1.8.2011 We moved the 9nm's from Dhenoussa to Naxos town basin marina. It is quite a site with the massive Portara gateway, a marble archway from the unfinished temple of Apollo (530BC) standing guard on Apollon Island at the harbour entrance. We had chosen to meet our guests here. Mark & Donna were coming out from Athens on the ferry on the 3rd. We spent the next 2 days exploring the town and then greeted Mark & Donna late on Wednesday night. The Meltemi was forecast to blow strongly for several days and so it proved. We hired a car and explored Naxos Island for the day. We found a great pottery shop and bought a wine jug and then went to Filoti, a pretty village high in the central mountains, where we had a nice lunch beneath the shade of a huge tree in the town centre. From there we crossed the mountains to the west coast village of Apollon which has a huge kouros, (marble statue), which lies unfinished and abandoned in a nearby quarry. We finished our day with a welcome swim and then headed back to the boat. We decided that we would take the opportunity to ferry down to Santarini on the Sunday. Weather was very windy but the ferry got us there quickly and smoothly. We had sailed to this island last year but couldn't find a safe berth and left without even getting off the yacht! This time we had a coach tour and guide. The first stop was Oia. This town is famous for it's spectacular sunsets and it's blue domed churches are the ones seen in the iconic photos of this most famous island. We explored the town for 90min and were bustled back to the bus and taken to Thira, the main town. We lunched at a taverna overlooking the spectacular caldera. There were 4 large cruise ships anchored below us and the odd hardy yacht clinging to a buoy. We wandered the narrow streets and Tony bought a cap and some local jewellery for Verity.
Before we were ready to leave they were ushering us back to the ferry and we were on our way back to Naxos. Two days later we made the short but uncomfortable crossing to Agi Ionnis (Monastary Cove) in Naousa on the northern tip of Paros. We spent a nice night anchored stern-to the rocks tucked out of the wind but moved to the harbour the next day so that our guests could explore the town which was one of our favourites from last year. Bad move as it happened as the surge into the harbour was terrible, we were trapped there for 3 days with the yacht wrenching horribly on it's lines. Mark and Donna escaped to an apartment on land while we rode it out. We had Kiwis Bruce and Karen on Aquarius ll next to us. We both bought dockline springs to help dampen the movement but it was still very hard on the boats and crew. We had lots of laughs together though which made the experience not quite so bad! We finally escaped and headed down the passage between Naxos and Paros and anchored on Skhinousa Island. We had a band playing a concert over the hill in the next bay which was nice. The next day we moved to Koufonisia, a small but pretty island in the lee of Naxos. Mady took Mark and Donna ashore in the dinghy while I kept an eye on Delightful Lady. Later that night we were to discover our dinghy and outboard missing off the back of the boat. We are fairly sure it was tied securely and so was probably stolen but we don't really know. This is a financial disaster as the dinghy and motor were not insured. We reported the event to the local police but don't hold out much hope for getting them back. We are sailing on without a tender at the moment as we can't afford to replace them yet. We finished the 12 days back at Naxos and waved our guests off with promises that if they came again we would order better sailing conditions!
All in all a very eventful and as it turned out expensive time! We try not to dwell on it as we plan our next few days heading for Milos.