Vlikho, Levkas - Varko Bay, Greece

Pyxis
Karen & Richard
Wed 5 Aug 2009 21:39

Wednesday 5th August – Vlikho, Levkas – Varko Bay, Greece

38:45.933N 20:48.340E

 

Today we had a quiet morning and Richard went up to Nidri in the dinghy to pick up a few more supplies and download the weather forecast for the next few days.

 

When he returned we shipped anchor and set off from Vlikho; once we were out of Nidri we put out the sails and were able to make way so we settled in for a slow sail.  We were not going far so we didn’t mind; but the wind built and we were soon travelling along at 4-5 knots, very respectable.

 

Early afternoon we anchored in Varko Bay on the mainland and then met up with Rosie and Otwin from Enya, who are also anchored here for a few days.  After catching up on some of the gossip we came back to Pyxis and went swimming in the clear and warm water of the bay.

 

Late afternoon the wind built from the NW (the opposite direction to which we had anchored earlier). As it is forecast to continue from this direction we decided to re-lay our anchor in line with it; unfortunately because of the wind shift the boat next to us was now beside our anchor; the guys on board were pretty chilled out about the whole thing and put a fender between us as we upped anchor and approached them.

 

Sadly, that was the time the windlass decided to quit and I thought that we had a broken windlass with 10 metres of chain to go and alongside another yacht in a building wind - yuk.  So, sitting fender to fender, Richard dashed down below and discovered that it had simply tripped the circuit breaker and reset it so that we could continue our now very close quarters manoeuvre.  Dicey, but no damage; all was fine and we set our anchor in a new position well away from all other yachts, whatever the wind decided to do.

 

Well, for a while the wind ripped through the anchorage and tested all the anchors.  A couple of yachts gave up and decided to move elsewhere for the night.  We held on and settled down to dinner.  Eventually there was a lull – enough for Enya to pop over for post dinner drinks and for us to finish catching up on everything that has been going on. 

 

The evening has been very pleasant with the wind light but now it is gusting up from time to time.  Not sure what the night has in store…