Porto Koufo
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Sat 16 Jul 2011 18:57
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39: 58.2 N 23:51 E
Porto Koufo 14 - 15th July
Having read about this place and seen the pictures
in the Pilot book we were a bit disappointed on arriving to find a much busier
harbour than expected!
The entrance was lovely and if one chose to anchor
to the eastern side of the fjord like bay it was quiet enough. However we needed
to be in the village area to search out
phone -renewal details and find a laundry - reputed
to be in the campsite. We were lucky regarding the phone as the supermarket had
a facility to enable me to put on more credit (but not for the USB
Dongle)
they also had camping gas so we were able to get
the empty one exchanged. Rob walked a short distance along the main road out of
the village and refilled a petrol container - much needed for the generator and
outboard engines.Unfortunately there was no sign of a camp site and certainly no
laundry to be had unless I had it taken to the nearest big
town.
In the first evening a flotilla of Neilson yachts
arrived full of Brits - we later had a chance to chat to the leader a most
helpful young lady called Holly. She was able to give me details of a laundry in
Nea Marmaras
as well as other useful information about the
cruising grounds she was familiar with. It transpires that the amazing chandlers
we thought was in Nea Marmaras is in fact in Nikitas the next port further north
and the Wind phone and USB
shop is also there. Koufo is a small holiday
village with mainly rooms to rent a couple of small hotels and taverna/pensions.
It fairly bustles at night when all the tavernas seemed full and by the time we
turned in we had about 10 boats anchored around us. In addition there were two
moles where boats were rafted alongside. The flotilla had rafted together in a
rather novel way the lead boat dropped a stern anchor motored gently to the
steeply shelving sandy spit, until the bow was on the sand, some-one jumped
ashore and took their anchor to a large rock and wound the chain around this.
other boats then came either side and did the same thing.There were a number of
local fishing boats with very noisy engines that left late at night and returned
early in the morning disturbing everyone's sleep. On the second day most of the
yachts left including the flotilla and we were left with just 3 boats at anchor
and a few on the moles. We were surprised to be hailed by a rather large blue
hulled yacht in the early evening - Rod Heikell on board his boat Skylax whom we
had last met in Didium at the beginning of the EMYR Rally last year. He duly
anchored close by and we had a chat about various places. He was the first
of some 8 more boats to arrive during the evening so it was quite busy
again in the anchorage near the village. One charter boat provided some
amusement as they came alongside the head of one of the concrete moles -
downwind with the mainsail still hoisted - after much shouting and reversing of
engines they managed to stop - goodness knows what damage was done to the
topsides! They then spent ages trying to work out how to drop the main!
Eventually this was achieved using boat hooks and brute force!
We decided to leave bright and early on Saturday
morning and headed for Nea Marmaras.
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