It was a bit sad to leave Skiros after enjoying it so much. On the last evening I had dinner with a group of English chaps who came in on a chartered Bavaria 38. They had the gin out at 11.00am so it was a good night. The ferry came out to say goodbye….

This is Ormos Patries as you approach. It is a smallish fishing village but quite a few Greeks seem to holiday there.

The harbour

There was a lot of room in the harbour but a few years ago a coaster sunk in there and whilst it has been removed there is a lot of rubbish on the bottom to snag anchors. There was room to go alongside but they had those dreaded tyres on the quay. So we anchored off the beach just outside.

There were a good few tavernas and bars so there was no shortage of entertainment. Coming in to Patries Minka’s B&G autopilot decided to go on the blink and then stop working altogether. I spent a few hours reading the manual and checking all the wiring but it is nothing obvious. My feeling is that at 19 years old it may need replacing or at least the hydraulic actuator. I will take it all off the boat and bring it back to England so I can get a firm to check it out.

An autohelm is essential when you are single handed but fortunately Minka has a Monitor wind vane steering system as well. When Dave was out helping me fit out the boat in March we finally set up a tiller pilot for the wind vane so you can sail by wind direction or a magnetic course. Today there has been little and very variable wind so we have been using the tiller pilot. It works very well but is not quite as precise as the B&G system.

As we were getting very low on diesel I decided to detour slightly to Gavrion where I knew I could get some as the last time we filled up it was here. I have used up the 50 litres I have in cans and only have 30 litres left in the tank. Anyway the nice man is coming in a minute with a little tanker to fill us up at the quay.

Coming in to Gavrion we had a race with the ferry. It won by such a margin it was leaving again by the time I was alongside.

The plan now is to go to Nisos Kea, Nisos Aigina and then Nisos Salamis to be in Athens on the evening of the 15^th to pick up my new crew the next day who will then help me sail back to Kas to leave Minka there for the summer.