Cruising progress 2018 (Click to enlarge)
31st August 2018
Before leaving Korfos we had a few more exciting moments. Very early one morning the wind increased considerably, causing the anchor to drag. When Mike tried to raise it he discovered a German yacht had laid its anchor across our chain and we dragged slowly back towards their boat. I had a lovely conversation with the other boat's crew while Mike was busy trying to get us free, but unfortunately he lost our boathook in the process. It's great having conversations in the dark with strangers! After trying unsuccessfully to re-anchor in the same area, we motored down to the bottom of the bay, where the holding seemed to be much better and the anchor dug in first time. At least by this time it was starting to get light so we could see what we were doing and then returned to bed for a couple of hours.
Our next anchorage was in Poros which is a very popular holiday island, with ferries continually coming and going, creating quite bit of swell as they go past. We were stuck there for about a week due to strong winds and some days were unable to get off the boat, so spent our time carrying out routine maintenance. On one of our sightseeing trips we climbed up to the clock tower, which is situated at the top of a hill and has spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. We also managed to replace our lost boathook.
We've been trying to head northeast, across to the Northern Sporades, but the wind in that area has consistently been 35-40kts, so rather than waiting in Poros hoping the wind would ease, we decided to revisit some places. We had some excellent sails over the next couple of weeks, returning to Porto Heli for a couple of days and then back to Poros.
With the winds in the Sporades still blowing, we decided to sail across to the Cycladic Islands, which is an area we know well from our chartering days. The trip started off quite gently, but then the wind kicked in and we had a very fast and fairly bumpy sail across to Kythnos. This island is quite close to Athens and is a popular weekend destination during the summer. It looks very barren although it does have some lovely beaches.
The wind then died completely for a couple of days so we ended up motoring all the way to Paros and headed for Paroikia, the capital of the island, where we once again met up with our Irish friends, Bernie & Sean on Windhover. It was great to catch up with all their news, as we hadn't seen them since the beginning of July.
We love this typically Greek town, with its little whitewashed houses which have blue doors and shutters. The churches also have the same blue roofs and doors. There are lovely narrow cobbled alleyways, hundreds of little shops and a vast array of restaurants. We spent five days anchored in the bay and really enjoyed wandering around the old town, visiting churches, the archaeological museum and the spectacular 13th century Venetian Castle.
