Corinth Canal 24/05/12
Open Blue
Tim & Manfreda Penfold
Thu 24 May 2012 19:35
Position 37:44.64N 23:32.36E
As Giuliana was flying into Athens on Saturday, we decided to push on and left early again (6:30AM) on Thursday heading for the Corinth canal and through into the Saronic gulf.
Most of the 38 mile trip to the canal was uneventful motor sailing apart from a visit by some dolphins. I say they visited us, but actually we had to chase them about a bit until they briefly came to play with us. They were small ones (probably porpoises) and at times there seemed to be 20 or 30 around us. The girls (including Fred) loved it and there was much squealing and excitement on the foredeck. It was the first time Mia has seen dolphins and they were even luckier to see a baby one with it's mother.
Then we arrived at the Canal entrance and milled around with 4 or 5 other boats for an hour an a half until we were let in, to motor through in convoy. We had really been looking forwards to going through the canal and it was very spectactular, unfortunately raining when we through which dampened the experience a bit, but still very memorable. The canal is 3 miles long so at 7 knots it took less than half an hour to go through, then you go alongside at the Eastern end to pay the 250 euro charge.
Once we got going again and had to decide where we were going spend the night, there was only really two options, a sheltered harbour on the mainland about 15 miles away, or the Island of Aigina 25 miles away.
We decided to push on to Aigina, as the wind was in the right direction and it would mean we had a short hop the next day to Athens. Big Mistake!
We arrived at Aigina at 6:30PM, all tired from 12 hours on the go, to find the harbour completely full. This was a bit of a nightmare, as the wind had built to a westerly force 5 and there was no way we could anchor anywhere on the west side of the Island. We decided to go round the south end of the Island where there were a few possible anchorages.
In the end we motored the whole way round to the East side, and dropped the hook at 8:45PM just as it got dark, in a reasonably sheltered bay.
We had a pretty rolly night, but in the morning we only had a 12 mile hop to Athens, which meant we could go sight-seeing.
