I’ve probably said it before, but I’ll say it again. This is not a holiday; we are living on board. Although while we were in Poros, it feels like a strange mix with so many memories.
We reached down from Epidavros. We had a glorious sail, and even gybed in through the gap to Poros island, although conceded the bigger part of the channel to the large car ferry from Athens. We close-hauled and tacked into Navy Bay as fare as we dared with all the boat traffic. The ferry that overtook us in the gap had turned around and was coming back out again; the Galatas mainland car ferry plied back and fore; a large catamaran, who could see we still sailing - and thus we would want to turn through the wind - decided to overtake us in the direction we were due to tack; and of course, all the little water taxis bobbed around. It was Poros at its best and we loved it.
But we did manage to get our sails down without too much interruption, and motored down the channel, coming home to Poros once more. [Ed, as Henry Miller described in 1939 (The Colossus of Maroussi):
“I don’t know which affected me more deeply - the story of the lemon groves just opposite us or the sight of Poros itself when suddenly I realized we were sailing through the streets. If there is one dream which I like above all others it is that of sailing on land. Coming into Poros gives the illusion of the deep dream. Suddenly the land converges on all sides and the boat is squeezed into a narrow strait from which there is no egress."
Richard Kouvaras and the team brought us into the quay side, and suggested that we might like to be flotilla crew for a few weeks. Not really for old times’ sake, but they needed the crew. Ha. We’d seen the huge increase in boats since 2004. No thank you.
We had a few great days on our little island, catching up with old friends. Suzie and Bente, with whom we did the post-flot trip around the Peloponnese; June and Nick with whom we would often spend a Thursday evening when the flot crew arrived back into Poros a day ahead of the client boats. The guys from Greek Sails obviously. Plus a few others who recognised us eighteen years later.
We even saw George, our laundry man who used to come every Saturday on his moped to collect our laundry, and with his little white dog in the basket
The ouzerie opposite the quay has long gone, the smell of charcoal and octopus no longer wafts across the quay. We would always use their quayside tables and chairs for our own purposes. But they were kind to us. Back in 1987, Richard had participated in rowing trials of the trireme (the ancient Greek three-tiered rowing warship), and this had been moored in Poros. The owner of the ouzeria had, back then, owned the hotel where the trial rowers had breakfast, and had a photograph on the wall of the ship in full… row? Sail? Richard could see himself on the photo, and it was two long-lost pals re-united. [Ed – Tasos has sadly since died]
For those of you who have been to Poros, we definitely re-acquainted ourselves with the sleeping lady, although with the addition of wind turbines, she is looking a bit hairy. Someone suggested maybe she was having acupuncture!
It was also a chance to get some boat chores done. For Richard, this always includes scrubbing the topsides with [Ed, an environmentally-kind] cleaner and hosing it down. For me, I always clean both heads (bathrooms if that’s not too posh a word) and end up on my knees scrubbing the floor as the surface is non-slip, so a rough, raised surface where dirt gets trapped easily between the tiny little dimples. I won’t bore you with my technique, I can hear you yawning already but if you are interested, buy me a glass of wine when we get home and I will happily share my knowledge.
We hated Saturdays, our turnaround day on flotilla. I had to be up first to make sure the guests were up and getting ready to leave. As this was the morning-after-the-end-of-flot-meal, quite a few were reluctant to get up. The next stage was always stressful. We had to be in crew outfits to say goodbye to the departing guests, but we also had to start cleaning boats, which meant a quick change of clothes after everyone had gone. Richard had to clean all topsides, wash and re-coil the lines, pump up and wash all dinghies. Andrew, the engineer, did all engine checks, and topped up with fuel and water. I had to clean the inside of up to three boats. It was a hot and sweaty day ahead. So, there we are, in our crew outfits, waiting for Costas (the guy who drove them to the airport in Athens) to arrive. He was a law unto himself, and was always late. We want to start on the boats, the quay is full of luggage and departing guests who want to chat to us until the final good-bye.
Now guests were supposed to empty the boats completely and bring stuff up to the quay (or into the bins). But invariably there was someone who’d say “I’ve left you half a pot of strawberry jam, it’s in the locker…” [Ed - it was never a half - perhaps a third at a push]. Now don’t get me wrong, we loved having left-overs e.g., bottles of water, sun-tan lotions, books (pre-Kindle days). And sometimes booze (which we couldn’t really drink as we were working) was useful for the odd party that we would throw on our lead boat, Evensong. But some people took advantage of this, and used it as an excuse not to clear all their stuff out.
We saw Evensong parked up on the quay, re-painted from white the light blue and renamed “Calypso”. She is a 37-foot Gib’Sea, a real solid tub and much better than many lead-crew boats today. But she had no hot water heater, so we used to fill a few 2-litre plastic water bottles with tap water, and put them on deck to heat up during the day, and use those to shower in.
Despite our chores on Missy Bear, we did take one day off as a holiday, and hired a quad bike to drive around the island. It was great fun, and we had a late lunch and a beach stop as well. I spent a happy 30-minutes watching two brothers and their sister play a game of pushing each other off the stubby mole into the water, a mix of sheer head-on scrapping, and also sneaky, underhand tactics.
But time whizzed by (sounds a bit like the lyrics from Unchained Melody) and soon we needed to cast aside our lazy lines (after our not-so-lazy time) and point Missy Bear up towards Olympic Marina, about 40 minutes taxi-ride away from Athens International airport. The wind at the end was bang on the nose, but Missy Bear ploughed on until we decided the steep chop was too great with two reefs in, and it was just easier to furl the jib and motor on.
Up early the next day to give MB another polish and shine before Sari and Thorne arrived (and another scrub of their heads). First Mate warned Skipper NOT even to tread in the guest heads nor leave a footprint.
They were with us quite quickly after they landed on time (bit of a celebration for EasyJet at the moment) and it was soooo lovely to see them. The marina restaurant was closed that night so we ate in our cockpit, enjoying being together. It started getting cloudy, and we could see lightning in the distance. A heavy squall came over with high winds and some rain. We had to rescue next door’s Sigma yacht which got pushed back onto the quay (they’d tied up poorly - only one slack spring line - and gone to town for a meal). We radioed the marina guys who came very quickly but we’d pretty much sorted it.
We left the marina the following day. Our itinerary was originally to pop around the corner to the island of Kea, and start sailing down to Sifnos, but 'Windy' showed a strong south-westerlies arriving later in the week, and we wanted to get to a sheltered bay on northern Paros. So, Sari and Thorne’s first sail on Missy Bear was a rip-roaring (beam reach) in a gusty 18-20 knots. For once, Richard suggested putting a reef in before I had suggested it.
But later I said, “I think we should put another reef in” to which Richard replied “It’s too difficult and we only have 5 miles to go, we’ll be there in no time and we’re in the lee of the island”. Later on, I asked him what he’d meant by it being too difficult, as it’s an important safety manoeuvre, even if he likes to delay it when we are nearing our port. He said “I couldn’t be a**ed”.
Just like old times.