Spetses - Worst moorings so far
Sans Peur
Grete & Fred Vithen
Tue 19 Jul 2016 13:38
37:16.19N 23: 09.27E Spetses
We thought we where smart choosing the new key a bit outside but after a few taxi boats at full speed and a couple of monster ferries we learned that the swell was incredible and the rolling and tension to the ropes was terrible. Something ought to break.
So we left for the old over crowded marina.
Managed to find a good spot we lines to the shore. All good.
Then ... later in the afternoon/evening all kind of vessels turned up; big (to big in our opinion) motor yachts, plenty of chartered sailing yachts with more or less experienced skippers causing chaos and a bit of mayhem.
Lot of angry sailors around, including us.
You can't leave the boat then anything will happen.
We skipped visiting the "old" quarters, seems very crowded and full of (only) tourist traps. This is a part of Greece we very much dislike.
Sundowner GT and BBQ dinner onboard.
We plan to leave at first light if we managed to get through the web of all lines put out at the moment.
And of course the wind direction changes during the night causing more chaos and noise.
You need to sleep in the cock pit. No problem Fred is doing that anyway.
Then a few hours of sleep and then the noise starts again ... now from drunken youngsters on the way home from ...
Sunrise what a relief. Time to cast off.
It's like a labyrinth to get through all the lines and then trying to release your own because there are more then plenty attached to every fixed iron mooring, actually steel bars sticking out of the stones. The weight of the boats only attached to one of them must have been hundreds of tons (two monster motor yacht plus a couple of cats and then the midgets like us).
We are the first yacht to leave in the morning (there was of course one crewed moster that had to leave in the late night waking everybody in the harbour up with the sound of chain rattle and bow thruster).
Anyway finally on our way ... "stop stop stop" ... screams Grete. We got a line tangled in our propeller.
Mask & snorkel on ... knife at hand ... into the water. Takes some time to get rid of this shit so we can move to a safe place.
And we are of course drifting into/between two cats. Shit shit shit ... Fortunately no damages.
Reanchoring. More ropes to cut away. A Swede in dingy comes to our aid. Thank you so very much. Takes away the remaining hard tangeled ropes, checkes the shaft and if there are any miss noises (bearing, shaft ...).
Seems ok in the end some paint and filling is gone. Yes we are on our way again. It's about nine. Still we are the first boat to leave this circus.
Mr Perkins seems to work fine but there is a bad missound especially at low reps. Dam it.
We have to have everything checked by a professional ingenier. That will happen in Kalamata on Monday.
If necessary there will be another lift (hope not).
This kind of sailing is not any favourite of ours.
37 Nm to Monemwasia. Time to sail, there is wind and silence, and today some clouds.