We sail from Methoni to
Kiparissi
May 11th, 2013
We knew the sail would be
about 120 miles and that meant an overnighter.
We knew the sail would entail
going through the ‘Strait’ with the currents and the swirling wind.
We even knew that a fair amount
of traffic used this strait.
What we hadn’t considered was the
amount of work this meant that we would have to do when all this is put
together! My golly gosh!
Where did all the ships come
from! It seemed that all the ships followed each other on a consistent stream
500 meters apart. All night.
The wind was high. Then low.
Then the wind went to the port bow then the aft bow. UP DOWN UP DOWN went the
reefing.. Phew! It’s a good job we have ‘In Mast Furling’. We even used our self
tacking feature as we dodged the ships.
There was one incident over the
VHF radio which although routine and insignificant set me thinking about cruise
ships and the safety of their passengers. The radio officer of one of the large
“Princess” cruise ships told a nearby freighter in a very polite but firm
English accent to basically “get out of the way”. The cruise ship required a
minimum of 1 nautical mile between itself and any other vessel and so the
freighter had to move out of the way. “Please”. In a very firm manner. The
freighter immediately confirmed that he would do that in no uncertain terms.
Good for the Princess radio officer!
By midnight we were close to the
entrance of the passage. We were seemed to be leading a convoy of 8 ships. And
there were several coming the other way! Although the big ships were passing us
they did not give a lot of room and with it being night time and with them being
so big and us being so small and their lights shining, you felt you could almost
touch hands with them even though they were a quarter of a mile away.
Cathy told us of a VHF radio
message she had heard awhile ago. It went like this;
”Big ship, Big Ship, Big
Ship”
”This is little ship, little ship, little ship”
”Have you seen me,
over?”
When Cathy & Les had
finished their watch they gladly handed over to John & Bob as planned.
The actual strait was not too bad in
the end. Some swell but nothing to write home about.
Now the problem was to cross over
the traffic to the other side of the lanes as our next stop was on the
mainland.
I think this was our busiest
stretch of water we have yet encountered. It seemed much busier than the English
Channel. Maybe it was an illusion? This strait is much narrower and we sailed
‘with the traffic’ rather than cross at 90 degrees. Oh well.
We had to actually cut across the
traffic at 90 degrees as we came to end of the strait as we needed to go north
and the traffic was basically east west.
So we did as all true sailors
do..
We turned the engine ‘ON’ and hammered across the traffic at full
speed!
“What’s that green light in the sky
Bob?”
“Good heavens it’s another sailing boat sailing really close to the
cliffs and he has no AIS transmitter. Hope he makes it round the corner o/k.
There is a big tanker heading his way. Let’s hope he has his radar on.”
“Phew out of the passage.”
We arrive at beautiful
Monemenavasa and try for the marina there.
We tried to enter but with only
0.1 meter under our keel we were glad to get out again pretty darn quick!The
wind was at forecasted 25 knots that night so we had to make for a sheltered
anchorage somewhere. After checking the map again and it being still early
morning we chose to make for an anchorage or ‘possibly’ a mooring at Kiparassi
another 20 miles up the coast. We had to motor but with another lovely bit of
coastline to enjoy in brilliant sunshine it didn’t seem important.
Anyway, at 11.30 we arrived
at Kiperassi and the potential mooring spot. However, our draught made the
mooring a little tight and so we anchored in the bay.
Nicely secured we all needed a
little bit of relaxation!