We sail from Methoni to Kiparissi

Timeless
Sat 11 May 2013 11:27

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!