At 10.15 on 15th July we slipped our warps from Naxos harbour and motored out into the bay with a 15 knot headwind.

The 22 nautical miles to the south coast of Mykonos would be relatively easy with a different wind direction, but with the Northerly on the bow, we knew the trip was going to be a motoring bash north.

 

The seas were quite steep as we left the bay, but the forecast showed a reduction in wind and sea state in the lee ( shelter ) of Mykonos. However,  we were crawling along at 2 knots speed over the ground so we decided to do some sailing tacking, zig zag for a while but gave up later doing too many miles and little headway.

 

By 15.30 we were in stronger winds and had only covered 15 miles. As we approached the last 7 miles to the coast of Mykonos the wind increased to 30 plus knots gusting 36 knots true, we were shocked not to get any shelter from the hills on the island. The sea state worsened with foaming spray, the wind accelerating in the gusts.

We gave up making for the harbour on the west coast and in the exposed channel between Mykonos and Delos and headed for the south coast.

As we approached we couldn’t believe it,  there was no shelter at all and the two bays were full of 90—150ft super yachts and motor yachts bobbing around in the gusts and foaming sea like dinghies. 

We cautiously motored through them to a clear area, dropping the anchor in 30 plus gusts and waited to see if we were holding, we dragged in the gusts until it finally dug in---phew !

We were in a good spot, away from other yachts, shoreline and with 12 m of water and 72 m of chain out.

A 40m motor yacht anchored behind us in the foaming sea and whilst the crew were distracted by rafting a large tender alongside---they dragged about 200 meters—thankfully downwind from us.

 

The wind howled all night with Tony on anchor watch on deck---listening to a bar ashore playing ‘Zorba the Greek’ at 2am.

Tioram had her anchor well dug in and we didn't move.

The next morning the wind dropped to 12-16 knots, so we lifted anchor and motored up the west coast to the harbour.

 

Photos of----

The crossing and yachts in Ornos Bay, Mykonos--- never looks as rough as it was on photo

The next morning calm and motoryachts stern to the rocks

 

Love to all

 

Tina and Tony x x