Friday 21^st September, 2018.

We left Orei with heavy hearts as it is such a pleasant place.  We had to motor as the wind was on the nose until we rounded the NE corner. We saw 4 dolphins, 2 fishing fish and tuna jumping.  As we made our way further down the North Gulf of Evia more wind was coming off the big mountains.  The genny was up and down and the same with the main. With no depth instruments what should we do.  It was a matter of carrying on for the bridge and hoping the wind would subside a little or try and turn back and hopefully find refuge in one of the small harbours on Evia.  There was nothing for it but to continue to the bridge and hope the wind would be kind.  We were lucky and managed to tie up before the bridge just as it was getting dark at 7.30 p.m.  Jim went off to find the port police office and paid our 35 euros for the pleasure of going through the bridge at 02.40 a.m.  It was all very civilised with only a handful of yachts and several large vessels. We were called individually and told to be ready and given the message to process when it was our turn.  Once he returned we sat and had our roast chicken dinner listening to all the music coming out of the restaurants along the quay side.  We decided the best thing to do was to anchor in the bay the other side of the bridge and not on the quay wall in the commercial dock as it could be very noisy first thing in the morning.  We anchored and with two other boats spent a very quiet night waking to find we were in sight of the Khalkis castle.

It had been a very long day with a lot of headlands to round and covering over 60 miles.