. Plus a health food shop, that was exciting!
Provisioning is ok at the Spar although I thought it expensive compared to other places.   Scratch that, it’s much more expensive as I’ve just had to provision for having tons of people onboard. 
All in all not a place we’d want to spend much time but suited our purpose of collecting middle daughter. Yeah! 

Next morning off to Keri, Now we were all happy. Lovely coastline, beautiful clear water and not too crowded. BUT, if swimming or snorkelling take extreme care to keep watch. The tiny day rental boats and high power ribs have no regard for people in the water and have never heard of the 6 knots in an anchorage rule. Either stay close to your boat or accompany swimmers in dinghy, kayak, etc. 

 
A note on the speed rule, this is a national marine park and vessels are not allowed to go faster in quite a large area. Obviously these guys didn’t read the memo..
Food and drinks ashore far more expensive than say in Ay Eufimia and provisions very expensive. Fortunately we didn’t need any.
Agios Sostis, is a must. We took for dinghy over as the pilot books say you can’t anchor there. Just north east from there is the beach where loggerhead turtles lay their eggs and tonight (the full blue moon) is the night when they hatch and hopefully make their way to the water. Currently working out if we can get to see that.
  
Wow, just saw a huge turtle as it glided between our hulls. 
So about Agios Sostis. We tied the dinghy and walked through this “party” island and then over the bridge. Beautiful views from the top. The tourist resort looked a bit like Magaluf, didn’t venture further. If you’ve got young people / young at heart people onboard they’d enjoy coming here at night. Entrance costs 6 euro and includes a drink. Judging by the sound equipment it’d be quite a party! Note: Sunday is “White Night”, entrance costs 40 euro without drinks. We went early in the morning and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
  
  
Right now we’re heading to collect a nephew and 5 of his friends, all teenagers, for the day…. Hope I don’t run out of food! Elle ‘Ar – the party boat, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to say! Wish me luck 🙂
Tomorrow on to Shipwreck bay which looks amazing. After that we have the delights of Skorpios, Spartakhori, “bat cave” and others to look forward to.