Cruising progress 2019 (Click to enlarge)
31st May 2019
We flew to Athens on 16th April, spent the night in the same hotel we used on our homeward trip in October, and the following morning caught a ferry down to Aegina. After collecting our ramshackle heap of a hire car (par for the course on the islands!), we drove to the the yard where Mistroma has spent the winter. The island is triangular with each side about 7.5 miles, so luckily we weren't going to be driving very far. We mostly used it for stocking up on all the heavy stuff.
We only had the car for three days and spent one day sightseeing before getting stuck into the usual maintenance. Our trip took us up to the Temple of Aphaia in the north of the island. The views over the surrounding countryside were spectacular.
We then had lunch just across the road from the beautiful Monastery of Saint Nektarios and wandered around it in the afternoon.
The following ten days were very busy as we worked to finish off all the normal maintenance jobs before our launch date of 1st May. All the essential work was completed with the remainder to be finished off over time. Launch day was very windy all morning. We were due to go in first thing but this was postponed until lunch time in the hope the wind would die down a bit. It did die down slightly, but it was still quite nerve-racking. We were lifted into a small slot, open to the sea with a cross wind blowing us towards rocks and had to manoeuvre out pretty quickly. I think our stern cleared the rocks with about a metre to spare and then we were off on our way around to the town quay about 4 miles away.
More excitement ensued as we tried to anchor in the harbour. The holding is very bad this year and we kept dragging. When we raised the anchor after the second attempt failed, we discovered a huge boulder wedged in the claw of the anchor. It took some time to remove it and then it was third time lucky and we were finally reasonably secure against the quay.
Work continued with Mike going up the mast to refit the wind instruments and checking the rigging on his way down. All was fine and we were then able to hoist the sails, get the dinghy inflated and loaded on to the deck, where it's stored when in harbours.
We were forced to leave a few days earlier than planned as the wind got up strongly onshore in the afternoon and we had other boats leaning on us which caused our anchor to drag, so we left in a hurry, motored round the top of the island and anchored in the relative calm for quite a few hours until the wind changed direction. We upped anchor and motored back down to the anchorage just outside the harbour which was relatively sheltered and waited until next morning before going back into the harbour to finish off a few things before leaving after lunch for Poros.
We stayed in several anchorages carrying on with more work and then revisited Nafplio, where we'd gone last year this time taking the hop on/off city bus tour to go up to Palamidi Castle The views from the top are amazing. We climbed the 999 steps in the blazing sun on a visit more than 20 years ago. It was certainly much easier by bus.
