Ormos Kiparissi 36:58.9N 022:59.8E

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Mon 21 Sep 2015 16:58
After a very calm overnight on hook at Monemvasia the weather looked just fine when first out of bed for the 0900 Net on 6516kHz. Propagation was very poor and could only just hear Louise on s/y Lulu and barely heard the others in Turkiye & Greece. At same time we could see the ominous very dark clouds creeping down the mountains close-by followed by gusty winds and heavy rain. Me thinks "Lets put genny on, shower, enjoy some tea and toast and sit this out for short while and let the nasty conditions go through. By half nine it had stopped raining so saved Sue gettin' soaked whilst we picked up hook. Immediately underway we put a scrap of genoa out and were soon sailing along at good speed in a SE'ly F6-7. Very nice too! We could make out four other yachts ahead of us, all heading N like us. About an hour and half later the wind reduced to a pittance and it just wasn't strong enough for us to make more than 4kn so we dumped the sail and made use of the donk. I took the opportunity to do a log and whilst below saw the wind back appreciably and rise from 5 or 6 kn to over 20kn. At same time Sue says "Have you seen what's happening to the sea?" Now in cockpit we could best describe the sea as 'wind-over-tide'. This didn't last too ling because the wind increased to over 30kn and the waves responded in same direction. Looking ahead we could see at least 3 yachts were caught with all their sail out, struggling to reduce sail completely. We fortunately had no sails out and making-way nicely on donk. The wind settled and we then exposed the equivalent of couple of nappies, heading towards our destination, arriving at 1400. Blissfully, we're on hook and well protected from strong winds. We did have a heavy boat wash this afternoon and the nearby mountains, 1,000'ish m heigh are caped in swathing cloud. The seabed is gravelly and therefore the holding ain't over-brill but we ain't seeing any nasty high winds and with over 70m chain out in 10m depths we can't see us moving far tonight. We are bit exposed to the swell coming in and hope to be rocked gently to sleep when we go horizontal.
The weather forecast today promised SW'ly winds F4-F5 and lied. We would like SW'ly tomorrow for next 20-30nm N - fat chance! Conditions in these waters are presently very unsettled. At least we didn't gat same as our friends Pam & Steve, s/y Eirene, who reported 52kn this morning ......... and they are only 30NM to our NE. 50kn ain't nice either!

Love to R,M,T & S and P,J,S & F xxxxx