Up early and
find that the weather forecast is OK.
There won’t be much in the way of wind or waves, but it is supposed to
rain. The rain is forecast for the
afternoon, so we decide to go early.
We manage to leave by 8:15 and have breakfast under way.
There really
is no wind to start with and we don’t even bother putting up the sails. But eventually the wind comes up a
bit. So we put up the sails. After a while the wind gets up to a
force 4 and we have an hour of really nice sailing. Then the wind dies again. We approach the harbour with no wind. The sails come down and we go in. It is a lovely harbour. A really large bay with islands all
around. We see the town pier
first. The pilot says that we can
tie up to that, but it is exposed to the wind if it gets up. There is space on it, but it is a bit
high and we decide to look in the marina first. It is rather full.
We had hoped to be able to go alongside on the breakwater, but there are
no spaces. We see the English boat
we have been following from port to port.
They are rafted up to some large vessel. They say they are leaving, and we can have their space, but
I don’t fancy it. There is no
water or electricity on the pontoons, so we may as well go on the town pier.
However, as we are about to leave we see an old chap who is gesticulating to us
to show us a berth. So we decide to follow. He eventually puts us in a berth which has pick up lines. So we are really nicely tucked in. The old chap asks if we need fuel and
says he will phone the tanker who will come at 6pm.
The marina is
another one of these abandoned marine projects. There is no one here organising it. The old man obviously just tries to
make some money. He has no real
right to do anything, but he was a great help and we pay him the 5 euros he
asks for. Otherwise the place is
free. There are taps where water
was meant to be installed, but they don’t work. There are cables coming up through the pontoons, where
obviously electricity was planned to be put in, but that is not connected. We do latterly find that there is a
small toilet block with toilets, but that too is rather down trodden.
It is a shame,
because the place itself is so nice.
We have lunch
on board and then go in to the town.
It is a much nicer place than we have been to. It is a real Greek seaside town. It is very pretty and has most things you need. We find 2 chandlers. The first advises us about having the
boat taken out and antifouled. He
could get a local man to lift us out and pressure spray us off for about 350
euros. Then he could arrange for
us to be anti-fouled. The problem
is that it will take at least three or four days and honestly as nice as the
town is, I don’t want to stay here for that time. It would mean checking in to an hotel (there are any number
here) and we would run out of water on the boat. I am also concerned about any old person taking the boat out
on what they think is a big enough hoist.
So we won’t do that. We
will make enquiries in Kalamata.
That will be much more expensive, but also much more professional. If they can’t do it, we will wait until
we get to Marmaris in Turkey.
There does not seem to be any urgency for the boat to be
anti-fouled. It is going OK.
In the
meantime we buy a water container as a spare at the first chandlery. At the second we are given a cold drink
and a free bottle of olive oil! We
buy a children’s life jacket there, together with some fishing line and some
stretchy line to replace the stuff holding on the fittings for the cruising
chute. We do not manage to get new
mooring lines or a solar shower.
In town we
find that there is a small supermarket, but it has very limited stock. So I do not get any food to make meals
over the next few days. I have one pasta meal aboard. That should take us to Kalamata where we should be able to
reprovision. There is a Vodafone
shop, so we will go in later to see if I have run out of credit, having been
cut off in the middle of a phone call yesterday.
Back at the boat
we wait for the fuel tanker. It
never comes. It is just as well
that we aren’t that much in need of fuel.
We have dinner in the town.
Nice as the place is we shall probably leave early tomorrow. We can’t decide if we should go out to
the bay and anchor or dash to Kalamata.
The weather forecast in the morning should make up our minds.
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