Beware Kite Surfers and Danes

When you are heading towards, what you hope will be, a sheltered anchorage, its always slightly disconcerting to see a kite surfer whizzing around in the distance just about where you intended to ‘sling the hook’ for the night. Kite surfers never seem to get out of bed unless there is a F6 blowing. Indeed, when we did arrive at our intended stop south of the island of Antiparos, the wind was gusting in the low 20 knots from the north-east.

The anchorage – Ormos Dhespotica - lies between the main island and a smaller one of the same name, and it is a channel lying NW/SE, protected in the north-west by a shallow bar, about 2m deep across the entrance. This submerged, landscape feature protected our spot from the larger waves outside. And so we would be at least be comfortable, even if we were to saw to-and-fro in the wind. There was only enough fetch for a small ripple or wavelet to each us.

We had left Schinousa at 07:15 that morning, and put in two reefs to sail the 25NM, which we polished off in 3 hours. We were generally heading north east towards Attica - Athen’s peninsula – and island hopping against the prevailing wind. We were choosing our destinations so that we would not be too hard on the wind, nor have to tack.

After Antiparos, we thought we might head for Sifnos, but once we started sailing, we realised that the wind (N F4-5) was free enough to head to Serifos, the next island north. We hardened-up through the narrow gap between Dhespotica and tiny Nisos Strongoli, and headed towards the port of Livadhi on the south-east corner of Serifos. The wind eased to a F4, so we shook out a reef and bowled along nicely, Missy Bear continuing to make good, comfortable passages. We polished off the 28NM trip – anchor to quay - in less than 5 hours.

Livhadi, Serifos

I managed to track down the port police and got our Transit Log stamped. We had made a school-boy error in Leros and included Alix on the crew list as well as Tony. As Alix had already flown to Athens via Samos, and was not on the boat, this could have been a problem, if the nice port policeman had been a pedant or in a grumpy mood. Thankfully he was neither, and he allowed my to complete a new crew list, sans Alix.

Tony and I had a walk around the beach at the top of the cove, but decided not to attempt the lung-bursting trek up to the Chora. We saw the local fisherman with a very nice catch, some sea-living ducks, and a lorry full of live chickens in cages. I’ve seen a few of these mobile batteries, and I’m not totally sure if they sell eggs of the actual hens.

Catch of the day

Sea ducks

Which came first?

We ate supper in a taverna on the beach and the night was only spoiled by a group of four Germans, who returned to their racing yacht at midnight, and played some Rammstein hits at full blast, while singing like they were at the Oktoberfest. <Sigh>. They only managed to sustain this for about half an hour, thankfully.

We were now hoping for a change in wind direction to help us northwards. The forecast had shown the wind lulling and then gradually backing to the south.  We managed to sail half way to the next island, Kythnos, before the wind died.

We motored towards the anchorage. The B&G chart-plotter showed one yacht in our bay transponding its AIS position. My rule of thumb is that for every yacht with AIS, there are another two without. Its my 3:1 rule. Sure enough, when we rounded the long island that protects the anchorages (Nisos Ay Loukas), there were three masts in total!

This island is connected to the main island of Kythera be a narrow. sandy bar, splitting the anchorage into two bays. It’s a beautiful spot. There is one taverna, but the owners were still doing pre-season cleaning.

We were expecting a peaceful night at anchor, but as soon as we had got everything sorted out, an armada of eight charter boats arrived. They all looked as though they weren’t entirely sure what they were doing. Various non-standard anchoring techniques were used. One boat anchored so close to the beach that Tony and I feared he would run aground. Sure enough, 5-minutes later, the skipped decided to move, lifted the anchor, engaged forward gear and looked concerned as hits boat stuck still. I can’t deny that Tony and I had a little mutual smile. A few more revs freed him, and he zoomed off to try somewhere else.

A nervous-looking threesome on a 51-foot yacht had been weaving in and out of the other boats for half and hour looking a bit lost.

As soon as the yachts had dropped their anchors (none of them seemed to make sure that their anchors had set firmly), their dinghies were thrown into the water and immediately full of young teenagers who delighted in roaring around the anchorage with throat sounding outboards. Hey ho.

Shortly, two middle-aged men approached Missy Bear’s transom in a dinghy. They said "hello", and apologised for bombing our anchorage. They explained that they were Danish and running a Danish sailing school, which was giving Danes a first experience of sailing in the Med.

They assured us that the children would be well-behaved and that there would be no loud music. We said, thank you, and that we hoped they enjoyed their holiday.

I didn’t see any evidence of tuition from this ‘lead crew’. They certainly didn’t show their students how to anchor properly, and that night there was every combination of lights been shown on the yachts (as opposed to the mandatory mast-head anchor light). Some were showing steaming lights, navigation lights, tri-colours, deck lights, or all of the above. And in the darkness, the dinghies still ferried around without the required all-round white light – so that other boats can see you and not run you down. Not a great advert for the Danish, I’m afraid.

But they all seemed to be having a good time, so that’s alright, isn’t it? They were up and away before dawn, with a 40NM+ trip to Poros!

The predicted southerly wind arrived, and we lifted anchor at 07:45 to start our last leg of the delivery to wards Olympic Marina. We had a steady F4 from the south-south-east, and broad-reached north-westwards. One gybe up the channel between Attica and Nisos Makronisos and we were there.

The last leg

We called the marinero on Channel 09. “Please put your fenders on port side, low, and wait for me at entrance.”  He guided me to a wind-off finger berth, in a tight spot, and that was ‘blind’ - i.e., you couldn’t see the side of the pontoon that we were going alongside. So, it basically was the most challenging park he could have selected.  The bow-thruster paid for itself again!

Tony and I celebrated with a “docker” – a cold beer – having delivered Missy Bear safely 177 NM across the Aegean. We had sailed most of the way, only 11 more hours put on the Yanmar. We'd had some fine trips, peaking at 9 knots and often bowling along at more than 7 knots. Missy Bear had done us proud!