Wednesday 16^th September – Messolonghi (Mesolóngion) (Déjà vu)

38:21.637N 21:25.049E

For those who don’t want to read the rest of the blog, today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday but with more knots of wind and still no fish!

PATRAIKOS

VARIABLE 3 TO 4. MODERATE IN THE MORNING LOCALLY POOR. THUNDERSTORM

LATER

Today we decided to give the weather forecast another chance and try heading east again, even with some wind on the nose we can push on with our engine, so early morning we cast off our lines and headed out down the canal.

We set off with no wind and motored towards the south cardinal about 4 miles away (sound familiar).  As we approached the cardinal a slight ripple showed on the water – and sure enough, a short while later, the sea and weather turned out to be an almost mirror copy of the conditions yesterday – except this time there was more wind and more swell.

Naturally as the forecast said variable 3-4 it was reasonable to expect F6 on the nose, with steep, short swell to match.  After yesterday that is…

We wondered if this was a local issue and decided to push on through it for a bit longer today to see if things improved.  However, when every third wave made Pyxis shudder as she slammed down onto the next one, and the wind reached 25-28 knots, and we couldn’t ‘comfortably’ make more than 3 knots without slamming, we realised we were not going to be happy in this particular variable 3-4 after all.  Even changing course to Patras, was going to require a long beat to windward. 

So, having made it further than yesterday, we turned round and set off back for Messolonghi.  Once again we had a great sail back in the morning sunshine, this time on a reefed genoa, and we were back in the marina in half the time it had taken us to get out to the turn round point.

On the way back we encountered the same wind shift once we were back past the south cardinal; suddenly we went from running on the genoa with 18+ knots of wind behind us, to having no wind and swell, and then to having 5 knots ahead of us.  At one point as we approached the entrance to Messolonghi we had the bizarre situation where we were running downwind on our genoa in strong winds, whilst a yacht was approaching us downwind on its spinnaker in light airs, and another boat was motoring in the middle – perhaps a mile or so apart.  Needless to say the other boat’s spinnaker run was soon curtailed.

So, back on our berth we spent the afternoon helping others in whilst the office was closed and this afternoon Yannis and Jo welcomed us back once again.  Messolonghi seems to exist in a micro-climate all of its own as despite what was happening just a few miles away, there is no wind at all here and bright sunshine. 

This afternoon, after lunch, I have done some fishing and Richard has re-sewed part of the spray hood with sail cotton as the sun has destroyed the original stitching. Late afternoon, our immediate neighbours, a small motorboat, ordered a fuel tanker so we took the chance to top up our fuel tank with a couple of jerry cans.  They have come down from the east today and said the strong wind built the other side of the large suspension bridge some 20 miles away – we would have had a long slog to windward if we had carried on.

I have told Richard that we will not be setting sail in an easterly direction until there is a forecast strong wind from the west as I want no risk of an easterly creeping up on us and beating us up again.

Messolonghi:  Still waters; Spinnaker ahead

© Pyxis 2009