7000 miles young!
29 May 2009 | Naxos Marina
Kat
After a few days of strong winds they finally died down last night, so you think it would be a peaceful night's rest.... but no, we were tied up to a buoy and spend the whole night banging into it, despite several efforts to apply long fenders at the waterline. We thought GHOST was being frisky but when we looked around all the boats around us were banging into their buoys and we sorely wished we'd put a line ashore to keep us off - though we didn't fancy doing that at 1am in the dark! After a bit of a lie in until 8.30 in an attempt to reclaim some sleep, we set off.
With unusual westerly winds (the prevailing winds are all northerlies) we managed a bit of sailing before the winds almost completely died and the engine came on, and we ended up motor sailing most of the 40nm to Naxos. Brad had been keen to stop at the island of Ios as this is the nudist capital of Greece but all of the anchorages are exposed to the South and the wind is supposed to come around tonight!
Instead we passed Ios and headed to Naxos marina where we were able to anchor & moor relatively easily as the winds were very light, although we were a little annoyed to find that there were no laid lines as stated in the sailing guide (Brad cursed the Greeks yet again!), so we had to circle around and get out the anchor. We are cursing having a retractable bow roller on the boat - it looks good but is not practical for cruisers!
Now we are out on the back of the boat with all of our new sunshades down and free internet access! Brad also cleaned the boat so is very happy, and we are having a beer to celebrate GHOST's 7000nm birthday! We plan to stay here for 2 nights to explore the island and perhaps visit the Sacred Island of Delos from here as we have heard Mikonos marina is a bad place to be at the moment as they are doing a lot of work....
Brad: Yeah go Ghost, 7000 big ones!! Here's to the next 7k!