Wednesday 17^th August – Néa Skioni, Khalkidhiki – Néa Klima (Elios), Skópelos

39:08.300N 23:38.566E

We left Néa Skioni at dawn with a forecast of F4-5 behind us, decreasing to variable F3-4, expecting a good sail south to the Northern Sporades, trying to take a short weather window before the meltemi kicks in with strong winds in the Aegean tomorrow. 

There was some wind as we cleared the harbour but it promptly disappeared and we had to motor on in surprisingly calm conditions.  Late morning the swell began to increase with a short chop on the beam from the west going around north west.  Then around lunchtime the wind suddenly appeared blowing F4-5 on the stern-quarter.  Unfortunately by the time we sorted out a problem with the genoa, we had only about an hour or so of sailing before it eased again leaving us with quite a steep, lumpy swell astern and needing to motor-sail on to keep our speed up.

As we rounded the north-western tip of Nísos Skópelos (home to the film version of Mama Mia), the swell eased and we sailed on gently down the coast towards Loutráki.  We were entering charter yacht territory and there were already many more yachts around than we have seen for a long time.

We had heard through the Mailasail grapevine that the small harbour at Néa Klima, a couple of miles further on from Loutráki, had been redeveloped since the pilot book was written making it a good stopping off point.  We looked at Loutráki as we went past as Plan B and then motored on to see what Néa Klima was like.

We arrived here at Néa Klima (Elios) in good time, found that the harbour had been redeveloped as advised, found space available on the quay and moored stern to.  The good news is that the harbour master came to tell us that the mooring is free and so is the electricity, just a small charge for the water – thank you EU funding (but doesn’t make sense does it?).

We were helped in by a couple off one of the other yachts already here and later we were just sorting out a few bits aboard when the lady reappeared with a bag full of small fresh fish for us – so that was tonight’s dinner sorted J.

The beach is just the other side of the quay from us and so after we were tied off, I went for a pleasant swim to cool off.  Late afternoon another yacht came in on our port side and so we could now relax as we had a boat either side of us.  There was a bit of swell working its way in this evening causing the boats to roll a bit but tonight the wind has gone further north and it has settled.