Greek island of Kea

Kea
[Kyle]The diurnally backwards Meltemi made for another restless night aboard, I kept waking up in the high gusts worrying that we hadn’t applied enough backwards force to set the anchor under sail (never a problem under engine). After a second night of fitfulness we all deserved the extra sleep and we all popped our heads out of our respective cabins quite a bit after sunrise. After a quick breakfast I rowed ashore with Kate and Mark while Maryanne swam alongside us. Our dinghy is perfect for two, and designed for 3 adults max, 4 would be too much and the ideal swim conditions made it not an issue for Maryanne to follow along (rather than me make two trips).

Our plan for the brief time we had ashore was to locate a tavern that is reputed to make an excellent ouzo on site, and to buy some fresh provisions at a local store. We achieved neither! Instead we were distracted by the islands many windmills. These seem to be no longer working windmills like the wind farms that power many of the islands, but older, traditional style, classic round buildings with spoked sails, almost all of which had been converted to houses or cottages. We walked in the direction of the one visible from the anchorage, knowing from our arrival the previous night that there were several more behind. At the first we crested a hill to a view of an absolutely perfect little bay below dotted with white houses, most with the traditional Mediterranean blue shutters. Down by the water our favourite was a converted windmill below which was a clear blue pool and below that the even more tantalizing water of the bay. Along the way we continued to peer into peoples yards and homes just imagining what wonderful sites they were to live in.


More Kea
We spotted a sign, indicating a tavern just 100m ahead, enticing us to march on in the day’s heat. What I’m sure was 100m (or more) further there was still no evidence of a taverna but how could we know for sure we’d actually gone 100m? So we continued on. We rounded a bend and found another sign (this time with no distance indicated); figuring we must almost be there we trudged further. It was fine, this gave us an excuse to descend into the pretty little bay village where we happily occupied ourselves pointing out and taking pictures of scene after scene just to pretty to be believable. At the far end of the village, on the point, at what must have been 1000m from the original sign, we eventually found our taverna. Then we figured it out; 100m was just enough to get you committed and by the time you’d walked another 100m or 2, there was no way we were turning back.

It turned out to be an excellent location, with views of the whole picture-postcard village on one side and the open Aegean on the other. The food and drink were a bit pricey (just a bit. Not too bad), but by then, we were all tired, thirsty and hungry, so they were going to get what they asked.

But with departure time imminent we really needed to get back to Footprint so we started to make our way back in that general direction. Of course this took us on a detour down to the bay, under the windmill house, where it was very refreshing to cool off by wading in the water and in such a beautiful place. Kate decided it was too good to pass up and went for the full swim; after all how often do you get such an idyllic opportunity?



Still more Kea - kate finds the perfect pool
We arrived back at Footprint a little later than planned (and with out fresh groceries or Ouzo); everyone was great in pitching in so we could depart in time to arrive at our next anchorage by dusk.

Once again we pulled up the anchor without needing to fire up the engine, we had a beautiful fast sail down the west coast of Kea before turning cross-wind to transit the gap towards the island of Kythnos.

The sailing stated out fine (no worse than the usual rough) but as we approached Ak Kefalos at the North end of Kythnos a strong counter current required us to point further and further into both wind and seas making the ride slower and much more miserable than we would like (for ourselves and our guests!). As we neared the island it became clear the current would not allow us to clear the point on our current tack, we did an experimental tack to see if we had any chance of overcoming the current and found that we were only able to make 20° to our reciprocal course. This would have made for a very long miserable night and require sailing miles and miles in the water to clear the island. Since we were all pretty much fed up with the weather anyway, and darkness was approaching, it was time to start the motor to push us around the point.

By the time we got to the east side of Kythnos it was late enough that we kept both engine and sail for a really fast downwind segment along the coastline to our planned anchorage, and found ourselves still in increasingly windy conditions.

We finally exited the big swell into the protection of Ormos Ioannou and found ourselves the only boat anchored in a deserted cove at the head of the bay. There were no seas of any kind within the bay, but the wind was howling down the valley leading to it ensuring that the wind generator would keep the batteries topped up all night. There were a couple of farm houses ashore in which we couldn’t see any activity; apart from us the place seemed deserted. Once night fell we could see a couple of candles lighting one of the farmhouses ashore; it was the only artificial light we could see (apart from our anchor light). After dinner we all went forward and lay on the deck to enjoy the full expanse of the moonless night sky and a particularly vivid swath of the Milky Way. Sights that most people in cities are not fortunate to see very often. We retired contented with being in such a remote and special place and with good friends.

Off to the Greek Cyclades Islands at last

Leaving the Greek mainland
[Kyle]We had originally planned an early start to arrive at a new island location by noon each day giving time to explore each new neighborhood in the afternoons and evenings. We were aware of occasional nasty winds in the region, the Meltemi winds. Very strong they can die out after a day or blow hard for a week. The latest forecast for the next week showed not only a persistent Meltemi but also indicated a reversal of the normal diurnal pattern. Typically the Meltemi (when it blows) is lighter in the morning and stronger in the afternoon, but our forecasts indicated that the strong winds that buffeted the boat the night before and gave us all a disturbed night would not die off until after noon; because of that we decided to depart later in the day allowing us this morning to explore the current anchorage.

The wind was still strong when we woke. We had breakfast and Kate and Mark swam ashore to explore while Maryanne and I prepared Footprint for departure. If the wind had started to die down in the afternoon, it was not enough to be noticeable; we left anyway expecting (hoping) for the forecast reduction.

The sailing was nice in the lee in the last of the Attic peninsular where were conservatively sailing with only a double-reefed main. The water was flat as we deliberately hugged the coast passing several very nice looking homes and a couple of small villages before leaving the mainland at the Temple to Poseidon at Ak Sounion. Once into the open Agean Sea the gusty wind coming off the land stabilized and although it was still blowing hard we unrolled the Jib to its double reefed position and had a fast sail across the gap to the island of Kea.

In spite of the strong conditions the ride was much more comfortable than the previous day; rather than short chop that had us rolling wildly with hulls mismatched on trough and crest. These waves, which had been rolling and building unimpeded since the Island of Evvoia 20nm to the North, were larger and spaced more kindly for Footprint, giving us a slower, gentler, rolling motion.

At Kea we pulled into the anchorage at the back of Ormos Kavia which was completely protected from the swell, although still very windy. The anchorage was quite full apart from Footprint’s favorite spot close to the beach, in the zone too shallow for most boats. The thing is we had managed the whole day so far without using the engine and I was determined to keep it that way, so we anchored on the outside of the boats in deeper water with plenty of scope. It was pretty cool. We managed to tack our way to our chosen spot, lower the anchor and back down all under sail. Total engine time for the day 0.0hours. This location also had the benefit of offering clear departure under sail the following day. The downside of course was that we were furthest from the beach, and building Meltemi winds and a long row made us dismiss our plans for dinner ashore.

Arriving in time for sunset on the island of Kea

Goodbye Athens (hello misery)

[Kyle]In order to take Kate and Mark with us aboard Footprint, we needed to add their names as passengers to our crew list. Since we’re allowed to check out of a port 24 hours in advance, we thought we’d pop into the Port Police office and sort it all out the night before, so that we could leave early. When we arrived, the young lady there, who was standing in front of the open doors of the darkened office, said we would have to do it the next day. Maryanne asked when they were open. “Twenty-four hours. Not now.” Um, uh…nevermind. We tried again later that night after showers. There were more of them, but we got the same answer. Why do something now that could be put off for the day shift?

When we checked out the next morning, the guy started suspiciously asking about our boat and hinting that they were thinking of closing the port due to the weather. They are technically allowed to do this, our guidebook suggests they often threaten this but rarely do it. We found it a bit surprising as the forecast was not that bad and we had seen several small fishing boats headed out. After many assurances that Footprint could handle most weather, he let me leave after signing a statement that I understood the forecast, which he translated for me from Greek, and was departing at my own risk (we were also told this could well happen in our trusty cruising guide).

Well, we had a great fast sail southeastwards along the Attic coast, at least for a while. Then the wind rose up to double the forecast (even the Greek forecast) and stayed there. It then became pretty horrible. By the time we reached our intended anchorage at Ák Sounion, we all just wanted it to be over.

Except that it wasn’t. Our anchorage was full. It took us another two hours of poking our way along the coast before we found a spot that was secure, although it was still blowing like crazy. Shell-shocked, we all tried to make the best of the remainder of the evening. We were pretty tired from the beating we took, so we all went to bed earlier than usual, where we slept fitfully. In the morning, over breakfast, we all confessed to having spent our respective night dreaming about storms, grounding and anchor dragging.

[Maryanne]As Kyle explained, it was a miserable sailing day especially considering it was the first day of the Greek sailing experience for Kate and Mark and all we showed them was misery (oops!). Kyle had checked the weather forecast both in his preferred way (grib files with raw forecast data) and by checking the local official marine forecasts; neither gave him cause for concern. Our guidebooks were clear that local officials didn't like to take much responsibility for the many inexperienced charter sailors, and regularly threatened closed ports and bad weather unnecessarily, this knowledge added to our confidence in ignoring their concerns. Finally the winds were much stronger than even forecast. Should we have taken the Piraeus Port Police warnings more seriously? Who knows - we keep moving west and hope for better days ahead. The sun keeps shining and the forecasts look reasonable. ;-)

Athens

First sights of Athens - the Evzoni Guard (Greece's elite infantry unit) with their fancy and historically significant uniform
[Kyle]We rode the convenient bus to the airport to meet Kate and Mark from their arriving flight and then took the very clean subway into the town center where we just made it to see the once weekly extra-impressive changing of the guard at Syntagma square. Luckily the the square coincided with the most convenient metro stop for our hotel and soon afterwards we were checked into our respective (sister) hotels. Neither of the rooms was ready, so we left our luggage and headed to the Acropolis museum, and then up to the Acropolis itself.



We made it to the (windy) Acropolis, to ponder the stories of it's various buildings
I had seen pictures of the Acropolis, which are usually taken from the site itself with Athens behind. That always gave me the impression the Acropolis was on a mound. It is not. It is at the top of huge, towering cliffs way above the surrounding city. It was a long, hot walk to get up there during the warmest part of the day, but it was well worth the effort. It was surreal. There we were in a new city after yet another climb up a steep hill, like we always seem to do, except this time, we were standing next to the Parthenon. THE Parthenon. Super cool!

Amazingly we still had time to visit the Agora (ancient town center too), more ruins, and a great little museum which included ancient jury duty selection systems and other original machines of democracy.



The Agora is mostly piles of rubble, but the reconstructed Stoa and various guides help the imagine understand the scenes of ancient times
Tired, but happy with the satisfaction of a good day, we wandered around the town, stopping for several dinners at outdoor cafés before heading to our hotels for several showers and a good night’s sleep.

Athens Day 2



Determined to make the most of our last few hours in Athens the morning was a walking tour of the city guided by Maryanne herself, who, to be fair, was cheating by having Rick Steves Guide to Athens playing over her iPhone headsets. It was the best of both worlds: Rick Steves information and Maryanne’s delivery.



So many aspects to enjoy - yes, those are pairs mysteriously left in the park just waiting to be photographed
From there, we took a long walk through a rather rough part of town to the Archeological Museum, where Rick/Maryanne took us through the development of Egyptian, Greek Classical and Roman art.

Bushed and ready for a rest, we all boarded the subway for Piraeus and Footprint to start our island journey.



Lots of new memories

[Maryanne]We witnessed modern day stone masons carving marble to repair ancient monuments, dogs and cats hunting for the shade of the day, more of the Greek guard, and so many little snippets of Athenian life - wonderful!



Athenian Medley

On to Athens

Sunsets and views on route to Athens
[Kyle]We pulled up anchor at Kalamaki during the normal morning calm, and then began to drift in the direction of Athens. During the course of the day, the wind picked up until we were chugging right along.

In order to break up the trip, we anchored in the cove on the southwest corner of Salamina Island, about 2/3rd of the way to Athens. It took us several attempts to get the anchor to set in the thick weed, but once we were secure, we had a pretty uneventful night of watching Greek families cooling themselves off at the beach.

In the morning, I had the satisfaction of sailing off of the anchor. We did this really cool manoeuvre where sailed backwards into deep water, did a turn to straighten ourselves out, and then headed out forwards as if we had backed out of a driveway. {Kyle had a suitably smug smile on his face for at least an hour!}

The subsequent trip into Piraeus (the most convenient port for us to Athens) was windy, fast and increasingly congested with fast ferries and big cargo ships of all kinds.

We pulled into Marina Kea, where a young guy in an aluminum tender directed us to our med mooring. It wasn’t until we got settled in that we realized how desperately we had needed to recharge with the abundant services of a big marina. We spent the next couple of days running around at full speed trying to get everything done before the arrival of our friends, Kate and Mark. It had the feel of a haulout without the actual haulout.

We used their power to charge everything we could think of until it was full, full, full. I cleaned, flushed and refilled our water tanks and then gave Footprint a good scrubbing in and out. I hadn’t realized how filthy she had become until seeing the streams of brown water running off of the much whiter decks underneath. The marina didn’t have laundry, but with our hose hooked up, I was able to do bucket loads of laundry, which dried in the Greek heat faster than it would have in a tumble dryer.


A loaded cart for refilling tanks! Marina Zea - boats of all kind

We rented a car. We did this primarily so that we could drive from one LPG station to another begging the attendant to fill our propane tanks. What an experience that was! Maryanne often blithely tells me she filled the tanks while leaving out the actual agony of the process. Since we have American tanks made out of see-through fiberglass that are bristling with adapters, she often has a hard time getting them filled. A lot of filling station attendants look at our tanks with a great deal of suspicion and send her off a couple of times before reluctantly agreeing to top the tanks up. Having a chance to observe this first hand, to me, the experience seems to resemble buying a car. They start off with “Absolutely No Way!” Then, when we turned to leave with hangdog looks on our faces, an attendant ran up and told us to return the next day. When we explained that we only had the car for one day, we were sent away again. This process repeated itself over and over again until we were finally told to back the car up to the pump. Whew! It still wasn’t over. Every time we had to go through the time consuming process of changing our adapters from one cylinder to the next, the attendant, which had grown to the entire staff, clearly wanted us to call it quits and leave. We then had to go through a slightly abbreviated version of the procedure above for each of our three tanks. When we finally pulled out of the station with all of the tanks full, we could hardly believe our luck. We spent the rest of the day on a high from having successfully accomplished the near impossible.

While we still had a car and while I was scrubbing down Footprint, Maryanne went to a five-story Carrefour supermarket, where she stocked up on everything that’s been hard to find since Preston. She ended up spending four or five hours there and bought three carts of stuff. I went with her on her last trip. The security guards were definitely keeping their eyes on us. Most Greeks go to the store every day or two and buy small amounts. They must have thought our changing cartloads were a ruse so we could case the joint.


We had time to eat and explore too!
In the end, Footprint ended up clean and shiny and sitting low in the water from being fully restocked. We were ready for our friends to arrive.