We get up fairly early. The weather is dull, but the forecast
is OK, although we might get a bit of rain. We therefore set out.
Getting out of the mooring is much easier than getting in. The anchor came up well, but absolutely
covered in mud. It wasn’t only mud
on the anchor, there was also part of a fishing line including a rather smart
looking lure with three lots of triple hooks. I carefully cut it away and then
try to put the anchor away. But
the mud makes such of mess of the bow I have to sluice it down with buckets of
sea water and it still is a mess.
There is virtually no
wind. When the wind gauge goes up
to 6 knots Richard is so desperate that he puts the sails up. We are only doing 2 knots, but Richard
wants to sail and we aren’t really in a hurry so we go along at a snail’s pace
while Richard puts out a fishing line with the new lure on. The wind drops even more, so we give up
and put on the motor, but going slowly to maybe catch a fish for dinner. But even with that we have no
luck. So we take in the fishing
line and the genoa and we motor along a bit faster. The wind finally drops to under 1 knot! The sea is glassy and the only
disturbance on it is from our motor.
Just after we got the fishing line up, I see something in the
water. Yes, we have been visited
by three dolphins. They don’t stay
long, but it is so nice to see them.
We get within 2 miles of
Katakolon and wouldn’t you know it, the wind suddenly gets up to 15 knots, one
the nose! It is not very
comfortable and it starts to rain.
Are we cursed or something?
It turns out not to be too bad.
The rain is only a few spots and the wind and sea calm down when we get
in harbour. However, the harbour
is a mystery. On the way in it
says to call up on channel 12. I
do that, but first get no reply and finally get someone who is more or less
impossible to understand. All I
can gather is that we should go in to any berth we see. We are getting ready to deal with the
anchor when we note that most of the boats seem to have pick up lines. We therefore try two berths to find a
pick up, but there is none.
Eventually a man on the side signals that we should use the anchor. So here we go, another effort at
mooring stern to on anchor.
Despite finding ourselves in an awkward space with a small fishing boat
moored at an angle next to us, we manage quite well, after asking someone to
take our lines. So we are in a
berth and we guess that it will be fine.
We later find out from a
Belgium skipper and from one of the tradesmen in the village that the harbour
for yachts has been more or less abandoned by the harbour authorities. There used to be a harbour master, but
now there is none. There is a
toilet block, but it is all locked up.
There are towers for electricity, but we are not sure they work. The harbour seems to be in the course
of being enlarged. The real reason
for this place is that it is the port nearest Olympia and the cruise ships come
in here to take visitors to the site.
That is also why we are here.
So it seems they are only interested in the cruise ships, not private
yachting.
We have a little wander
around the village. It really is
quite cute, but it is mainly closed.
Again, we get the impression that the shops don’t bother to open unless
there are cruise ships in port. We
also find out that there are no trains to Olympia running, because again, they
only run when cruise ships are in and none are due until Monday. But we do manage to hire a car. We will pick up a Smart car tomorrow
morning and have it for 24 hours at the princely price of 30 euros.
We find there are a lot of
cafes in the town. We are having
trouble getting really good internet from the boat, so we have a drink in town
and sit there for an hour using their good free internet. Fasting day dinner on the boat and then
we use up the last of the hot water on showers. Not sure what we will do tomorrow. Richard is coy about trying to hook up to the electricity as
we are paying nothing for it. We
shall see if he feels like that tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment