Summing up the OXO week

We had a lovely week sailing in company with our friends from Oxted Offshore Sailing Club (affectionately known as OXO) and seeing faces we haven't seen for a long while. It was good to catch up with all the news and gossip and despite the 4 year gap, we all picked up where we left off.

We shared some of our most favourite places and also had 7 days of good sailing. Two of which were quite sporty, the third, very sporty with some big waves and a not very pleasant sea state. By the end of the week however, when it was time for everyone to return to Kos, the wind had died and they would be motoring.

On our way to Patmos, we had all our sails up and were going along quite nicely with only a mile or so to go when we saw a rib approaching at high speed. It was heading straight for us and as it got closer we realised it was the Hellenic Coastguard. They stood off and asked us if we were a private vessel. We answered yes. He then said he wanted to see our ships papers. WHAT!!!! HOW????
I immediately went below and brought up our folder which contains everything. They wanted passports, insurance document and boat registration document. Quite how I was supposed to pass them over I had no idea - I had visions of it all ending up at the bottom of the ocean. Then to add to the anxiety the wind picked up and Stiletto took off like a scalded cat!! The rib caught us up and held out a fishing landing net on a long pole and instructed me to place the documents in it. It was all very fraught as we didn't exactly have a flat sea and once I had placed the papers in the net we very reluctantly dropped all our sails. We put the engine on, and milled around on tick over while our papers were duly inspected. They then came back alongside and asked where we were heading. Patmos. Did we have lifejackets. Yes. Six. Do we have flares. Yes. Coastal. They then wanted to know the expiry date. April 2022. They were very meticulous and the whole process took half an hour. The net was then held out towards me and I retrieved our papers. They then promptly turned around and headed back to Patmos !!! It turned out that Jeremy and Catherine from the OXO group, in their charter boat, had also been stopped mid sail and we concluded it was a training exercise because all of this could have been checked dockside in Patmos. Whilst I appreciate the importance of checking visiting yachts, the need to address the uninvited dinghys that rock up on a lot of the Greek islands is more important - surely?

So we finished our time with OXO at our favourite place - Marathos. Five of the yachts left late in the afternoon leaving Jane and her crew who would leave early the next morning and sail to Kos in one hit. We enjoyed supper with them in the pirate taverna and got up early to wave them goodbye next morning. A thoroughly enjoyable (if exhausting) week.

We were not returning to Kos, we intended to hang out here in Marathos as we love it here and then slowly wend our way to Ikaria.

Muse for this post: strong friendship doesn't need daily conversation