38 22.60N 022 23.266E Galaxidhi, Greece
Pipedream
Sun 3 Oct 2010 19:07
to access the site of the Oracle of Delphi.
We all took a shot at the guide books and between Preveza (Actium) and
Galaxidhi (Delphi) there just was not much to see. So it seemed appropriate
to just push on for 24 hours and do the trip in one jump instead of say 4
six hour days. The part I missed was that there is lots of sailor 'stuff'
to deal with in there.
Andrew, Bill's friend, has proven also to be a valued source. He told us
about the Levkas canal, a pretty small canal cut through the mud flats, that
cut almost 50 miles off our trip. The Greek pilot said, "The southern end
of the canal is buoyed but the rest ... is marked by poles.." and then "The
first approach to the northern end of the canal can be hair-raising." (It turns out the guy who wrote the pilot Rod Heikell is tied up about three boats down from us here in Galaxidhi. ) With
that in mind we timed our arrival well for the 11:00 AM bridge opening and
proceeded through with three other sailboats. The transit turned out to be
a sailboat parade - I felt like I was back in Saugatuck, Michigan on a
Sunday afternoon. All kinds of large sailboats one right after another and
shoulder to shoulder. We exited into a large bay dotted with islands and
saw more sailboats there than at the Annapolis boat show.
That afternoon we picked up a good stiff breeze for almost four hours and
was able to make six knots under main and Genoa and give the engine some
rest. We headed south and started to pick up a lot of big ferry traffic. I
just started to read Homer's Odyssey again and there in the distance was the
island of Ithaca, Odysseus's home. When we turned the corner east into the
gulf of Patras it was getting dark and we were passing a big ship about
every ten minutes. I tried to light off our gas grill while underway but
with a 13 knot breeze blowing, ended up frying our pork chops that night. It turned out to be a clear starry night, you could even see the milky way clearly just like being out at sea.
We entered the bay from the north and was on the wrong side of the steady
stream of big ships comming down the gulf (like a wide river), at 18 kts but
was afraid to cut across the flow of shipping doing only 5 kts., so I tucked up along the deep
water drop off line on the north side of the gulf where I figured it would
get too shallow for large ships. Thanks to Jeppeson marine and their fine
electronic charts. It was about midnight, Judy was on watch, we were
moving along under sail at about 6 kts and the autopilot was obediently
steering for the waypoint I had set. We were still about 20 miles from the
Andirrion/Rion bridge, the longest cable suspension bridge in the world. I
was taking a cat nap in the cockpit when out of my dream I felt the boat
leach (we lost our wind) and someone on the radio is calling 'Pipedream'.
Our AIS (automatic identification system) broadcasts our boat name, speed,
position and heading to other boats. Usually only big ships use the system
and I think the traffic control guy at the bridge assumed we were a large
ship about to run aground on the north side of the channel. He instructed
us to move to starboard immediately.( my chart showed we should have had
about 60 meters of water where we were and I draw about 2.3 meters) I told
him we were sailing but would start our engine and comply. All this was
going over a staticy radio in Greek/English half speak. I checked for
shipping, started the engine and altered course to move about two miles
across the channel to the south side of the gulf. All this activity brought
Chuck on deck. As I was saying something to him the whole bay lit up
suddenly. My first thought was that a big ship had lit us up with a search
light just before squashing us flat like a beer can. I spun around just in
time to see the light go out and a contrail in the night sky where a meteor
had shot across the sky above our boat. Thank you Zeus!.. someone send up
some clean underwear...
I called the bridge traffic control about 5 miles out and was given the
center span (usually reserved for commercial traffic) for our transit under
the bridge. I don't think they ever realized we were a 13 meter sail boat.
Lots of traffic as we approached the bridge where the gulf and all that
shipping narrows to one mile and then opens into the gulf of Corinth on the
other side of the bridge. About five miles into the Corinth canal the
shipping dropped off and we proceeded to Delphi seeing only three or four
more ships.
Andrew said we needed to practice dropping our anchor and backing into the
queue. (Most of the public docks in Europe are set up like this) We got to
Galaxidhi (recommended by Andrew over Itea) and there is no marina only the
public wharf. Calm and no wind... I backed the boat (the prop seems to be
working again), Chuck dropped the anchor and Katie tied off the rear-end...
dah piece of cake at least that time. The fuel, power, and water man showed
up about 10 minutes later to tell us we would have to pay 5 Euros a day for
power... we'll take at least three. Tomorrow the bus for Delphi at 9:30.