Tristomo, Karpathos

S/V Goldcrest
David & Lindsay Inwood
Thu 11 Nov 2010 14:10

Another great day of sailing in strong winds.  We had one little moment en-route when the smoke alarm in the engine room went off.  It was just some oil burning off, which had spilt from a can of 3-in-1 the previous day, but boy does it make a scary noise! 

 

The pilot book warns that this is a challenging anchorage, so we were expecting trouble with big gusty winds coming over the top of the island.  However we thought we’d found a good spot, and for 7 hours the anchor coped with the blasts jerking the boat around.  Then just as we were getting ready for bed there was a big jerk, and bang, we were off, blown down the bay in the pitch black.  We had spent the evening watching the local hamlet (2-3 houses plus a church) getting ready for some sort of feast.  Periodically someone would appear with a gun and a dead animal (a goat, kid, pig? - hard to see), then a bit later a carcase would be brought down to the water for a washing out.  Several black clad and diminuative old ladies sat and chatted and watched the activity.  As the light died an outside oven was lit and guns discharged, but we didn’t manage to see them eating.  Anyway, as soon as we started dragging they kindly sent a boat out to warn us, but I was on the case already with the engine running & most things prepared for re-anchoring at night.  After 3 failed goes at the head of the bay we almost felt our way around to a tiny spot which had looked more sheltered as we came in.  It was only big enough for a single boat’s swinging room, so finding the spot that kept us off the shore as we veered around was challenging.  However it was the right spot, as we had no more scares – but not a huge amount of sleep either, as we were dressed & kipping down near the chartplotter on “anchor watch”.  After a few hours snoozing, we got going again quickly in the morning towards better shelter.