Due to some nasty weather coming in, 30 - 40kts wind for the next 4 days, we decided to stay for 6 nights. We arrived on Tuesday evening, our first stern to mooring went quite smoothly for the first time in this boat. Alison chickened out so Chris expertly manoeuvered us into the berth just missing the spray hood of the yacht next to us with our davits - note to self, remember there is about 6 foot of boat behind the helm and 2ft of davits to consider! We waited until the next morning to go to the Port Authorities to pay for our berth. Lavrion is a working port so it was a bit of a noisy night as the Greeks work well into the night. The next morning we called into the Port Authorities and found out that due to charter companies taking up the whole of the ports berths between Thursday to Sunday,  we would only be allowed to stay 2 nights, just when the weather was due to turn nasty. Even the town quay and the mole are full of charter boats. We paid for the 2 nights and then had to decide where to go to ride out the next few days of strong Meltemi winds. Olympic Marina, just a mile South, is expensive and while there is good facilities in the marina, there are very few shoreside facilities, most shopping is done in Lavrion! The other option was to stock up the boat, visit the chandler and move to a bay just a mile North that looked as though it had good shelter from the Meltemi with good holding and ride out the wind there for 5 nights doing jobs, swimming and hopefully relaxing if the anchor would hold. We decided on the latter but had Olympic Marina as a bolt hole if it all went pear shaped. So we set to, visiting the town and stocking up the boat. Just out off the port we found a “Range/Ikea" lookalike and a large supermarket that had everything we needed. 

Some of the charter boats started arriving back early to Lavrion, so when we got back from our shopping trip there was a 51ft Beneteau moored up next to us squashing our fenders. He had no fenders out on our side but had 9 fenders out on the other side protecting himself and another large Beneteau charter boat. We adjusted our mooring ropes so that Muskrat was lying on the boat the other side of us who had plenty of fenders out and politely asked the charter company employee if he would mind putting some fenders out on both sides of his yacht. He did eventually. He then worked well past 11pm working on the yacht. Time to move on.

There was some entertainment to keep us amused. A large motor yacht tried to leave its berth, only to find its anchor was fouled with other even bigger motor yacht who was still on his berth. He was well and truly anchored to the sea bed in the middle of the harbour! He sent down one of the crew with only a snorkel to try and sort things out with no avail. The owner of the larger motor yacht was contacted to come down and move his yacht but when he arrived he was not moving, for whatever reason, so the smaller motor yacht was stuck for about 4 hours while they tried to sort out the mess. In the end, we don’t know how they got free but the owner of the larger motor yacht shouted to them as they left “when you get back you will pay for this”. The next day, as we were preparing to leave, a diver was down inspecting the damage.

The last night started with sudden strong winds from the South and thunder and lightning, tomorrow night we will be at anchor in a bay that gives us protection from Northerly winds!! Northerlies were forecast.

So the next day we left our berth and motored into strong Northerly winds on the nose to our anchorage in Thoriko bay. The waves and the strong wind lasted well into the bay but at last we came to calm water and some shelter from the winds. The anchor set immediately and no reverse engine was needed to set it well into the sand, the wind did the work! So this our base for the next few days. 

Muskrat in Lavrion before the Beneteau arrival.

Thoriko Bay - good shelter from the Meltemi

Tme for Alison to service the winches.

Tankers joining us in the bay to ride out the Meltemi