Naxos 04/06/12

Open Blue
Tim & Manfreda Penfold
Mon 4 Jun 2012 21:57
Position 037:06:27N 025:22:46E

Monday, we decided to say goodbye to Mykanos and head south to Naxos. I went to raise the anchor and found that it was snagged on a massive 4-5 inch mooring chain. I tried motoring around in all different directions to try and twist the anchor out from under it, but nothing worked, we were proper stuck. Raymarine said we had 7.1m of water under the keel, so we were in at least 9m of water, and the windlass wouldn't lift the chain much off the floor, it was seriously big and heavy.
A greek guy came over and said he had some diving gear, but he had to go to work and wouldn't be back till 3PM, so we were stuck.
I put on some flippers and a mask and went to see if I could get down to the anchor with a trip line. A south african guy called Mark who had been watching the antics from the beach swam out and offered his help. Much to my surprise I found I could get down to the bottom (still got it!) and after 3 trips down there we managed to get a big enough line under the chain and free the anchor.

We finally got going about 12:30 and motor-sailed the 19 miles to Naxos. When we got there it was nice to find they had built some pontoons for yachts in the 18 years since my second hand pilot book was written (long story). There was a perfect slot for us between a bunch of plastic charter boats and a 30 year old ocean racing legend.
Flyer (II) is a 76 foot, Aluminium, Frers designed, purpose built winner of the second ever Whitbread round the world race (1981-82) and we were docked right next to her. Luckily Fred and I executed our best ever anchor stern to manouvre like pros, and were in no danger of scratching the immaculate paint work.
Later on we got chatting to the owners, who are a lovely retired dutch couple, Hanneka and Herman, who have owned Flyer for 15 years. They sail on their own with no professional skipper (Herman is 71) and the boat is immaculate, really beautiful. Alessia got us invited aboard by shouting to Hanneka "I want to come on your boat!" I couldn't have put it better myself, but it worked, and we got shown round the boat and made some new friends.

It's fairly clear that the highlight of Naxos for me was Flyer and meeting her inspirational owners, but actually the Island is very beautiful, with the best beaches we have seen in Greece. We took the bus to the beach on our secound day and as we were in the ticket office buying our tickets I asked the very helpful man "which bus do we get on?" and he replied "the green one with the flames up the side"........
of course, how obvious.

Anyway, Naxos was lovely, here's some pictures of Flyer (we are moored to the right).
And one of the girls on the beach.






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