Samos to Paros

Persevere
Pat and Bruce
Tue 3 May 2011 06:51

37:07.4N 25:13.46E

 

3 May

 

Weather is a huge factor in sailing.  Either it is too much or not enough, rarely what you want it seems.  Sailing in the spring makes it difficult to predict.  So while in Samos we kept looking at when to make a nice trip across the Aegean Sea to mainland Greece.  The Aegean is wide enough to have two weather events on the east and west side.  While it was windy in Samos the western side of the Aegean was calm.  The forecast was for the east side to calm down but the west would be windy.  So we could make short hops from island to island when the weather was nice.  But, this process could take well over a week and we had been to most islands already.  So when a small gap appeared in the forecast we bolted west.  No leisurely sail, it was motor on, prop in high pitch and get half way across in one day to the Island of Paros.  Not a bad time and we looked like we were going to beat all the bad winds.  Wrong.  Reaching the northern coast of Naxos the winds grew and soon it was 35 knots with the main still up.  The bimini awnings flapping around gave Pat an nice workout holding them down until we reached the lee of the island.  Then no wind at all.

 

Of course this was just a temporary reprieve.  Passing into the channel between Naxos and Paros I watched an ocean liner head north at 20 knots and the diesel plume was blowing ahead of the boat, meaning the winds were greater than 20 knot ahead.  Sure enough another 30+ knots while we entered the northern bay at Paros.  We motored into our preferred anchorage and in 30 plus knots of wind we set anchor, tested it and let out 65 meters of chain in 7 meters of water.  I was going to make sure we could sleep and not drag anchor.  The winds diminished over the night and we actually got to sleep without much of an issue.

 

No pictures of Paros since it was just a overnight stay.  With the engine running fast we averaged 8.5 knots over 11 hours to get here and burned a lot of 10 dollars per gallon diesel.  But half way was completed and we were secure for the night.

 

On a side note the Greek Navy warships were having some maneuvers around the small islands we passed.  Navy ships like to be undetected so they do not operate any AIS (Automatic Identification System).  On hazy days the grey ships are hard to see and are fast so they appear out of the mist.  Luckily radar still picks them up and with my system I can acquire the target, keep it tracked to calculate how close it will come with the current course and speed.  It is interesting to see how they can “hide” against an island in a cove, almost disappear in the haze and background of the island.  Even radar has difficulty picking them out when they get close to land in the deep coves.