We've come decided to post on Word Press for now given Sail Blogs issues.
So for now visit us at:
https://inglescatte.wordpress.com

Sailblogs has been down for a few days, now back up!
Updates now gradually appearing below!
Love from Pepper Crew
xxx

Back on the boat later we had a rolly night. Cargo ships pass close to the island and each time they send wash in to the bay. It was a 3-towel night (all 3 galley lockers stuffed with towels to stop the clinking and banging). We slept little!
Wake up call was 05.45 anyway as we wanted to get around the cape before the wind got up. It was a lovely morning, dawn breaking just as we weighed anchor and headed out of the bay. It was still and calm and we had an easy run to the cape. The cape is impressive, an imposing bit of rock. We wondered how the monks who live there commute, and guessed it was probably a very infrequent boat trip!
Monemvasia was spotted from far off - and beautiful as we approached. The old town is stunning. Quite a few boats were in the harbour, but a couple of berths were free at the back of the inner harbour and we dropped and anchor and moored up.
It was only the next day that we realised how horrid the bottom was here. Our chain went temporarily slack a few hours after arriving (a sign of dragging) so although it tightened up well Jonathan went for a snorkel the next morning when all was calm. The harbour bottom is full of debris - old mooring chains, old anchors, bit of boats. Our anchor chain had made friends with an old grapnel anchor, and our anchor itself was held tightly by an old mooring chain. At least we were not going to drag, but we had to leave at some stage! The chain was freed from the grapnel with a quick dive down. We decided to short the mooring chain out sooner rather than later, and space had appeared to go alongside on the quay.
We tied alongside our neighbour boat and Jonathan ran a bight of chain down our anchor chain from the dinghy, which was all going smoothly until he dropped the end of the rope holding it, and had to quickly dive out of the dinghy to catch it! It was actually easier then to snorkel the chain bight to the anchor towing the dinghy. Once at the anchor we managed to free the anchor with a tug on the bight and Joshua did a great job on the windless taking in chain whilst big J held the anchor off the bottom from the dinghy. Job done, but we're not mooring there again!

This is going to be a bit of a mammoth update.
Sailblogs has been off line for posting for a few days, so we're in catch up!
We had a reasonable sail down to Elafonisis, the island just before Cape Malae, although the wind was doing strange things and at one stage we could see white caps coming towards us from entirely opposite directions, with the prevailing Westerly winds fighting it out with Meltemi which had managed to climb over the Cape. The sea state was once again confused - confused seeming to be the new "normal" around here! Eventually as we approached the island the wind dropped completely and the swell bounced around. Earlier in the passage we met our first "proper" dolphins close up and personal as they buzzed the boat and gave us a brief jumping display before heading off elsewhere for more important things.
Just before arriving at Elafonisis we had to respond to a mini-SOS call! Approaching the anchorage we saw a "Boats for Hire" branded boat drifting with the inhabitants slowly raising and lowering their arms. We checked our Distress Thesaurus and confirmed this meant they were indeed in distress rather than being friendly, and approached. We approached and they looked very relieved, but we were disappointed to be pipped to the post rescue-wise by the Boats For Hire chase boat which suddenly appeared to take Rescue Line Honours.
Elafonisis was as gorgeous as we were led to believe it would be. We anchored in 10 meters of incredibly clear water, on a sandy bottom. We rowed and paddled ashore and the kids had a beach play, with Isabelle in particular practising her surfing on Mummy's paddle board.

Small world... We met a lovely couple from Hayling Island last night who are into their 3rd summer season in Greece and navigating the reverse of our route. Around mid-morning, having received some great top tips from our new friends on the areas we are about to venture into (Giles & Lesley - thanks again, and hope to see you again late August) we set off from Githion. Our anchor seemed to have picked up some of the harbour bed, but with some ingenuity, Jonathan thankfully managed to release it and we were off!
The water was lovely and calm today, giving a completely different perspective on yesterday's experience! We are heading to Nisos Elafonisos where we plan to anchor is a beautiful white sand beach bay, ready for an early dawn departure on Friday to round Cape Maleas and on to Monemvasia.
Apparently 3G is minimal on Elafonisos so the next blog entry may not be until later In the day on Friday!
Photo is of Pepper with Githion's new-classical buildings in the background (if it loads up!)

Last night at anchor was not the quietest. Possibly partly our fault, but easy to be wise with hindsight.
As previously mentioned it took a few attempts to be sure the anchor was holding when we arrived. The third time we were happy, but then wondered if we were too close to our closest neighbour at anchor. It's always difficult to be sure, distance can be disceptive. The (small) anchorage was crowded with 11 boats in, and there was not a lot of room anyway.
Jonathan snorkelled our anchor, checked it was in OK, and checked the position of our neighbours anchor as well as the area around to make sure we were safe (no rocks) if we moved around the anchor at night. The observation was that our neighbour was well clear, the boats were well separated, although our neighbour had a little less chain than he might - probably just about 5x depth whereas we had a little more - maybe 6-7 x which seemed right given the marginal holding.
Over the next few hours we moved a little, but never got early close to our neighbours, although they did put out their fenders on our side in case we were to clash, so they must have been slightly nervous.
So around 9.30 as dusk arrived the wind changed, and we found ourselves lying in line with our neighbours rather than side-to-side, and felt too close for comfort then. We were probably only 5-8 meters away. One solution would have been to take up chain, but given the marginal holding that would have risked dragging on to them, so as light fell we decided to re-anchor.
We seemed to dig in nicely at second attempt and put a good amount of chain, 7x. It was though too dark to do a visual check on the anchor (our preferred method) and also too dark to see exactly how close were now were to the shore in the event the wind changed in the night, although we knew we were closer than before (necessarily to move us away from our neighbours).
We decided to sit tight, and set our two anchor watch devices with close margins.
Just as we had settled down (again!) a huge monohull appeared in the dark (55' we later discovered) and was obviously struggling to find anywhere to anchor given it was crowded, they were huge, and it was dark. In the end they dropped anchor adjacent to us, closer to the beach, and with very little swinging room.
So a night of watching things move developed! We sat very nicely and despite concerns we were definitely in a good spot, albeit a little closer in to the beach than ideal. The 55' boat kept an anchor watch, even using their engine to manoeuvre away from the boat downwind of us in the night, taking chain up, and eventually re-anchoring in the early hours - this movement keeping most of the anchorage awake!
At breakfast time the wind changed again, and 55' boat then came towards us, ending up just a few meters from our bow, at which point we called out to the sleepy watchman, and they hurriedly weighed anchor and left completely - heading off for somewhere else!
We left shortly afterwards to head to Githion, with an initial light-ish headwind, which then strengthened to a much higher than forecast 5-6 with quite big chop. We beat in to this with triple reefed main sail, engine assisted, and were a bit bothered when nearing Githion to see no sign of it dropping and wondered if the harbour would be untenable in this strong NE wind. We made a note of a couple of alternate places in the lee of the wind, but decided to have a look at Githion first, and arrived outside the harbour with white horses everywhere! Happily the direction looked OK, and we entered the harbour with ease, and found a space on the quay.
The crew deserved and enjoyed their reward ice cream :-)
The photo is of the Islet of Kranae, at Githion, where Paris took Helen of Troy for their first night after their elopement. No doubt for a delicious ice cream too, but we are not sure it would have been worth the 10 years of war afterwards!