Once upon a time (well, many years ago), Richard and I did a one-day Royal Yachting Association (RYA) course on how to use a ship’s radio. This included the critical safety features for broadcasting a Mayday (m' aider), and of course the Nato, or phonetic alphabet – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc.
Not long after, the two of us went sailing around the Whitsunday Islands in Australia on a 32' Jeanneau Sun Odyssey and thought this would be a good chance to practise our new formal skills. We had to scheduled calls (‘skeds’) twice a day to the Sunsail base to report where we were. We retained our ‘stiff upper lip’, no-sex-please-we’re-British formal use of the radio:
“Sunsail base, Sunsail base, this is yacht Millenium, yacht Millenium, over”.
In return, we got a sunny and informal Ozzy reply from the base such as,
“Hi Millenium – how you guys doin’ today?”
Last year, in Italy, I also discovered that the Italians have their own version of the phonetic alphabet. Missy Bear is “Milano Imola Savona Savona Yankee Bari Empoli Ancona Roma”. I was a bit stumped though when using this to give our boat name as there is no “Y” in the Italian alphabet so I had to resort to “Yankee”. [Ed, the word ‘Bear’ was often too difficult to pronounce, and so our yacht was often referred to by Italians as ‘Missy Beer’.]
We moored up a fair amount in marinas last year, which meant having to call the marina on the ship’s radio. We have a fixed station radio at the chart table, and a linked handset that we can use up on deck. As First Mate, Skipper assigned me the task of contacting the marina.
“Santa Maria di Navaresse Marina, Santa Maria di Navaresse Marina, this is sailing yacht Missy Bear, sailing yacht Missy Bear over”.
We’d then get a stream of static and Italian voices back, and I’d look helplessly at Richard who’d say “OK, fenders at pontoon height on the port side, mooring lines for’d and aft”. But occasionally, even Richard had difficulty understanding what they had said. We were always grateful when a RIB would appear, sweep past our stern to check who we were, and then wave us on to follow them.
Now, we were sailing into the large bay of Leros towards the marina at the head of the bay. Our initial entry was punctuated by typical approach comments such as, do you think the sea state is getting calmer, where shall we get the sails down etc, but before long we were near the marina entrance. One yacht with a Red Ensign was sitting firmly in the narrow approach channel, another Spanish yacht was hovering nearby, and lots of yachts were anchored in the bay off the town quay.
We went through the "Leros Marina, Leros Marina..." bit, only to get a stream of static and Greek voices back. Richard and I looked helplessly at each other. Sari and Thorne adopted a 'this is your boat, therefore your problem' expression, but assured us that they didn’t have a clue what had been said either. We therefore radioed the British-flagged yacht ahead of us, to ask what the protocol was. A woman with a Home Counties’ accent relayed that we had been asked to wait and anyway, they were next in the queue. So there. Ok, she didn’t say that last bit but sort of implied it.
We waited, and waited. A yacht came out. Richard wondered if: (a) they didn’t actually have room for us; (b) it was one out / one in, like a car park on a Christmas shopping trip or; (c) we should just anchor up in the bay anyway and forget the marina. We decided to anchor anyway simply to wait and to have a cup of tea or coffee. That should always do the trick.
And it did – both boats ahead of us had gone in, when the RIB radioed us, and roared out to meet us. They moored us up on one of the pontoons that circle the edge of the marina. The great thing about it was it was a long way from the loos and shower blocks, so we got our daily steps up. The disadvantage was it was a long way from the loos and shower blocks, so we had to set out half an hour before we needed to go. Joking aside, it is a really nice base: lovely loos, good showers, great laundry with Miele washers and dryers, and also outside sinks for handwashing. The restaurant/bar was excellent too - although quite pricey - but lovely bar staff and manager.
We sat in the bar, and watched one of the hoists lifting a yacht out. It looked very professional. Our haul-out date was over a week-and-a-half away (although Sari and Thorne planned to leave well before then possibly to avoid doing any pre-haul-out work?)
First, we hired a car to investigate a couple of restaurants on the opposite side of the island for Thorne’s upcoming major birthday. Leros is thick at one end, thin in the middle and thick again at the bottom: a sort of reverse theory of dinosaurs according to Monty Python. We drove around the island. Well, when I say around, there is only one main road that runs north to south. We all loved the hilly scenery and views. We went to inspect an outstanding restaurant – Mylos - on the other side of the island’s narrow ‘waist’, at the pretty, seaside town of Agia Marina. This would have been about 4 hours sail away, but was only a 15-minute drive from our berth. We had a very light lunch there, gazing at the chop and swell in the bay, and the complete lack of anchored yachts. So, we decided that we would return for Thorne’s birthday a few days’ later, but to not sail there but get a taxi instead.
This turned out to be a spiffing idea; we had a couple of days anchored out around Leros and Kalymnos, and then we could return to the marina and dress-up on the day without worrying about sitting in a salty puddle getting in and out of the dinghy.
For the anniversary celebration, we had a whole fish between us (a 'Porgy' or Black sea bream of 3kg in weight). [Ed - I'm unsure if this is a bream from the Black Sea or a sea bream that has black head markings. I think it's the latter] It was served ‘Head to Tail’ as they called it, across six courses.
We did actually have the head served John the Baptist-style on a platter, but it was roasted on a bed of braised tomatoes and onions, and didn’t get served by Salome.
We also discovered several lovely Greek white wines from the island of Thira (Santorini). [Ed - the rootstock is ancient, having not suffered from Phylloxera] Needless to say, none of the pre-haul-out tasks got done the next day.