Greece 1978

Tue Apr 25th

Fly to Athens, then ferry to Poros.

Met John and Caro at Victoria station, took the train to Gatwick, and then flew to Athens.

Took the ferry from Pireaus, via Aegina to the island of Poros, to pickup our Michel Dufour 9 meter yacht for a two week charter.

Wed Apr 26th

Caro’s birthday, sail to Merihas on the island of Kithnos

After years of political turbulence, the owner of the yacht charter company was getting some pressure from the Greek authorities about profit levels, harbour fees, etc., and asked me as senior skipper (not sure why me) to talk to the police and play down the cost of chartering. I spent a morning being interrogated and shown no hospitality by a very humourless senior police officer. He would ask me questions, make notes, leave the room perhaps for half an hour, and come back and ask the same questions rephrased. He would often come in with a cup of coffee for himself. They eventually let me go around lunch time, but we’d missed half a days sailing.

Not a great start to Caroline’s birthday either… especially as I think John forgot to get her a card or a present! Anyway, the owner thanked me for helping out, and he, John and I discussed our curtailed day’s sailing. We’d hoped to get to Merihas on Kithnos, but having just lost half a day, he suggested that we head for the Bay of Sounion, where he’d heard they now had a marina. So off we set, arriving at Sounion in the late afternoon, and found only a tiny hamlet, and no marina or harbour.

We anchored in the bay and rowed to a jetty (where we all got wet getting out of the dinghy), and had a fairly basic meal. Then it was back to the boat for an unpleasant night riding the swell that rolled into the open bay, and worrying about things like dragging anchors.

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Thu Apr 27th

Sail from Bay of Sounion to Sifnos

After very little sleep, we all got up at first light. We set sail straight away and had coffee and breakfast on the way. It was still misty this early in the morning, and it was difficult identifying the islands we passed, when all you could see were indistinct shapes.

Anyway, eventually the sun came out, and we stopped for lunch and relaxation/exploring/swimming at Ganema beach on the island of Serifos. After lunch, we continued our journey and stopped for the night at the tiny hamlet of Vathi on Sifnos. Had a meal of eggs and runner beans in the only restaurant on this side of the island, which was also someone’s front room, and had the only telephone in the village!

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Fri Apr 28th

Sail from Sifnos to Paros

Uneventful sailing to the island of Paros, and the town of Parikia. Plenty of harbourside bars and restaurants to choose from. Bought myself a skipper’s cap in one of the tourist shops.

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Sat Apr 29th

Sail from Paros to Ios.

Headed down the shallow channel between Paros and Anti-Paros, with John standing in the pulpit picking out the deeper parts of the channel, and me steering and keeping an eye on the depth gauge. Sailed to the pretty island of Ios. Had a meal by the harbour.

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Sun Apr 30th

On Ios, visited Chora. Then sailed to Santorini.

Took the very scenic path up to the town of Chora. The island was a famous stopover for backpackers island-hopping, and we were approached by a woman who thought we might be looking for an apartment.

We had beers in Chora, took pics and watched the locals playing a version of Boules in front of the windmills.

After lunch, we sailed south towards the Santorini group of islands. Had a close encounter with a pod of dolphins.

Tied alongside a ferry boat on the small quay, on the volcanic island of Nea Kameni. Played cards and ate on board.

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Mon May 1st

Sailed to Thera on Santorini.

Sailed from Nea Kameni to Thera, moored stern-to. Took the mule rides to Thera town at the top. Took the cliff edge path towards Imerovigli and Skaros Rock. Then back into town for beers, and chilling.

Back to the boat and then kebabs at a harbourside restaurant, before heading back to Nea Kameni.

Tue May 2nd

Santorini and Akrotiri.

We motored to Thera, and the quayside was busy so we moored stern-to again. We tied the bow line to a massive (15 ft in diameter) buoy some 150 feet away and reversed back to the quay, but the sea wall was higher here, and there was a fair swell and a stiff breeze, so I put some hose on the stern-line to prevent chafing. We then took the mules up to the top, and went looking for the bus to take us to the Minoan excavations at Akrotiri. The bus was very late. Got to Akrotiri and a good look around, until John got a migraine so we found somewhere to sit and chill, before getting the bus back.

Back in Thera town, we had a late lunch, then did some grocery shopping and then headed back towards the path down to the harbour. But when we looked down to where out boat should be, we realised with horror that it wasn’t there! The stern line was gone, so the boat was just tied to the buoy, and floating free. John and I sprinted down the zigzag path to the harbour (leaving Lin and Caroline to make their own way down, with all the groceries!), got to the water front and found some fishermen, and gesturing like idiots and thrusting money at them, we managed to persuade one of them to take us to our boat.

We hauled ourselves up the side of the boat (no mean feat in a pitching sea) and started the engine. We should have just cut the line to the buoy, but that might have lost us our £100 deposit, so as I was a non-swimmer, I would take the controls and motor up to the buoy and John would retrieve the line. The relative motion of the buoy and the boat made this a nightmare. On our third attempt to approach the buoy, I was just thinking ‘sod the money, let’s cut the line’ when John just launched himself. He scrambled up the slick, pitching buoy, untied the rope and was back on board in less than a minute.

We set off back to the quayside to pick up Lin and Caro. We motored towards them and got close enough to explain the plan. The sea was too heavy for us to stop at the quayside – the fenders wouldn’t be enough to keep us off the sea wall. So we shouted that we’d circle back for them and they’d have to jump on while we’re still moving.

They didn’t seem too convinced, but in the event, some friendly fishermen helped by bodily throwing the girls onto the boat! So crisis over, and licking our wounds (metaphorical and actual), we motored towards our anchorage on Nea Kameni.

Did I say crisis over? It turned out to be premature… in the pitching sea and high winds, the inflatable dinghy turned upside down, and when we righted it, the two oars and the seat had gone. Faced (again) with losing our security deposit, we started searching for them. It looked to be an impossible task, but we persevered, and we suddenly spotted them. We motored up to them, but could not quite reach from the deck of the boat, so John thinking laterally, jumped into the dinghy and made a grab for them. Unfortunately, as he did, the wind got under the dinghy and threw him into the (sulphorous) sea… also laterally(!)

I didn’t want to disembowel him, so I turned off the engine, and we were able to recover the seat, two oars and a soaking John. We continued to Nea Kameni, but when we got to our usual spot, there were four fishing boats already there, taking shelter from the rough sea. They were all tied side by side, so we just added ourselves to the end of the line.

Wed May 3rd

Stayed on Nea Kameni.

We woke up astonished to find that we were alone. All the other boats had extricated themselves from the line, and passed us down until ours was the only boat left… all done without waking us! We spent several hours exploring the island that is essentially nothing but a volcanic cinder cone, and an active one at that – it last erupted in 1950. The island was almost solid basalt, and evidence of it’s activity were in the yellow streaks here and there in the sea around it, as well as the ever-present smell of sulphur.

There were sulphur deposits, fumeroles and steam vents everywhere too, especially around the central crater. At one point while we were exploring, John called “come and have a look at this”; he was standing near a deep fissure that he’d just returned from. The two of us went down and we entered a 70 foot high basalt cavern with cracks in the major supporting columns. All it needed was the River Styx to confirm the Hadean allusion. I confess to being quite glad to get out of there.

We had lunch and dinner on the boat, and played cards in the evening, knowing that there was no-one else on the island, or at least no other boats. So about 10pm, we were disconcerted to hear the unambiguous sound of someone peeing into the water. We locked the hatch that night!

Thu May 4th

Sailed from Nea Kameni to Sifnos

Set off on the return journey. Got as far as Faros bay on Sifnos. There was no harbour or marina there, so the plan was to anchor, and row to the town. However, the sea was thick with jellyfish, and an accident on the row to shore might be fatal, so we stayed and ate on board the boat. Just a word about the toilet on the boat, it was below sea level, and there was a leaky valve, which meant if you sat there too long, the water level in the bowl would rise and give you a surprise. In this bay solid with jelly fish, flushing the toilet sucked in small jellyfish, so bearing in mind the leaky valve, I guarantee that no-one spent more time sat there than they had to!

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Fri May 5th

Sailed from Sifnos to Kithnos.

Sailed and motored to Merihas on Kithnos. We ended up with a stiff breeze right in our face, and as we’d been sailing all day and were now running out of daylight, we eventually dropped the sails and motored. The engine had shown a reluctance to tickover, and was sometimes difficult to restart. John and I got quite used to hand-cranking it down in the saloon. As we motored into the harbour at Merihas, we went through the usual routine of John fending, the girls ready with the fenders (bollards!), and me steering and controlling our speed by cruising into our berth, and slowing down with a little touch of reverse.

On this occasion, as I moved the throttle lever from forward through neutral into reverse, the engine chose to die in neutral. We were headed towards another boat at around 2 knots and no engine, so John put his leg through the rails to fend against the other boat, and somehow killed our speed in the space of a couple of feet. He complained that one leg was now shorter than the other.

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Sat May 6th

Sailed from Kithnos back to Poros.

A straight line sail back to Poros; there were stiff breezes so we had some spirited sailing!

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Sun May 7th

Coach to Athens, via the Corinth Canal, then fly back to Gatwick

Interesting coach trip over the Peloponnese Mountains. Stopped at the Corinth Canal for refreshments, and watched a cruise ship navigating the canal. Apparently what happens is the cruise company pays €3500 for a ship to make the transit through the canal. For that, they get an official tug boat which does the pulling, and they also put a pilot at the wheel of the cruise ship.

Well on this day it must have been a bit of a nightmare for the two pilots, because as we watched, the cruise ship got out of line, the tug boat over-compensated, with the result that the ship was ricocheting from wall to wall, damaging both the wall and the ship. As well as my camera, I had my binoculars and I could see lumps of wall the size of tea-chests falling into the canal. I imagine the ship would need some attention too.

Drove through a very polluted Athens, with some very impoverished looking suburbs, but at least we got a glimpse of the Acropolis through the coach window.

Late flight to Gatwick.

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