Cruising to Greece and back.

Click here for link for relevant PhotoAlbum Northern Cyclades Oct 2013.

I flew back into Athens on Thursday 26 Sept and met up with Woody in the baggage reclaim at the airport. He had just arrived from Istanbul. How's that for organisation!

We caught the ferry from Piraeus to Ermioni next morning and then on to Kilada by taxi. Angelo from the yard gave us a lift on his fishing boat to TB in the anchorage. The boat was covered in dust but apart from that was in good condition.

At 15:45hrs, we weighed anchor and motored around to Porto Heli. The fuel pump played up as we approached Porto Heli and the engine would only rev to half speed. The first thing I did after mooring up was to install the new fuel pump I had brought with me. The old unit was dumped in a skip.

The next morning, we topped up for fuel and sailed around the peninsular to Ermioni for the night. I had arranged to meet Roger in Lavrio, north of Cap Sounion, on Monday evening. We stopped overnight in Kouraissa on Kea and arrived in Lavrio on Monday afternoon.


Kouraissa..

Click here for link to larger image in PhotoAlbum Northern Cyclades Oct 2013.

The next morning, Thursday 03 October there was a light rain shower but by 10:40hrs when we left, the sky had cleared and it was a fine day.

As all the charter boats were out, there was plenty of room. We used the lazy lines provided and was charged the princely sum of 5 Euros which also included electricity.

Roger arrived at 20:30hrs by bus from Athens airport and was greeted by a spectacular thunderstorm and heavy rain in the early hours of Tuesday. By 10:00hrs, the clouds had cleared away and we had another beautiful day. We enjoyed a fine sail to the harbour of Gavrio on Andros. We stopped and anchored at Kourissia on Kea for lunch. The wind dropped late afternoon and we motored the last two hours to Gavrio.

We moored stern to between the ferry slips. In retrospect, we would have been better off mooring stern to at the north end of the quay with the anchor laid out in a northerly direction. At 02:00 next morning a north wind sprung up hitting us on the beam; so we decided to move out into the bay to anchor. We anchored in 6.0m of water but within a couple of hours the wind was gusting down off the hills in excess of 25kts. The anchor dragged so we reset it again and this time it held with no problem. The next morning, on weighing anchor, we found it was well and truly dug in.

We left fairly at 08:45hrs and sailed in coolish conditions towards Siros. Initially we had one reef in the main but the wind gradually died on us and we ended up motoring.

The harbour at Finakas was crowded with charter boats; so we edged alongside the small fishing quay on the north side of the harbour. The water was pretty shallow and we gently bumped the bottom from time to time. Later on a couple of charter boats behind us departed with delivery crews to Athens and we moved further out into their slots.


Alongside small fishing quay..

Click here for link to larger image in PhotoAlbum Northern Cyclades Oct 2013.

The next morning, Thursday 03 October there was a light rain shower but by 10:40hrs when we left, the sky had cleared and it was a fine day.

The sail across to Loutra on Kythnos was fairly lively with the wind reaching 25kts on a beam reach - a distance of 24 miles in 3.25 hours. We tucked in inside the mole at Loutra, behind a cruising catamaran and watched the entertainment as the fleet of 40 to 60ft charter boats moored up in the harbour. The range of seamanship displayed was quite large. The Meltemi blew 15 to 25ts all night but we were well sheltered inside the harbour.

The wind had eased to 10 -15kts next day and we headed off to Sifnos at 14:00hrs. But withinin 30 minutes, the engine conked out and I found the filters blocked with the dreaded diesel bug. Fortunately we were going in the right direction, downwind. We ran 5 miles south down the coast before beating up into a sheltered bay, Ay Ioannis, where we anchored in 3m of water off a deserted beach. It didn't take long to replace the fuel filters and get the engine going again. We decided to stay there the night and in the evening we were treated to the magical sight of the farmer riding his donkey up a track to the small chapel on the hill overlooking the point before disappearing over the sky-line. Ten minutes later his dog appeared, tracking him and followed him over the hill.

There were fun and games during the night at the usual bewitching hour of 02:00. The main anchor, a 15kg Bruce attached to 8mm chain, dragged as the wind picked up. We re-set it but it still would not hold. I took the stern anchor, a 4.5kg Fortress FX-16, with 6m of 9.5mm chain and deployed it on a 19mm multi-plait anchor warp. It dug in immediately. It is obvious that the Fortress style of anchor is much better at digging in with the hard sands found in the Aegean.

On Sat, we had a long sail from Kythnos back to Ermioni. But a quick one - over 70 miles in 10hrs in a good Force 5 to 6 and doing over 8 kts for extended periods. The wind dropped as we approached the bottom end of Hydra and we ended up motoring into the bay at Ermioni.

The stronger winds over the last 3 days had taken their toll and I had to replace 7 broken mainsail slides before leaving the next morning.

Over the next few days we pottered up the Argolic Gulf visiting Kosta, Porto Heli, Vivari and Tolo before dispatching Roger off from Nauplion on the bus to Athens on Wed 09 Oct. Woody and I then sailed back to the anchorage in Tolo to help Stavros celebrate his birthday.


Woody, Stavros and Simon..

Click here for link to larger image in PhotoAlbum Northern Cyclades Oct 2013.

10 October 2013 was a memorable day as Tristan Ben Ward was born in Paris. I suitably wet the head of our first Grandchild.

Tobin Bronze was lifted out first thing in the morning on the 10 October. After a quick scrub down, we installed the covers and laid up for the winter.

During the summer, we had sailed 668 nautical miles and the log reading was 17,722 nM.

On the 12th, Woody flew out to Auckland and I returned to Wiltshire.

Judy and I returned to Kilada on 24 October and stayed ashore in a small apartment for a couple of weeks. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with a couple of spectacular overnight thunderstorms to clear the atmosphere. It was very pleasant working in the boatyard duringthe day and relaxing in the evenings. The hardest part of the day was deciding what taverna to go to that evening.

The main maintenance jobs were
1) Remove the fuel tank and thoroughly clean it out
2) Replaced the external pear-shaped sacrificial anode
3) Replace the engine throttle cable
4) Fitted the new Raymarine auto-pilot
5) Re-build the engine using the reconditioned pistons and blocks we took to Greece in April.

We stayed the last couple of nights in Tolo relaxing and catching up with old aquaintances.