Astipalia

Akibbon
Richard & Helen Morris
Wed 10 Oct 2007 16:49

And if we thought that yesterday’s sail to Amorgos was somewhat windy and rough it was nothing compared to sailing down to Astipalia.  Fortunately the wind and swell were not on the nose but some of the gusts were a teensy bit strong. Just passing down the side of Amorgos one very large gust tipped the boat up so much that the toerail was right in the water!  We had dithered a little about where exactly we were going to anchor on Astipalia but in view of the conditions we headed for Vathi.  It was quite difficult to pick out the entrance to the bay – even with our plotter but eventually we found it.  That was the first task, the second was to pass through the very shallow entrance to the bay - we only had spare half metre or so below the keel.  It was with a sigh of relief as we watched the depth start to increase.  The bay was virtually landlocked but was still quite windy.  We decided to go ashore to the little taverna and see if we could eat there later.  That was no problem provided we wanted fish! Back we went later and yet again we were the only ones in the restaurant even though we weren’t the only boat in the bay.  The fish was delicious and the advice from the taverna owner was very relevant.  He advised that we should leave about seven in the morning before the swell had picked up again.  We had already decided to do this anyway as otherwise we would have had to tack out of the bay which would have been both very hard work and also pretty uncomfortable.

 

Distance run 46.82nM  Cumulative total  3397.99nM