Lavrion and Poros Town
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Sat 3 Sep 2011 15:06
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37 30.1 N 23 27.2 E
Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd September
We had a quick motor sail down the coast from Port
Rafti to Lavrion and on arrival at the big harbour we managed to get a place on
the
quay that is used by Olympic Yachting a charter
outfit. This proved to be OK with power and water available at 5 Euros per
facility - we opted for just power.
A quick visit to the port police revealed a hidden
cost - 22 Euros port charge - the most we have
paid in Greece! It was market day so Jacky headed off to get a
top up on the fruit and vegetable front as well as
a trip to the large supermarket for some other necessary supplies. We were very
pleased to meet up with Richard and Karen on board Pyxis who arrived in the late
afternoon.
They came round later for drinks and a catch up
chat so it was good to hear their news. sadly they are heading west rather
quickly to get the boat to Messalonghi and get back to the UK due to family
issue at home so we will not be seeing them again this year.
The quay was very noisy over night with bars
blaring loud music until 0400 and then the
teenagers sitting around after being thrown out chatting and singing. Of course
Jacky with her ear-plugs was fine but poor Rob
had little sleep! We left early and headed for
Poros where we had good reports of the town etc. The route took us passed the
southern end of the Athens peninsula where there
is a spectacular Greek Temple on the cliff top so
we managed a good few photographs of this taken in the early morning sunshine.
The wind picked up well and we had one of the best
sails all season - full genoa and main sail on a
fetch which at times saw us creaming along at over 7 knots. The sun was shinning
and the sea was fairly calm so it was just fabulous!
However good things don't last and by 1200 the wind
had died and we had to motor the last couple of hours. We took the southern rout
into Poros and motored slowly passed the various options
for tying up. We decided on the north quay as there
seemed to be lazy lines here and it was quiet where as the other quays had been
very busy and right next to the road too.
We backed onto the quay and collected a lazy line
(it turned out that mostly these were de-funked but the one we chose was fine!)
and we were soon secured nicely. There is a
board walk here covering the original rubble strewn
quay so no dangers of grounding the rudder. In addition there is another
floating pontoon at right angles to the quay which is not shown on the
chart
in Heikell's book where you can anchor and tie back
on either side. Despite there being power and water points along the quay none
were working so we managed with out. However on investigating we
found out that the south quay has both and the
mooring is charged at 12 Euros which includes the services. We will probably go
back there later in the week before heading south so will try for a place there
next time.
The down side of our position was the car
ferry running from 0600 until late every 15 minutes and large twice daily
Hellenic Seaway ferry - the wash created by these vessels was
not good and we had to stay well pulled off the
quay and keep the passarelle very high to avoid damaging it.
Despite all of this we did like Poros and the shops
and feel to the place was good. There are two chandlers - we bought a fair bit
of stuff from the one in the centre of town including a new solar anchor light
which
is now in pride of place having replaced the garden
solar light we have been using since Portugal! Jacky also visited the further
one (mentioned in Heikell) which is at the far end of the south quay to make
enquiries about
their yard and the buoys in the bay off it. It
could be a possible place to leave the boat for next summer when we return to
the UK for the Olympics but no prices available until after the end of this
month.
There were several UK flagged yachts on the pontoon
in the north harbour so we had a chat to the owners and exchanged some books and
cruising information. It was a reasonably quiet night once the ferry had stopped
running
but we were ready for some peace and quiet, so
having got the shopping we headed off all of 2 miles to a secluded bay at the
north end of the Poros channel where we are now at anchor. Swimming and reading
for a few hours
and just chilling out!
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