For those who are too young to remember it, this is how Gladys Pugh (played by Ruth Madoc) used to introduce her broadcasts in the BBC sitcom ‘Hi-de-Hi’, set in the 1950s holiday camp of Maplins.
Well, Skipper may frown upon me saying this, but sometimes boating is like having a caravan on water. You pack up every day, stow things away, and move on to the next place. Then, you unpack what you need, spend the afternoon, and certainly the evening doing stuff around the location of the caravan, and then the next morning,...why, you stow it all away again.
Whilst it’s not quite the holiday camp experience, we always have a think about our plans each day, and what we want to do. Entertainment is often provided by the arrival or departure of other boats, and the occasional harbourmaster in a yellow hi-viz jacket could be a Maplin's “yellow-coat”.
It’s been a little like that since we left Monemvasia. After Costa left us, we stowed away all our stuff (laptops, anything loose in the galley, any mugs in the sink etc) and set off for our next port of call Gerakas. This is a lovely, inland lagoon. It’s very sheltered – you get to it via a squiggly entrance. There is a small town-quay, and some pretty anchorage spots. The hamlet is small with a couple of tavernas and a bar.
We nosed our way to the town quay. Although it looked like there was room, there wasn’t really enough to push between yachts already there. Heikell says you can go alongside the end of the pier, but there were absolutely no rings or mooring bollards, so we gave up on that and went out to anchor in a cove. This had been Richard’s strategy all along.
The time had come, we agreed, to dip not only our toes in the water, but to follow through with the rest of our pasty, white bodies. We clambered down the steps from our bathing platform, and inched into the water, gasping in turns. Interestingly, as we swam along, we bumped into lots of hard egg sacs, baby unborn jellyfish.
We were soon joined by a couple more yachts, and Incy Wincy [Ed - rude] took a line ashore to keep us from swinging around. Later on, we flubbed silently ashore, and had dinner in a small, friendly taverna. We chatted to the owner, Tassos, and his waiter. It turns out we had all known someone in Poros who sadly died a few years ago. We stayed a second night, and after a Sunday afternoon walk up to the acropolis that guarded the entrance to the fjord, we stopped in the bar for iced coffee. Tassos was there, and very kindly paid for our coffees.
(As a quick aside, on the second day, the large bowline loop on the long shore line pinged off the jagged rock to which it was tied. Incy Wincy said we could just swing around quite safely.)
Further up the coast from Gerakas is the large, open bay of Kypirissi, with coves on the left- and right-hand sides as you go in. These both have small quays to which you can tie up, but we chose to keep going to the centre of the bay and to the short, stubby mole that is in the village itself. We were in luck – the one place you can go alongside on the mole was free, and it had Missy Bear’s name on it. Now this was the exact place where our friends Rosemary and Lawrence had moored up not long before, and had a really uncomfortable night with the swell that often comes into this bay (as warned by Heikell). Richard would have liked to go to the wilderness of Chapel Cove (on the left-hand side) but we’d been anchored for two nights and I like to step ashore occasionally.
Shortly after, we took lines for a British boat (Easy Tiger II), also members of the Cruising Association. Later on, the final spot was taken by a yacht that had been chartered by the London Corinthium Sailing Club.
Richard persuaded me to come in and have another dip in the clear water of the pretty little harbour. After we had showered off the back, and dried off. We were kindly invited onto Easy Tiger II for drinks, and the four of us had dinner together in a local taverna.
Our next port of call was one we had really been looking forward to. The small town of Leonidhian has a beautiful harbour and beach called Plaka (Plaka is Greek for beach). It has beautifully clear water, and you are not allowed to release soap or detergent into the water.
When you come from the west, the cliffs form a very obvious boot shape, and close in, you can see a blue hotel. Our play-list for sailing includes the Chris Isaak track (Blue Hotel) for that very reason, and Richard usually puts it on to play. Approaching from the South, it was very different, but we could still see the blue hotel, so R put Blue Hotel on at full blast.
We nearly always brought the flotilla into Plaka. It is a beautiful place, and you can swim off the back of the boat, go across the harbour to the small beach, or even visit the gently-shelving beach alongside the harbour. The harbour has a fresh-water stream pouring cold mountain water into the harbour, which you feel, with a shudder, as you reach the half way point. There are ducks that live on the stream or in the harbour.
The one place everyone knows about in Plaka is Margaret’s taverna. A small, feisty woman, she runs a great, traditional Greek taverna. Back in flotilla days, her parents were in the kitchen, and you were very welcome to go and see what was cooking that day. Nowadays, her son Michael also has his name up over the door.
They also have a well-stocked mini-market next door. The other mini-market opposite is also still there, although a little better stocked than when it was run by a Canadian many years ago, with his collection of tins of Spam. I have vivid but queasy memories of following a large, heavily-sweating German who was country-walking along the quay to the shop, wearing nothing but a bright-green thong up through his buttocks, and a posing pouch out front. He even did his shopping like that. [Ed - he hadn't washed his hands and was feeling all the fresh fruit and putting it back!] Please peeps, put on clothes when you are in a shop.
But Plaka wasn’t always peaceful – it was one of the places we encountered taverna wars. Thomas had the taverna next door to Margaret’s and there was little love lost between them. Margaret’s was in a better position strategically, because you had to pass her taverna to get anywhere else. She would dart out and waylay you, usually thrusting bags of her home-grown produce at you. It was also the route to the shower block (no soap in the harbour), and we had large bags of ice thrust at us as we clutched our towels and soap.
We didn’t really do a flotilla meal in Plaka, but used to tell our clients to eat where they liked, but invariably they would all end up in Margaret’s, because that is where we ate. This used to infuriate Thomas, who rang Greek Sails (the boat owners in Poros) to complain we never took the flotilla there. [Ed – Thomas even called the Setsail company owner, John, in the UK, so I could get more earache from back home as well.]
Thomas had one more try: Plaka had a tiny a nightclub run by a lovely guy Vangelis. He only seemed to have one music CD – Boney M’s Greatest Hits. We took some clients there one night, where Thomas came up to Richard, the flotilla skipper, and invaded his personal space, complaining that we never went to his taverna. Richard, accountable and responsible for the flotilla, pointed to me and said, “Alix is the hostess, so you’ll need to speak to her” and scarpered. In the end, we did the breakfast briefing at Thomas’ taverna to try and keep some peace.
Meanwhile, back at our arrival in Plaka: we went stern-to between a charter boat full of German guys and a Danish boat with a woman sitting and smoking in the cockpit. There is a “harbour master” who takes your lines, and always tells you that you’ve not dropped your anchor out far enough or have insufficient chain out (it’s a deep harbour, about 14m). The concrete quayside wall in Plaka is also very high, which means that the plank you use get ashore from your stern is always on a steep incline.
As we finished getting our lines on, a woman appeared with a small pram. Margaret had obviously seen 'Missy Bear' arrive, and not recognising any local charter flags, had trotted out to see what was happening. She is now a grandmother, and had her four-month-old grandchild with her. [Ed – also called Margaret!] And of course, we ate there later, and she gave us some of her home-grown oranges and apricots, bless her.
The original itinerary was to keep heading up into the Argolic Gulf, but we had noticed some very windy weather due to hit Greece and lasting for a few days. The next morning, we decided to head over to Porto Kheli to sit tight while the ‘Hi-de-Hi’ winds (geddit) passed through.
Porto Khehi is a large, sheltered bay with a long town quay, and more recently, a new marina. It is undoubtedly the safest place to be (tied up or at anchor) when strong winds blow. When we had seen the weather system on Windy (and on texts that we all exchange out here), I had taken the liberty of booking us three nights in the marina. We decided to leave Plaka about midday. We got ready, stowed everything, and switched the battery engine on. Richard asked me to start the engine. But instead of roaring into life, there was a long beep, and an error message saying “Auxiliary Stop!”. Wut??
Now the Danish boat next to us (on which we had kindly been invited for an apero the previous evening) had already experienced an engine problem (black smoke, grey smoke…) A local engineer had come earlier that morning and said that their engine it needed a major overhaul, but tweaked something that he said should get them to Porto Kheli. They had already left, but returned to the harbour 10 minutes later, saying the problem had recurred. By the time we helped them in (and had to adjust all our lines to get ashore again), time was marching on, thunderclouds were beginning to form... And now we had this message. I did think maybe Missy Bear was being a little too empathetic.
Richard got the Yanmar manual out, I loaded it online, and paged through. He wondered if he had nudged something when checking the engine yesterday, and trying to find the source of a small, fresh water leak. Bingo. As he said that, I located the ‘Auxiliary Stop’ button in the manual. And indeed, when he opened the engine’s side compartment, he could see that the red button (marked Auxiliary Stop), was turned to ‘OFF’. It’s one emergency way of closing off the engine if there’s a problem. It couldn’t have been any clearer. Once he rotated it to ‘ON’, the familiar, welcoming sound of a marine engine came up through the boat. And we were off.
I cannot speak highly enough of Porto Kheli marina. They indicated where should go alongside, and I have to say Richard was concerned as we would get blown hard onto the quay as the wind rose. But we were handed a lazy line at the bow and the stern, which Richard pulled tight to keep us off the pontoon. In any case, the concrete pontoon was edged with small rubber cushions for added protection. Clean showers, (but only two)loos, fantastic staff in little electric golf carts who will drive you around, take your rubbish for you, pump up your fenders etc. Wow! We enjoyed three nights there. And great chandlery shopping too – Missy Bear’s new fender covers are smarter than any of my t-shirts!
Although it feels like calm weather will never come, the fourth day saw a significant drop in winds and we set off to Vivari, a delightful harbour on the north west of the Argolic Gulf. The friends who came sailing with us in 2018 will remember it particularly well for the exciting and slightly damp arrival back to the yacht while trying to clamber back onboard from the dinghy 😉. [Ed – you know who you are!]
Richard and I went ashore for dinner. Just before we left, I remembered we hadn’t put the anchor light on – a bright white light at the top of the mast that warns other vessels that there is an anchored ship. We sat in the taverna at the water’s edge. As it grew dark, the light started to glow. Oh blimey – it was bright green. That meant I’d put the masthead navigation lights (tricolour) on by mistake, instead of the anchor light. Rookie error. Sure enough, as Missy Bear swung around, we could see the red port light. Richard curled his toes in embarrassment, our only saving grace was that no-one could connect us with the yacht.
Back on board, we went to the instruments panel to display my ignorance. But no, the anchor light switch was on. We could not believe that we had not realised this given all the times we have anchored up and put the light on. However, M’Lud, I have a photo on my phone that shows the white light when we were anchored. So, something weird has happened, which we would need to investigate further.
Now we are on the quay in Napflio, and did some tests with anchor and nav lights last night, and are more confused than ever. That’s another job for the summer haul out.
‘Hi de Hi’
‘Ho de Ho’