The Evia Channel

True confessions time: Until last year, I’d never heard of Evia. I knew there was a large island off the east coast of the Greek mainland, and I knew the water between them formed a sort of inland waterway, but Chris Tarrant would have had to phone a friend for me to name the island.

Then last year, floods and storms catapulted Evia into the news headlines with huge flooding coming just weeks after ferocious storms.

On our first night at anchor off Evia, we made a shocking discovery; we had no white wine on board. The carton in the bilges, that we thought was white wine, had miraculously changed into red while we weren’t looking. With guests on board (one of whom didn’t drink red wine), this was a disaster at apero time.

Leaving our party boat anchorage (maybe we should have asked nicely if they would sell us a couple of bottles), we struck out for our next stop of Panagea. This is a large bay on the west coast of Evia, and Google maps clearly showed provisions available in the area. We anchored near the village, and armed with back-packs and Carrefour shopping bags, found the little supermarket, and wiped out their one shelf of white wine. Later on, we moved over to the other side of the bay where, fortified with the necessary apero ingredients, we were happy to stay for two nights to dodge the wind.

It was an attractive setting with the added motive of a taverna ashore, where we congregated early evening to play Yahtzee before dinner. The daughter-in-law came over to us – would we mind choosing what we wanted as they needed to fire up the bbq, if we were having fish. Of course, no problem. We said we would finish our game and move inside for dinner. But mamma-in-law had other ideas, and started cooking straight away. She rolled up to our table and stood, hands on hips, ordering us inside to eat. We hadn’t a chance to finish our game. Admittedly, the food was delicious, but even the young daughter-in-law was rolling her eyes to us, because of her mamma-in-law’s behaviour.

Boufalo

By the Sunday, the wind had dropped, and we decided to go around to the next beautiful bay of Voufalo. Our pilot guide (Heikell) indicated the best place to anchor, and, as the only boat in the bay, we picked the prime position. It was now Sunday lunchtime, and the few tavernas on the shore were filling up with locals for a weekend lunch. A good walk to stretch legs, and then a well-deserved coffee (or beer for some!). We told the taverna we’d come for dinner, and returned to Missy Bear for a snooze, books etc.

But we weren’t the only boat in the village for much longer – a large, very expensive catamaran anchored quite near us, but did actually move over when we politely pointed out how close they were drifting back on to us. We started to relax again.

At this point, a 32 ft yacht charged into the bay, narrowly avoiding the sandbank entrance. The two south Asian guys (the crew looked like Kim Jong Un’s twin brother) ignored our waves and “hellos”. The skipper was not really looking where he was going, as he was staring intently at his mobile phone. Maybe looking at Google Maps? They went speeding past us towards the shallows, where there was a yellow buoy.

We knew it was shallow over there, so we decided they must have local knowledge. Dear reader, how wrong we were. It became very obvious that the boat had run hard aground. With a loud revving of the engine, and clouds of poisonous black exhaust, the two guys managed to free themselves after about five minutes.

In the old days, when we were on a charter boat with a rigid dinghy and a powerful outboard engine, we would have gone to help, but our little 3.5 HP Torqeedo electric motor is not built for such heavy duties.

The yacht then spent a good sixty minutes charging around the bay, trying to anchor, with terrible technique. They spent an undue amount of time close to lee-shores. Several times they dropped the anchor where we knew the wind would blow them onto the rocks. We debated whether Tony and Richard should go over, via Ursa Minor, to anchor for them. This has the added attraction of keeping them as far away from Missy Bear as possible. But in the end, they upped sticks and anchor chain and were last seen disappearing out of the bay and into the distance. Heavens know where to.

We breathed a collective sigh of relief with the catamaran.

Although our plans had been to spend another night before getting to the Evia bridge, we had good conditions and agreed to sail all the way up to the bridge. There is a quay just outside the Port Authority offices, where boats can moor up alongside while sorting out the paperwork and paying the transit fee.

The sliding bridge at Chalkis

The boat must pass through the narrow opening (narrower than 40m) at slack water, otherwise the currents can be formidable; 7 or 8 knots at least, although some report of 15 knots! Road traffic between the island and the mainland is constant, and therefore the bridge only opens at night to minimise disruption. Richard came back and told us that the expected opening time was scheduled for 02:00 to 03:00!! But it can be earlier or later. At certain times of the month, there is no algorithm which determines the time.  Instead, the experienced port policeman peers over the railings into the water and decides if it’s safe to go.

They then radio all the boats and tell them to get ready. At this stage, we decided to wait in the anchorage area rather than on the quay (fewer things to worry about in the middle of the night).

Despite being given a time of 02.00 – 03.00, you must monitor your radio from 21.30, just in case. Richard and Tony tried to get some rest from about 21.00, while I sat up and monitored the radio. At 23.00 the radio call came out: there was a problem with the opening mechanism and we would not be going through until Wednesday night. Sigh!

We managed to get a space in the little marina, and spent an unpleasant day inhaling clouds of orange dust from the Sahara that was blowing up over Greece and the rest of the Balkans.

More boat cleaning for skipper!

Back in the anchorage on Wednesday night, I once again monitored the radio channel. If we went through at about 03.00, then Richard and Tony would take the boat up to our next anchorage overnight, so that we would arrive in the early morning when it was getting light.

But at 22.00 the radio sprang to life: “Miss Beer, Miss Beer, get ready”.

We had been told that we would receive an individual radio call telling us when to go through, but the next one was an all-boats broadcast telling us to form an orderly queue, and to go through in turn. Boats heading north go first, then the call is made for boats heading south.

We chugged through, waving to everyone on both sides of the bridge. Once through, we headed to a safe anchorage. We were through the bridge! We dropped the anchor in a large bay at the other side, and had a good night’s sleep.

Limni

The next day, a beamy, blue, flat-bottomed fish-farm boat beat us into the tiny harbour at Limni on Evia. But actually they did us a favour, enabling Missy Bear to moor up in the entrance of the harbour and avoiding the shallow water further in.

Limni is a sleepy village, and it hadn’t really got going for the season. It had decent shops, and I was able to get some eye-drops for the conjunctivitis I had developed during the orange Saharan dust cloud.

History repeated itself the next day. A large fishing vessel was already moored up alongside the visitors’ berths in Loutra Edipsou (again on Evia). So, once again, we moored up in the entrance, just about managing to be on the visitor’s berth. A blonde-haired, rather chic, woman from the Port Authority marched down the quay towards Missy Bear, looking rather stern. Oh oh, did we need to move?

As she got near, she broke into a huge smile, opened up her hands and said “Welcome to Loutra”. She beamed widely again when we said we would follow her back to the office and bring our papers.

The public thermal springs are free

Loutra Edipsou is an old -fashioned spa town. There are expensive spa hotels that pump hot salt water into the baths. But the free public spa constitutes some rather large rock pools down by the sea, into which pours almost boiling water from an underground spring. Unfortunately, with conjunctivitis, I was unable to go in, but enjoyed sitting in the shade of some rather impressive belle-epoque buildings, which had an air of faded glory.

The bay of Vathikoilo

After a couple of nights on harbour walls, it was time to anchor out again. We enjoyed a sail up out of the Evia channel and tacked across up to a secluded bay on the mainland, on the way to the Gulf of Volos. The anchorage was stunning, the water was clear, and we loved our views of the pine-clad hills.

That is, until we saw smoke start to rise out of the trees and before long, white smoke was billowing out of several places quite close together. We wondered whether they were being set maliciously, and in fact tried to Google how we would report them. But they didn’t last for long, and we came to the conclusion it was being managed. But it’s definitely not something you want to see closeby when you are on a yacht.