You Don’t Argue with a Car Ferry

Myrina quay from the Kastro

I left you last time when we had just moored on Myrina town quay. Myrina is definitely a town and not a village. There is a new town quay for visiting yachts and the lifeboat, and the much older, smaller fishing harbour, that is surrounded by tavernas and next to a sandy bathing beach.

Old fishing harbour, Myrina

We walked from the harbour into a narrow pedestrian street, covered above by a pergola with climbing plants providing shade. Absolutely delightful. From there, the alley opens out into a square, and then narrows again as you walk north to another large bay. This has a more modern feel, with trendy bars and good tavernas. We fell in love with Myrina straight away, and decided to delay the car-hire for a day so that we could enjoy a lazy day in town.

We waited for the sun to drop and its heat to abate, before going for a swim. There were still quite a few people on the beach.  A couple came ashore in a dinghy from their anchored yacht. We got chatting to them - Cornelia and Martin from Switzerland. They were off for an early dinner. The waterfront was buzzing and it felt like a relaxed, holiday location. Back on board, we showered and the went out for a longer walk in search of a bakery for the next day. We found the main vehicle drag with at least five bakeries, and Skipper promptly named it Baker St. Cue the saxophone…

The next day passed by in a really pleasant blur of shopping, arranging car-hire, buying a (very expensive) battery drill, and playing cards over aperos. We bumped into Cornelia and Martin on the beach again, as they came ashore to do some shopping. We got chatting about the islands and they offered to drop by Missy Bear with some information. This turned into a very pleasant evening drinks, followed by a light dinner ashore. They had decided to wait an extra day on Lemnos for stronger winds required for their own long sail westwards to the Sporades.

So we invited them to join us for our land tour of the island. Our first stop was a bronze age settlement, followed by the salt flats of Aliki lake [Ed – there is never much water in a leaky lake. I’ll get my coat…]. We abandoned the car some way off, and rambled along field paths bordered by wild flowers, and clouds of butterflies. No sign of flamingos though. We also visited some ancient Greek archaeological sites on the north coast, arrived at via some very sketchy dirt-roads.

The theatre of Ifestia

Richard and I spent a further day exploring the island. We visited some weird sandstone formations, and then had a wine tasting hosted by the winery owner, who was granddaughter to a Greek who had been evicted from Turkey in 1922/23 in the population swap. We also visited the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Moudrous, where many French, British and ANZAC dead had been buried after the Gallipoli disaster.

Weathered sandstone sculptures

Garalis Winery

Commonweath War Cemetery, Moudrous Bay

Next day, we intended to sail to a quiet anchorage for the night, ready for a quick getaway for the longer sail to Lesbos. As our target bay was only an hour’s sail away, we had a leisurely morning, and set off around lunchtime. The wind was heading us, so we sailed off on starboard tack, so that we could tack back to the bay later on.

At that point, Skipper pointed out we were on a good course to make the small island of Efstratios some 20 NM away. (The base manager at Porto Carras had recommended that we visit, telling us it was delightful.) It also had the advantage of providing a better wind angle for the following day’s sail. The almanac, said there was space for three or four boats on alongside the quay, plus a shallow anchorage in the outer bay, so off we set.

When we arrived, there was a small yacht alongside the quay in the entrance, with lots of space beyond it, further into the harbour. Slowly, Skipper started reversing into the narrow entrance, past the yacht, with our depth gauge showing shallower depths all the time. Skipper crept backwards, but called to me that the gauge was reading 0.00m just as we felt Missy Bear touch the soft sand or mud bottom. Nope, we weren’t going to go any further, and so we motored forwards and out.

We tied up to the outside of the wall instead where the water was much deeper, but Skipper didn’t fancy the risk of a sloppy sea, bouncing us against the wall that night. The yacht owner appeared and told us there was plenty of room to get past him. We told him there clearly wasn’t. But he said he wasn’t going to move as he had ‘engine trouble’. We could have pulled his yacht along for him, so that we could have got on the end in front of him, but he then pulled on a pair of goggles, and jumped off his yacht to swim to the shore! Okay, thanks!

We moved out to look at the two anchoring possibilities. One was inside the inner harbour, but it was tight and shallow. The other was outside the inner harbour wall, but still in the confines of the bay. We knew that there was a car ferry due in, but it was small one, and we should be well clear of its turning circle (our Navily App advised to leave turning room for the ferry.) So, we anchored in about 4.5m of water, and not long after the little ferry arrived. Missy Bear was well clear.

Idly, I started googling ferry times to see when it would leave. And that’s when I discovered that a huge Blue Star car ferry was due in at 23:00.

We moved into action. Skipper rang the port police on the shore to ask if he thought we had left enough room for the ferry. I think we woke him up from his afternoon nap, but he said he’d look and come back to us, which he never did. We found the name of the ferry and found out that its draught is more than the depth of water we were anchored in, so it would have run aground before it hit us. Skipper also found last two days’ track of the ship on Marine Traffic. We were clear of its manoeuvring area.

Nevertheless, we decided to stay up until the ferry had been and gone, just in case. We made sure our anchor light was definitely on. We ate supper, and watched a Grand Tour (Amazon’s Top Gear), and also watched the car ferry on Marine Traffic. Eventually, it arrived. It swung tightly around into the harbour, and gave a blast on its horn. We held our breath, waiting for four more blasts. One blast means “engines to starboard”. Five blasts mean, “what the heck are you doing”!

The single blast finished, followed by silence. We were clear, as the ferry stopped and then reversed back to the pier. To be on the safe side, we waited until it had left 10 minutes later.

Our alarm was for 05:30, and we raised our anchor and set off for Lesbos. It was a great sail, we used the Code 0, spotted dophins, and then used our normal white sails as the wind increased. In the port of Sigri, we were welcomed by our Dutch friends Matty and Ron on yacht ‘Coco’ who helped take our lines, before sharing a docker and catching up on liveaboard news.