We continued east the next day in light winds towards the peninsula to the south of Athens. Ormos Anavissou is a large bay with three alternative anchorage areas. We chose to tuck into Chapel Cove which is in the north east of the bay and sheltered from the westerly winds we were expecting by an small island and a row of rocks. It doesn't really give shelter from the south where the afternoon breeze was predicted, but we are finding the the winds here come from multiple directions in the day and you have to choose the best overall option (usually a restful night) and put up with the rest.

Anavissou anchorage from the top of the hill - Splice to top right of shot

We spent two days here in the company of a few other visiting yachts and a number of local boats on moorings. We dinghied ashore to the island and followed a track that petered out and left us with a scramble to the top. The view was worth the effort and we found there was another track that gave us an easier route back down. There is a small town across the other side of the bay but the reports we had read of taverna touts and poor meals didn't encourage us to visit, so we ate on board.

Cape Sounion is one of the best known attractions around here. Temples to Poseidon and Athena were built by the early Greeks on the headland overlooking an attractive bay. The problem for us is that every boat in the area wants to visit, the holding is not good and it's exposed in any southerly winds, which was what was forecast!

The Admiral inspects the Temple of Poseidon

As it was only 5 miles south of us we decided to set off early so as to arrive around 09.00 hrs as people were leaving and before other arrivals. We would have a coffee to make sure the boat was settled, visit the site and then up anchor and continue before the days arrivals started flooding the place.

The view to sea from the Temple, anchorage to right of shot

It worked well. As we entered the bay, a large motor vessel was lifting his anchor from a nice sandy patch and we were soon secured. They don't make it easy to work out how to get from your boat to the site as there's no obvious landing stage. We stopped our outboard outside the swim-bouys and rowed ashore on the most easterly beach. No one approached us and we left Fid there and followed a rough path through the vegitation until we reached the road upwards.

It's an impressive site and well worth a visit for the views let alone the history. The temple of Poseidon lies within a fort that protected the coast of Attica and was erected in the middle of 5th c BC. The sanctuary of Athena was built on a lower hill to the north of the sanctuary of Poseidon.

We even saw 2 wild tortoises, one on the site and one crossing the path on our return. We only saw one all last year.
We were back on board by 12.00 hrs and bringing up our anchor as the main flood of charter boats was entering the bay.