The alarm wakes us at 8:00am and we have a quick breakfast and make
ready to go. The sun is shinning
and although there is quite a lot of cloud it seems to be a nice day. The weather forecast is for virtually
no wind, but from the north, which would be good for the direction we are
going.
So we cast off and I start to take the anchor in, when… it is
stuck! I cannot move it at
all. Every time I try it just
trips the windlass. Perhaps it is
not surprising, given that there are lines for some of the berths and we
clearly have fouled the anchor on one of them. We are anchored in the middle of the harbour. I try to call for help from some of the
boat owners on the shore, but they ignore me. Finally one suggests I call up the harbour on the VHF. Well, that doesn’t get any
response. Given what has happened
before, I am not surprised. I even
try channel 16, but get no response.
Richard ponders the problem.
He could pump up the dinghy and take a line around the anchor to try to
clear it, but then I remember he bought a special tool for this situation. It is a large metal hook that is
supposed to snag whatever is holding the anchor and help to free it. So reading the instructions he thinks
it may well work. He ties lines to
it and goes to the bows to try it out.
He shouts instructions to me to go forward, then back and then left and
then he shouts “that’s done it”.
And guess what, he has actually freed the anchor and it is safely
up. Of course the gismo is on the
bows with all the lines in knots for me to untie. But at least we are safely on our way.
Much to our pleasant surprise when we get out of the harbour the wind is
blowing a nice steady force four on the beam. So we put up the sails and are actually going quite well for
about half an hour when the winds drops to 8 knots and we are only doing 3 knots
which means it would take 10 hours to get to the next port! But the wind is at the perfect angle to
launch the cruising chute, so despite my doubts, Richard puts it up. It sets perfectly and starts to push us
along at 5 knots, which is lovely.
But of course, the wind dies and we have no choice but to motor, yet
again. However R decides to leave
the cruising chute up, snuffed, just in case the wind comes back. Well, it does, but of course it has
changed direction entirely and is now on the nose! So we must take the chute down. That creates its own problems because the snuffer is now
pressed against the spreaders and won’t come down until we turn downwind. And the snuffer line has got itself
caught around the radar reflector.
These take nearly half an hour to sort out, much of which we travel in
the opposite direction to our destination!
We had hoped to get in to port in time for lunch, but that is not now
possible. So I make us Greek Salad
to eat under way, which works OK.
The sails go up and down all afternoon as the wind comes and goes and
changes direction to every point on the compass. Finally for the last 6 miles we take all the sails
down and just motor. Of course at
we approach the harbour the wind gets up to 15knots (having been 3knots 15
minutes earlier). Also there are
dark clouds about and there is clearly a heavy shower not far from where we are
headed.
We get into Kyparissia. The
pilot book says it is a large harbour with all facilities including water and
electricity. However as we get in
we see it is yet another abandoned harbour. It is very large and virtually empty. In these conditions I am very nervous
about mooring on anchor stern to.
But we note that of the 7 visiting yachts here half are moored
alongside. We see no reason why we
shouldn’t do the same. We even
find that people from the neighbouring yachts come to take our lines, which
isn’t strictly necessary because we are being blown onto the quay and I could
easily have got off. But that was
nice. Also one of the skippers (a
German) says he saw us in Katakolon and he too fouled his anchor and had to
free it on the way out!
So we are safely ensconced in this rather horrid place. It is safe, but has no facilities. I am also concerned that we are running
out of water. Despite my
resolution that we would always fill up on water if it was available, Richard
did not fill up in Katakolon because our hose wouldn’t reach the tap and there
was only a very grotty hose belonging to the fishing boat next door to use and
R didn’t like the look of it. So I
am not sure what we will do. But
again R comes to the rescue. He
does find a water tap on the quay and he gets our hosepipe just to reach
it. So we are now full with water
and I can shower in what is left of the hot water from this morning (when we
were on mains electricity) and we can do all the washing up.
We are really unimpressed with the weather. It is cloudy, cold and now has started to rain quite
hard. So we just take shelter in
the boat and have a cup of tea.
This is not what I expected from the Med.
After a few hours the rain seems to stop and we decide to walk into the
town. At first we have real
trouble in even finding anything that seems like a town. All there is are small hotels and
blocks of flats. After walking up
the hill for half an hour we do finally find what must be the centre of the
town around a large square. We
think about sitting down and having a drink but it is now nearly 8pm and we
haven’t started to think about making dinner. Also what I have planned is a BBQ, which takes time to heat
up. So we go straight back to the
boat (R stopping for an ice cream).
By the time we get back it has started to rain again and there is a lot
of thunder and lightning. I am not
best pleased. Despite the weather
we press on with the BBQ and finally at 9pm get to eat!
We are beginning to wonder if we will find that every port here in
Greece is like this. The place
really is an economic basket case.
I forgot to mention that yesterday in our travels we saw that near
Olympia there is a major problem with rubbish disposal. Every lay by and much of the roadside
is covered in uncollected rubbish bags!
I think my phone has run out of credit already. I was speaking to a friend when it cut
off and I could not call back.
That is a bit of nuisance also.
We hope to get away tomorrow.
We really don’t want to stay here long, but the weather is iffy. And so to bed, to the music from the local disco.
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