Busy, busy, busy.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Tue 18 Aug 2009 18:41
37:16.8N 26:46.6E

Tuesday 18th August

Still quite breezy in the harbour and very little sign of action when we
decided around 10.00am to make a move for our next destination.
The catch was that the French boat that had come in alongside us yesterday
evening had laid his anchor and chain over ours and so we were bound to have
a bit of a problem when we left.

As usual Sarah helmed us out and I operated the anchor winch on the
foredeck. Sure enough we had been fouled and eventually our anchor came up
with his attached to it. We had prepared for this and with Sarah expertly
holding Serafina in position under engine against the blustery wind, I used
a half moon device that we bought years ago to hold onto the Frenchman's
anchor and then drop ours away to release the tangle. We then carefully got
into the right position and using a trip line, dropped his anchor where it
should have been in the first place! Almost every boat had at least one crew
member on their bows watching this and Sarah in particular was beaming with
delight at how well it had all gone especially since the Frenchman had been
totally dismissive of her and her claim that he had got it wrong in the
first place. Long live the entente cordiale.

We raised the sails and swept out of the harbour with a cruise ship hard on
our heels. As we raced across the outer bay at 8.5 knots a pod of 8 dolphins
sped over to swim with us for a short while. Sadly the wind dropped away
after that and we found ourselves sailing at 7 knots with a heavy cross sea
making us roll a bit. Before long though we were passing to the south of
Lipsi Island and we then headed up into a group of three bays to find
ourselves a spot to anchor in. The first two bays were bursting with yachts
at anchor, but once again there was a third that was totally empty. Do they
all just act as lemmings and head for the crowd? Selected a nice central
spot and although the holding was a bit indifferent to start with, we did
get the anchor to bite. Almost immediately a charter yacht with Italians on
board came in and anchored only yards from us. We were a little unimpressed,
but once all of them had jumped overboard for a swim and the breeze picked
up, we did notice that their boat was dragging its anchor. Before we could
call them though, they too had seen this and after a mad panic they swam
back and re-anchored in much the same spot. An hour later the same thing
happened again and they went off to another bay. Eventually two other yachts
came in and anchored with us but the real entertainment was the 6 boat
'flotilla' of boats chartered by Italians that came in. They had visited the
bay earlier in the afternoon, but after whizzing round trying not to hit
each other, they disappeared. Sadly around 5.00 pm they came back and
treated us to an extraordinary display of high speed dodgems as they rafted
up taking lines ashore from their sterns and dropping their anchors at right
angles to the wind in the bay. They also felt the need to mill around at
speed very close to Serafina arriving just as Sarah was half way through her
shower off the back of the boat - an audience of 30 Italians was not quite
what she had hoped for, but they seemed almost as relaxed about it as she
did! It was with some relief that we watched the last one join the raft and
so we could all settle down and relax. At this point the only people left
upset were the dozen or so nudists perched on the rocks all around the area
where the Italians had tied up!