Elixir Date 22 August 07

Santorini Astern and off to Kos



16:00 left Santorini to find a quiet overnight anchorage which search proved quite difficult as the wind had backed to the south west. We sailed out of the volcano and around the south side of Thira where there is a small marina mainly used by fishermen and not featuring at all on my charting system.



There is a good drawing of it in the Pilot book however and we decided to go in on that seeing as the water was clear and visibility excellent. Well it turned out to be a gem of a place and we tied up alongside the marina for the night, an evening walk discovered a cardphone so Jenny was happy. I even made my first phone call to Dad to check up how things were going on the home front. A good dinner was served on Elixir of local wines pork chops and veggies. What more could one ask. A small and insignificant observation, has anybody else experienced the indisputable fact that women use more dishes than men. It seems that they only have one use also for dishcloths and tea towels and that is also to do with dishes, using for cleaning the dipstick to check engine oil is apparently not done nor is cleaning up food from the floor, now I would have thought that it was the food making the floor dirty not the other way round, but apparently there can be no debate on these issues. Cooking a full dinner in one pot seems to be allowable only in exceptional circumstances but not the dinner and the pudding and nor can you serve it from the pot you must find and dirty another dish to add to the pile to be washed. Speaking of washing it also appears that once a shirt starts to feel comfortable and smells familiar it needs washing, this is a phenomenon that also, apparently, is off the list of debatable dinner table talk. I am afraid that in Bopsy days there would have been derision and even confusion if somebody turned up on board with a towel or worse a tea towel. Bopsy, for those that do not know was a great little half ton aluminum racing yacht in which I spent many a happy day at sea, a yacht for instance upon which there was no fridge, washbasin or toilet and only a single burner gas ring on top of a gas bottle for the poofs in the crew that needed a hot drink at some stage. We raced by the way with a crew of 8. The only change spoken of on board was a change of watch, you walked off the boat after a 5 day race wearing the same clothes that you stepped on with, none of us got diseased, nor did we smell much, according to us. Sigh!

Back to the sailing, I had set a course to take us directly to what appears to be an excellent anchorage on the island of Astypalaia, headsail up and the Meltemi threatening to build, it was straight downwind about 60 miles, a good trot. On the way, the navigator, me, was informed that a nice little anchorage for lunch would be in order and that certain parties did not come right around the world to be given a flyby, of course I understood completely and with obvious good grace reset my tracking devices for a small, exposed, rolly polly, stopover on Anafi. Well we anchored off the ferry wharf at Anifi in 8 metres of clear blue water and could see the anchor on the bottom, it was not at all rolly polly.






What a lovely spot and I found myself thanking the crew for insisting on a stop, about 1 kilometre up on a prominent hill was a little lego village of all little white boxes with blue roofs.





On the water front beside the wharf were a flurry of small shops and homes and just to the side were two of the most beautiful homes you could imagine, lovely gardens with cascading greenery, a bunch of olive trees, a white exterior brick fence en-capturing the large homes with white arches that all had sky blue painted interiors, just like Santorini but more private and classier in my opinion. The waterfront sported a sandy beach that was an obvious draw card for the hill dwellers who made up a large contingent of laughing and playing people enjoying the sunshine. Yes it was a very picturesque stopover indeed. Jenny and David launched the zodiac and went ashore so Jenny could check out the shopping, we seemed to need some stuff, while Elizabeth and I stayed on the yacht. I went over the side and enjoyed a 20 minute swim in the tepid waters and did a little hull checking. It appears that our hull is quite an attraction to some encrustations and could do with a bit of a scrub. With Jenny and David back on board and after they had had a swim also we enjoyed a fresh salad and salmon lunch washed down with local wine and ale and set off once again for our original destination. Hello! Is that a spinnaker coming up behind. David and I casually, not wishing to raise any suspicions or alarm, quietly and unspoken set about ensuring that our spinnaker was packed and handy and that our sheets and guys were ready to go. The only question in my mind was how to ensure that the womens underwear on the rail was removed before the said underwear ruined our posture, the thought crossed my mind that I could replace them with shoe laces thus ensuring continuance of admiration! Made a mental note to purchase a couple of g-strings to keep for future occasions of posterous observance. The bast**ds on the other boat could obviously sense that we were about to raise our colours to engage them in serious battle and forthwith reneged without a fight, choosing instead to strike their colours and pull into our, now vacated, good anchorage. Time for afternoon naps with all threats to our obvious masculinity adequately disposed of. Life is good. As the afternoon moved on the wind dropped to a whisper and moved towards our bow.

We retained our headsail and used 2500 revs to ensure that we will arrive at anchorage around 21:30. At 1800 with the girls still asleep David wondered out loud about happy hour, well I voiced that perhaps we should ensure that beer was chilling ok by sampling perhaps a bottle between us. David was meek in objection and a bottle was breached. However, it was then discovered that the left over supplies were now numbering in odd numbers so we felt obliged to rectify the situation just to ensure good bookkeeping, you understand. I then postulated that the local beer, Amstel, while appearing good to the pallet did indeed leave a bit of an aftertaste so we needed perhaps a rum to remove the objection. By the time the girls woke up to what was going on, a fully fledged party was raging, thanks also to the Irish truckie that donated a CD to David and I on the Dublin motorway. Jiggs were performed and lots of fun was had by all. 19:00 hours and still 24 degrees with the promise of a half moon giving light, we will be anchored before it sets. Some of the Irish songs were tear jerkers and I even found the odd tear in my eye as I remembered all the new and old friends that I had made in that beautiful country and how blessed I was to have had the opportunity of meeting them all.



Motoring quietly on towards our anchorage.



We all enjoyed a beautiful sunset but a little disappointed in the Meltemi not visiting and having to motor sail to keep the speed above 4knots. Darkness fell and all had fun identifying Jupiter for a start then the various bright stars as we progressed through Civil Twilight and into Nautical Twilight. One observation we found quite interesting is that the North Star is very disappointing to view, over years of looking at the Southern Cross which is quite the most beautiful of constellations being quite bright and dominating in the Southern sky the north star is a real wash out. Back to sailing and it was getting very, very dark but for the silver line on the sea produced by a half moon. We entered the bay which I had marked out on the GPS and proceed to a little village that was well lit amongst the black cliffs proceeding slowly and watching the depth sounder showing the seabed rapidly getting shallower and shallower we were able to make out the black hulls of a couple of yachts and a large glamour launch, finally with the depth showing 5m (we are 2m deep ourselves) we dropped anchor. It was all a little puzzling as we understood from the pilot book that there was a wharf for ferries and a small jetty in the bay, we could see neither. We launched the Zodiac and I jumped in to reconnoitre the bay to discover no jetty or wharf. You guessed it we had landed in the wrong bay! As this particular bay is not a big tourist attraction our GPS did not have a very accurate outline and thus erroneously showed us being parked on the roadway beside the bay! It was however a very picturesque spot and we were safely anchored and bedded into good holding, so picked up all crew in the zodiac and off ashore to confirm that indeed we were one bay too early but there was a choice of several good tavernas and with an excellent meal under our belts, and three carafes of local white, all for just 22 euro a couple we were feeling that the gods were with us. Indeed they were as icecreams were purchased and on the way back to Elixir I am sure that I successfully managed to convince the crew that it was still another astounding example of a good bit of navigational genius and thus a excellent nights sleep ensued. (Okay so I am not entirely convinced that they believed me!) Next morning 22 August we had a good breakfast of fruit salad just like Tony Tomkins always made and off on the next leg to Kos. As we left a text was sent off to family and all was good.







Dominating the entrance to the bay is an intriguing castle that was built in the 13th Century. According to the Pilot the castle was successfully defended on one occasion by the occupiers hurling beehives down on to their attackers. I can imagine the scene - attackers in the hot sun having scaled the shear cliff face getting ready for some good old raping and pillaging and suddenly being confronted with swarms of very cross and hot bees. The odd bee no doubt getting between the gaps in their armour and stinging soft flesh causing pandemonium, confusion and pain. ...I say chaps, lets just go back to the boats and pretend that we accidentally got the wrong bay and castle, their woman look like camels anyway and where the hell would these poor bast**ds have got their hands on any gold.... had to have been the gist of the order.

The Castle now looking a bit worse for wear is still standing and makes an imposing backdrop for photographs as we set out on this 60 mile passage under full main and genoa with the Meltimi providing a 18 knot breeze gusting to 23 from the beam ensuring a steady 7-8kts.

All on board concur that Astipalaia is a must for anyone sailing through these parts and in particular the bay with the castle keeping the castle to Starboard not Port.



Off we are out to sea again crossing the Aegean towards the Dodecanese (what magnificent names). 6pm today and we are tied up stern to in Kos Marina with power and water attached and, what a change internet broardband wireless. Thus this email. We are booked in for two nights but after happy hour tonight (like right now) we will assess the time and distance to travel and maybe tomorrow we will go to Turkey.













Captains Log = Elixir Date 25 August 07



The final Leg - Kos to Marmaris

Depart Kos 10:30 on Friday 24 August 2007

















Motor sailed for first hour then picked up the start of the Meltimi which we hooked into until we reached the ruins of Knidos which was one of the Dorian hexapolis and was absolutely fascinating as the place where Aphrodite was sculpted by Praxiteles and the Greek astronomer Eudoxus first recorded the movements of the stars and had his observatory here 400 years before Christ. Nobody could convince me that he did not know that the world was round, however, the power base was held by ignorant nobility that did not tolerate variations from their basic beliefs and he would have been put to death had he spoke such intolerable thoughts. Bright boys kept their mouths shut! The picturesque harbour and peninsular are now uninhabited and are a long way from the present day cities and tourist traps. The amphitheatre and city and city layout were still very visible but we could not land and must stay with the Yacht as we had yet to get clearance to visit Turkey. We were quite content to lay at anchor for a couple of hours, going for a swim in the clear clean water and to eat our Greek salad lunch with a cold beer, all the while observing with interest the comings and goings of various Turkish gulet boats and other cruising yachts. It is really very interesting just how many motor launches, very modern, and many over 200 feet long you find in the Med, there must be some real money around somewhere and if the Greeks have it then how on earth did they get it? The land is in the main barren, there is not any real industry, but there is evidence of a lot of cash, like fancy roads and houses and that sort of thing, is it perhaps that the historical families build up a huge investment empire? I don't know but it would be interesting to find out. Whatever they are doing they seem to be doing quite a lot of it and must be very good at it! 13:00 up anchor and with full sail and 15knots of breeze we were off towards Simi. There appeared to be a good and secure, if a bit small anchorage about 30 miles away on the south Western corner of Simi called Paromitou and we arrived there late in the afternoon. In the anchorage were around twenty boats mainly cruising yachts and charter boats. The crew of two NZ yachts waved as we arrived, so did the owner of the Australian yacht who we had spoken to at the first night's anchorage after picking up Elizabeth and Jenny.















The harbour would be about the 10 acres in size with a small entrance and once inside you find a very large and imposing monastery dominating the shore with its huge picturesque bell tower, and its bloody bell which they wanted to ring on the hour and half hour! But they were 2 minutes out! I wonder how many years they had the time wrong for, yes it annoyed me. We found a space amongst the yachts that obviously had our name on it and proceeded to place our anchor much to the consternation of a Frenchman on a small charter vessel, well once again I relied on the historical knowledge that if you can not understand someone then they must want you to be anchored there. He was of the belief, I think, that if he laid out all of his chain then when it described an arc around the bay then it covered all of the ground that he owned. The stupid fellow obviously thought he had more chain than he did and after we had finished anchoring we were laying at least a cricket pitch length away. He on the other hand had gone below I think to take a heart pill and calm down a bit. Midnight came and with it a very strong gust of wind that brought both David and I out on deck to check our station. Well the decks were wet from the dew as was the spinnaker packed in its bag on the front deck. The wind built and we were suddenly getting gusts of 30 knots plus across the deck. Yachts all swing madly and we were pleased that we had been careful in the laying of our pick and were handling it well. Within 5 minutes all of the deck was bone dry as was the sail bag, it was like sitting in the middle of a clothes dryer with temperature on high, you would not believe how hot it got we were dripping with sweat notwithstanding the lateness of the hour and the strength of the wind, quite uncanny. Well next thing the Frenchmans anchor let go ...Sacre Bleu!... he was off narrowly missing several other boats he retrieved his anchor. In case you are wondering this had nothing to do with us as we were still well away from him and were by now hanging in an entirely different direction with even more separation. He seemed to be managing however and David and I did not think us launching the dingy to go give him a hand was needed. He eventually re anchored behind the other charter vessels and proceeded, no doubt to have as uncomfortable night as us. Nobody in the bay left their cockpits unattended as we were all keeping anchor watch as the gusts built and the wind raged. Morning came and we knew that we had run out of time and must get to Marmaris to allow for Customs clearance today (Saturday) as Sunday they will be closed and with David and Elizabeth leaving by ferry early Monday to catch their plane at Rhodes we need to get spudded into our marina. We were first to leave in the breaking dawn and quickly threw in the deepest reef we had (the third reef) in the main and fully reefed our genoa. We were followed out buy the Frenchman but all others seemed to prefer the safety of the enclosed harbour. It was not long before we were shaking out the reefs as the wind rapidly dropped back to manageable levels 17 to 18 knots and we were skipping along with the wind and waves on our quarter towards Marmaris about 47 miles away.





12:30 hours we were entering our last port, Marmaris and were immediately approached by a coast guard vessel ordering us to leave the channel, confusion on our part quickly turned to amazement as a huge American aircraft carrier came around the corner and was bearing down on us.
Well not wishing to argue the toss about the privileges of sail over power we decided to get the stuff out of there. Cameras were employed and as were our binoculars and we were fascinated to observe a large machine gun mounted on the carrier that was manned by a team of sailors, obviously they were not going to lose any aircraft carrier to any sabortagious idiots on a suicide mission. Just as well we had not entered into any debate as it looked like they would have the power of conviction!



After the excitement had passed we moved peacefully into Marmaris. I was off first to the customs, about a kilometre away in the 45 deg heat, to be told that I need first to go to the Harbour Master on the other side of town and purchase a Transit Log, so off I went looking now like a walking ball of sweat, I flagged down a taxi and was delivered to the Harbour Masters office. The Harbour Master sold me a log for 40 E with the explanation that I must now get it stamped by health officials, then by customs, then by passport control and then bring it back to him to place the final stamp. Three more taxi fares and the job was eventually completed and we were off once again in Elixir to find our marina. 25 August 2007









Great Shipmates, Birthday boy David Hicks and his wife our dear friend, Elizabeth.







Here we are having had a good dinner to celebrate David's birthday and here the Yacht will stay for at least the next year. For all you train watchers out there the whole cruise from Kinsale in Ireland to tie up in Marmaris Turkey took 33 Days and I would have to say that a lot of that was fairly easy going.

This Voyage Over but the adventure must go on.