May 11-27, 2023



Key to the Map:
1. Laganas 2. Methoni 3. Elafonisos
4. Kremmidhi 5.Porto Cheli 6. Kapari
7. Poros 8. Aegina anchorage 9. Portes
10. Voula 11. Sounion

Pedal to the Metal
The second two weeks of May were pretty much like the first. We continued our trek toward Athens, scooting around the southern end of the Peloponnese Peninsula. A much shorter route, through the Corinth Canal in the northern part of the peninsula, wasn't an option for us, as it was closed for repairs due to a big landslide, and wasn't scheduled to reopen until June 1.

As we headed south, and then east, we watched the weather carefully. The wind can really pick up around here, roaring around the Peloponnese from the east or from the west, and we didn't want to experience any of that. For the time being, the wind was mellow, and in fact we had to motor most of the way. We didn't dally, but kept our pace up, so that if the weather did change and kept us in one place for awhile, we'd still be near Athens by the time that Kelly and Daniel would arrive on May 27.

Methoni
Our first stop, after a 68-mile trip from Zakinthos, was the anchorage at Methoni, on the tip of the first "finger" of the peninsula. The aptly-named, and really interesting-looking, Methoni Castle welcomed us to the anchorage, but since we were arriving late in the day, and had plans to leave early the next morning, we didn't check it out.





As with most of our anchorages on this part of our travels, we hoped to come back another time when we'd have a chance to really explore.

Elafonisos Island
The next day, seventy miles and about ten hours after we left Methoni, we dropped anchor in a beautiful bay on the south coast of Elafonisos Island.



This anchorage was beautiful, with a crescent of white sand on shore, and clear, turquoise water.



With the Corinth Canal closed until June 1, any shipping traffic had to come around the bottom of the Peloponnese, as we were doing. There was plenty of traffic. All those ships gave us something to look at along the way, and some obstacles to avoid.



After Elafonisos, we dipped around the southernmost finger of the Peloponnese Peninsula and turned north. This was a shorter trip, only about 33 miles, taking us along the rugged coast, past the sixth-century town of Monemvasia, perched on the end of a short, rocky peninsula (another place we hoped to explore another time). We considered anchoring at one of the two anchorages near the town, but decided to continue a bit farther north to anchor in Ormos Kremmidhi.

Ormos Kremmedhi
Ormos Kremmidhi's white-rock cliffs provided good protection from the forecast north wind, and its sandy bottom, shining through the clear water, held Obama snugly.



Since we'd arrived in the early afternoon, we had time to take the dinghy around the headland to a cute little restaurant at the Annema Hotel, where we enjoyed a tasty and inexpensive Greek dinner. Since we were the only two customers, our waiter sat down to chat with us for awhile.



Porto Cheli
When we arrived at Porto Cheli the following day, we did a little happy dance. Why? We'd achieved our goal of being within ferry distance from Athens. From now until Kelly and Daniel arrived in Athens in about two weeks, no matter where we happened to be between here and there, they could easily get to us. Taking our foot off our virtual accelerator, we allowed ourselves to enjoy a couple of days in Porto Cheli. In addition to having a cute town, and a marina, Porto Cheli's anchorage is a well-known hurricane hole, where boats can shelter from strong winds and waves within its large, nearly-enclosed bay, with its bottom of thick, anchor-holding mud.


Photo from MarinaTips.com

Meandering to Athens
Our goal having been reached, we continued moving toward Athens, though at a much more leisurely pace. Our next stop was Ormos Kapari, a mere 15 miles away, near the town of Ermione. We arrived here during the afternoon thermal period (AKA sea breeze), and dropped anchor near the lovely beach. We did a bit of boat maintenance and spent one night there.



Poros
The next day we traveled to Poros, a quaint Greek town that we'd heard a lot about from our cruising friends. Poros didn't disappoint: from the moment that we rounded the eastern end of the island, motoring along the narrow channel, passing dozens of sailboats moored along the town quay, with the town providing a picturesque backdrop, we were charmed. We returned to Poros five or six times during the summer.


Photo from SailingIssues.com

Rather than jockeying for a spot along the crowded town quay, we continued past the town and dropped anchor in pretty little Neoriou Bay. Quiet, uncrowded, and ringed with a white sand beach, Neoriou was a relaxing place to hang out for a couple of days, watching the parade of sailboats heading away from Poros every morning, and toward Poros every afternoon. It was convenient, too: from here, it was just a five-minute dinghy ride to the town quay.



Friends of ours had told us that "the best chandlery in the world" was located in Poros. We were looking for a particular boat part, a line clutch, to replace one that had broken, so we visited this chandlery to find out if they had it. Our opinion: it may in fact be the best chandlery in the world.

The walls of the small, narrow shop were filled with all kinds of boat parts, from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. Eric and I had a look around, and then, completely overwhelmed by the collection of items on display, none of them the one we wanted, showed a picture of the part we were looking for, to the shop keeper. He didn't speak much English, but he held up a finger and said, "Wait." Getting a ladder, he climbed up to the top, reached his hand up to a high shelf, where he felt around and retrieved something. When he came down the ladder, he was holding the exact model of line clutch that we'd needed.

Unlike what we were used to in the rest of the world, in Greece, diesel isn't usually sold at fuel docks. Instead, tanker trunks deliver it to boats at the town quay. Awildian needed his diesel tanks filled, so we got the number of the local tank truck and gave him a call. The price per liter was about the same as the price as at the gas station pumps, which surprised us, considering that it was being delivered.

Since Awildian wasn't staying on the town quay, we'd need to bring him there to get filled. Though packed like sardines by late afternoon, most boats left by 9 or 10 in the morning, on their way to their next destination, leaving empty spots on the quay. On the morning that we were going to buy diesel, we scanned the quay through our binoculars. A big gap had opened up - big enough to tie Awildian alongside, rather than stern-to. Perfect!

We pulled up our anchor, motored over to the quay, tied Awildian to the wall, called the diesel guy, and told him where we were. He came along in a few minutes and filled Awildian's tanks. A half hour later we were on our way, with less money but more diesel.

Aegina
Months earlier, while we were still in Montenegro planning our trip to Greece, we'd decided to have Kelly and Daniel take a ferry from Athens, and meet us on the island of Aegina. When we left Poros, we headed to Aegina. Though we still had more than a week until they arrived, we wanted to get there, check out the anchorage, and do some exploring. We also had to have our "transit log" stamped by the port police there, as we'd listed Aegina as our destination, when we'd left Preveza. We chose the anchorage closest to the port where the ferries docked, and where the bulk of the main town lay. The anchorage was open to the entire western sector, on a broad shelf of sand and weeds in shallow water. The comments on Navily mentioned, and Google Earth showed, a submerged stone wall that bisected the anchorage, with a depth of less than one meter. We made sure to avoid that area when we were anchoring.

We put our dinghy in the water and zipped over to the port, checking out the submerged rock wall along the way, and tying up among some small fishing boats in the marina.


Photo from iStock.com

Walking into town, we found the port police office and had our transit log stamped. For our next destination, we listed the island of Kythnos, since we hoped to get there with Kelly and Daniel. We checked out the small grocery stores, and discovered another chandlery, which is also now in the running for the best chandlery in the world.

Why?

For months, we'd been looking for some 2-inch (50 mm) sanitation hose, to replace the hoses of that size in Awildian. (Yeah, I know, the cruising life is all glamour, all the time.) These were the only sanitation hoses we hadn't yet replaced, because we hadn't been able to find any. Eric had looked online, in Montenegrin chandleries, in Greek chandleries...no luck. The Best Chandlery in the World in Poros hadn't had any. So we weren't hopeful when he asked the man in the small, cluttered Aegina chandlery whether he had some 50 mm sanitation hose. To our surprise, instead of telling us no, he asked us how much we needed.

"Six meters," Eric told him. The man nodded and disappeared into the back room. A few minutes later he returned with a coil of hose. Was it...yes it was! He happened to have a piece of 50 mm sanitation hose that was just shy of 6 meters long! Halleluia!

Figuring that he was on a roll, Eric then asked the man if he had a grease gun (something else we hadn't been able to find anywhere). He walked to a shelf, reached into a box, and pulled out a grease gun.

It was really too bad that we didn't have a lottery ticket to buy.

Aegina, it turns out, is famous for its pistachios. We discovered this when, on our way back to our dinghy, we bumped into a small wooden booth that sold pistachios. The extremely enthusiastic woman who was in the booth offered us some pistachios to try. They were really good, and we said so.

Without missing a beat, she then held out a tiny spoon to each of us, loaded with a dollop of tan paste:

"Try some pistachio butter," (we did),

then another loaded spoon: "try some pistachio cream" (we did),
then a small plastic cup: "try some pistachio liquor" (we did),

then a napkin with a small bit of something nutty "try some pistachio roll" (we did).

We stopped sampling after that, content to leave with a kilogram of roasted pistachios and a couple of pistachio rolls. I don't know what was different about those pistachios, but they were the best we'd ever had.

During the night, waves began to roll into our anchorage from the northwest. At first small and polite, they became larger and more noticeable as time went on, so that by morning, they were truly annoying. At first we thought they were ferry wakes, but we soon realized that they continued even after the ferries were tucked into port. The wind was calm, and Awildian was turned beam-on to these suckers. Being a catamaran, he wasn't rolling with the nausea-inducing, metronomic gusto of the monohull who was anchored nearby, but it was still unpleasant enough that we decided to move on after breakfast.

Portes Cove
Since the waves were coming from the northwest, we scooted around the southern end of Aegina, and about halfway up the eastern side, until we came to a pretty little indentation in the shoreline called Portes Cove. We enjoyed one sunny afternoon, and a clear, starry night here, the only boat in the place.


Photo from EcoTourismGreece.com

Since we still had a few days before Kelly and Daniel came, and we preferred not to hang out in the Aegina anchorage, we decided to move closer to Athens, and find a good place to meet them.

Voula Beach
The Voula Beach anchorage looked promising. On the west coast of the Attic Peninsula, in the outskirts of the Athenian suburbs, it provided good protection from the forecast wind, and might be a good place to stage for Kelly and Daniel's arrival. The busy shipping lanes running north and south between Aegina and the peninsula provided us some focus, as we navigated west to east across them, carefully avoiding the steel behemoths. Arriving at Voula, we found a big sand patch among the fields of weeds, and buried Obama in it. Again, we were the only boat.


Photo by Greeka.com

It was time to do some reconnaissance. On shore were several sandy beaches, bristling with beach umbrellas, and packed with people. This was just down the road from Athens, after all. It looked like this particular beach area had seen better days, as several of the buildings sported graffiti, and some were boarded up. Some of the beachgoers were walking along the beach and disappearing up a path toward the main road. There didn't seem to be any good places to park and lock a dinghy along there, so we took our dinghy and scouted further south along the shore. Here, we found some large culverts with criss-crossed rebar blocking their seaward openings, and a set of stairs going up to a parking lot. It was sketchy, but it would do for now.

We locked our dinghy to one of the rebar gates, walked down the beach, and up the stairs to the road. Kelly and Daniel could take a taxi to here from the airport, if we decided to meet them here. Across the street, we could see a small grocery store. We crossed the road, bought some items, and returned to our dinghy...which was now getting doused with waves from the afternoon sea breeze. Ugh. We unlocked the dinghy, turned it around, climbed in, and pushed it out away from the rocky shore.

Even though Voula Beach was convenient to the Athens Airport, it really wasn't going to work as a place to pick up Kelly and Daniel. Maneuvering their luggage down the stairs, across the beach, to the skanky drainage pipes, was far less than ideal. Also, since we were hoping to get Kelly and Daniel to the island of Kythnos during the three days they'd be with us, we wanted to find a starting place that was closer to the Cyclades.

Sounion
And we found one. At the very southern tip of the Attica Peninsula, presided over by the Temple of Poseidon from high on a bluff, was a big, lovely anchorage called Sounion.



We anchored Awildian on the western side of the bay, away from the bluff, and the glut of charter boats that for some reason preferred to anchor on that side. We dinghied to shore, and enjoyed lunch at one of the two small seafood restaurants there. This would be a great spot to pick up Kelly and Daniel!

Two days later, Kelly and Daniel's taxi pulled up to the restaurant. After hugs all around, we helped them bring their luggage down to our dinghy, which zipped us back to Awildian, beginning three fabulous days together.