Samos
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Wed 21 Apr 2010 14:35
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37 41.19N 26 57.6E
Pithagoria Harbour Samos
Saturday 17th - Tuesday 20th
April
We had intended stopping at a couple of the small
islands to the north of Leros before getting to Samos but when we stopped to
take the main down off Arki
the engine started to play up again! We could only
get knots of speed even with 2000 revs. so decided we'd best keep going to a
harbour where we knew there
would be someone to help us sort this out. We
unfurled the head sail and set off managing about 4 knots with a following
breeze. In the meantime Jacky called
Graham Whittington (in the UK) our marine engineer
who gave us some advice which we followed (to
push the throttle hard to maximum revs.) and hey presto there
was an almighty 'think and we shot forward at
8 knots! He thinks there may have been something on the prop shaft or that the
folding blades had not engaged properly.
Anyway we arrived in Samos and found that the quay
was open so decided to save on the marina fee and go stern to on the town quay.
It was rather dirty as one half
of the quay is being renovated so we had concrete
lorries and workmen busily replacing the huge stone slabs and setting them in
concrete. Much of the tourist
bit of town is still closed but the main shops were
open - although not 'til 0900 generally unlike Leros where everything opens at
0800. We had a hire car to get
to Lidl and were able to buy a huge amount of
'supplies' (though when we did a price check it would seem that Leros was
cheaper for many things!) We also filled all our fuel cans
to top up the diesel tanks and to have spare as we
have been told diesel in turkey is more than in Greece! The electrical chap
(Yannis) came on Monday afternoon
and we now have a speed log and true wind reading
that works! So with nothing left to keep us we decided to leave the following
day and head for Turkey. The 'checking out' process
was somewhat long winded and took at least an hour
so we didn't get away from Pithagoria until 11.00a.m. We set the genoa and were
soon romping along at speeds of 7 to 8 knots
as we passed through the channel to the east of the
town between Turkey and Samos. There was a very gusty SSE wind and with the
addition of a favorable current we were soon
passing the east coast of Samos. We had decided we
would stop at a bay on the north coast (sheltered from the southerly winds which
were forecast for 24 hours) and by 1500 we were
motoring in between some tiny islands to Ormos
Asprokhorti. This proved to be reasonable and with some shallow water and good
shelter we dropped the hook and looked all set for the night.
However around 1630 Rob felt we were dragging our
anchor so we decided to re anchor a bit further from the shore. This was easier
said than done! I had got the anchor half up (about 10
metres of chain still out) when the windlass
stopped and we had alarms going off on all the electronics the chart plotter and
the other instruments shut down and the inverter as well!!
We then couldn't get the windlass to work at all.
After several experiments to try and resolve the problem we decided to motor to
Kusidasi (the nearest big sailing centre) and try to solve
the problem. Two hours later we were all fast in
the Setur marina and rather relieved to have some shore power to rely on until
we can get to the bottom of this latest issue!
37 52.18N 27 17.9E
Kusidasi
We arrived at the marina entrance and having
previously called on the VHF a port patrol rib met us to show us to our birth.
We rejected the first slot as we could see it was not
beamy enough for Arwen but were then taken to the
far end of the marina to a slot tucked in the corner near a restaurant and very
close to the shower block so just perfect!
We were told the 'signing in' procedures could wait
'til morning so after our rather stressful afternoon we celebrated our arrival
in yet another new country with rather large
G and T and R and C each! An early supper and bed
followed. Only to be awoken with a torrential downpour and violent electric
storm at 0500.
So far we haven managed to get to the bottom of the
electrical issue - we have tested the system again replicating the power
demands of yesterday and all seems to work
perfectly today! We have put in a call for
advice to the electrics engineer that fitted out Arwen in the UK but had no
response as yet. Hopefully we will make some progress tomorrow.
The checking into Turkey went fine the marina did
it all for a fee of 50 Euros. We had to pay 15 Euros each for Visas and then the
Transit Log was another 44 Euros so in total it cost about
130 Euros. The best bit was we just handed over the
papers Rob signed some documents and then we left them to get on with it and
returned 2 hours later to collect everything.
The marina facilities are good with chandlery,
laundry, sail-makers, electronics and several cafes and bars as well as a
swimming pool and tennis courts. The nearest supermarket is at the
gate of the marina and we were pleasantly surprised
at how reasonable the prices were on many goods -not alcohol
though!
We have met a few live aboards and been given some
more local information regarding market days etc. so will hopefully get into the
town to explore some more tomorrow.
From the sea the place looks pretty horrendous with
huge hotels and tower blocks dominating the sky-line, and the new Cruise Line
harbour had 2 huge cruise ships berthed last night.
No doubt on closer inspection we will fined some
charming spots?
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