We spent 4 days at Katakolo. Katakolo used to be a destination for cruise ships before Covid. It is a 30 minute drive to Ancient Olympia where the original Olympic games were held by the Greeks. It is a very large ancient site and I would say only second to the Acropolis in Athens for being impressive. (Picture above is the original starting line!)
The port itself is med-mooring with your own anchor (no rat lines) and there is a port manager Alexandros who is very helpful with anything you want. Very entrepreneurial. They charge 8 euros per day and 4 euros each for water and power for unlimited usage. We stopped here originally to see Ancient Olympia and stock up. The local tavernas were good.
The leaving morning wind forecast was for 5 to 10 knots of wind in the right direction but I was expecting to motor most of the way. We were heading to Proti, a tiny island across from Marathopolis, which has a monastery with only one monk (I saw the monk!). Again the weather forecast was happily wrong and we had 15 to 20 knots of wind for almost the entire day so we put out the great Amel pole and went downwind very happily for most of the way. (I still need to learn how to use the Amel Ballooner….it goes up with a special device and comes down with another special device and if I mess it up it will be a problem!)
When we got to Proti there was 1 other boat in the harbour Med moored with lines to the rocks on the shore. The bay was very deep. The other boat looked very close to shore to me, but thanks to Navily we knew they were very experienced sailing couple and had been doing this for 17 years…..but I am too nervous about the rocks to get so close. The wind forecast was 5 knots changing from north-east to north-west. Easy peasy. We would be anchored facing roughly east-west and I wasn’t worried about 5 knots. We dropped anchor in 15m of water about 80m or so from shore, I put out 65m of chain and we ended up about 30m or so from shore. I had just purchased 2 sets of 50m 1cm line for just this purpose. It was cheap, they sold it by the kilo, but I expected it would be fine for running lines to shore.
Victoria takes the lines to shore on our kayak and I tie up the boat and we are good. We have dinner then bedtime.
At 4am I’m woken up by a loud wind noise. The first thing I think is: we are not supposed to have this much wind. I go up on deck and the wind is howling. I turn on the instruments and it is 15 gusting 20 knots, coming directly from the north and so pushing our boat sideways. I can see the anchor is holding but has moved a bit, and the windward line to shore is very, very tight. The boat weights 13,000 kg or so and the line is rated for 800kg of force (I think) and I’m half expecting the line to break. If the line breaks we would swing around and unless the anchor let go at the same time we would not be on the rocks, so I decide to sit on deck and watch. If the line breaks I have a plan. If the anchor seems to move I have a plan, so I just have to sit and watch. Meanwhile I see the experienced couple anchored north of us start to leave. Maybe they were too close to shore!
I have been woken up in the middle of the night a handful of times while on Spruzzo. When we were at Marina di Ragusa we had a few nights of 60+ knot winds. Ever time when I’ve gone outside and dealt with whatever needed to be done I always look around and see how beautiful it is. (Once it was raining and it sucked, but all the other times have been wonderful ;-).
Sitting on deck at Proti I see a perfectly clear sky. I look at Saturn through my binoculars and I can see a shape and colour but the boat is moving too much to see it clearly. The city lights across on the mainland are crystal clear. I sat on deck, snoozed a bit, and saw the sunrise. One of the best things about being on a boat is you almost always get to see the sunset and today I also enjoyed the sunrise. After 6am the winds died down and we decided to move…..while we were removing the shore lines the wind came back to 15 knots so it was a good idea we moved.
Lesson here is the wind forecasts are suspect and I’m still a bit concerned about the goat.
Adventures on Spruzzo 