37:54.946N 023:00.569 E
29th April – 6th May 2011
Finally, several days later than planned, we left the marina for the 500 metre drive to the anchorage. At least we had started! (Oh and Carol had caught a bit of the royal wedding in the marina bar with lots of ladies watching the TV while their husbands drank a beer and pretended not to be watching).
We had arranged for a lot of work to be done over the winter and had carefully planned it so that the contractors could use the quiet winter months to do the work. Guess what? Hardly anything was done until the week before we arrived whereupon Tashi Delek was a maelstrom of activity. We know this from our friend Brad whose yacht ‘Evergreen’ was up on legs just next to ours.
All very frustrating for the highly organised Keffords.
When we did finally break out of the marina it was in cold, wet, miserable weather that didn’t get much better over the next few days. So, Bens first night at anchor was grey, grey, grey.
We had moved to the anchorage so that we could make an early start for the Greek island of Simi. We were few days behind schedule now and had a long way to go. First day at sea and it was very lively. Wind annoyingly on the nose which was to become the norm over the next few days and slowed us down quite a bit. Ben took the helm and we found that we had a natural on our hands. He quickly understood that it was all about the wind and kept the boat sailing very well. |
From Simi we sailed to Nisos Nisiros after pain au chocolat from a fabulous wood fired bakery on the quayside. Then on to one of our favourite spots from last year, Astipalaya. |
From Astipalaya we headed to anchor on Serifos. We went alongside the town quay the next morning and bought some supplies while discussing the weather with others moored there. It was going to be pretty blowy over the next few days. We set off late morning for our overnight passage to the Corinth Canal. Another change of pace for Ben as Mike and Carol did 2 ½ hour watches in turn overnight. As always harnesses clipped on once it is dark. Ben did a watch with each of us and it was very handy having a second pair of eyes as we went through the busy shipping lanes for the Athens port of Piraeus. Mike and Carol had an interesting encounter with fishing nets that were fortunately very brightly lit so we were able to turn and go round the end of the line once we could see what they were. It was still very cold so we needed full oilskins, especially at night. Ben wore either Mike or Carols depending on who was asleep at the time. |
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The wind still blew at us hard so the sails were reefed but it swung round onto the nose making progress annoyingly slow for much of the time.
