2 Weeks in Paros

After our adventure leaving Naxos harbour, we looked forward to spending relaxing unstressful time at our new anchorage in Paros. Paros is just beside Naxos, but it was still quite bumpy (2m waves) coming over, and we were happy to be at anchor and resting.

We inadvertently anchored outside a ‘natural’ beach. We took a dingy tour around the harbour and noticed some people looking at us who didn’t seem to be wearing swimsuits. I think one woman turned around and bent over to moon me! We also had 2 different mega-motor yachts (maybe 60m long) anchor nearby. They were both Malta flagged. I’m sure the first boat was parked here waiting to be chartered. After it swapped places with its twin, we had the uniquely odd experience of hearing a karaoke party, singing in the worst possible voices hits of the 80’s. I cannot sing. I have sung karaoke and it is BAD. I was a peer to these people. Somehow their voices carried perfectly to our boat. I found it entertaining, maybe because of the wine I was drinking. They stopped before it was too late, but I felt sorry for a catamaran that was anchored beside them.

The sunsets here are great. There are low hills to our west and we usually get amazing shades of red and orange as the sun goes down. My phone camera does not capture all of the subtle colours but I still have taken a dozen shots here. We have great holding for our anchor on a nice sandy bottom, but the water is a bit cloudy probably from the slightly silty bottom. However the fish love it. This place is a fish nursery and I think I have seen more tiny, tiny baby fish around the boat than I have ever seen.

It has been good that our anchor is firmly set because it has been super windy here. Regularly 30+ knots (55 km/h) or more and sometimes over 40 knots. This is the greek Meltemi, and just to the east of us is a really, really strong wind-corridor. The only boats sailing across this super windy area are commercial vessels……recreational boats like us are staying away. Tomorrow we will have been here for 2 weeks, which is the longest we have ever anchored anywhere! We have taken our tender into town a few times. It is about a 2km trip across 2 bays. It is the longest we have gone with our dingy….but we only really started using it this season.

The closest town Naousa and the main port of Paros are both quite similar: they are very trendy upscale and expensive shopping places. Very busy and full of young people. We were told that Paros is the up and coming Mikonos which is famous for being super-exclusive. Elon Musk is there right now. I have heard there is a greek island for everyone, and this greek island is not for me: too many people and too much shopping.

After we were here a few days we had boat friends from Ragusa join us in the bay. Lucile and Laurent with their son Nino. It was great to catch up with them and we have spent a lot of time together going into town and sharing dinners.

As a bonus our larger fridge/freezer stopped working. I wish I had video tape of Victoria’s reaction when I told her the fridge was broken. You would have thought the boat was either on fire, or sinking, or we were being boarded by pirates. Anyway we got over that and saved all of the food although my own personal crises was that we no longer had cold beer. Laurent came over to help me look at the problem. The fridge is under a bench for sitting at the table, and is accessed by removing cushions and a wooden cover. Removing all of this makes a huge mess which Victoria also “loves”. There is reasonably good access except on one side. Amazingly the unit has diagnostic lights on the control unit: I was seeing 2 flashing red lights, which meant that the fan was drawing too much power. I turned off the power, cleaned the fan, and suddenly the fan was turning! I was happy! Except then I was getting 1 flashing light, which meant the compressor was drawing too much current. The documentation, which again is amazingly good, said that this light is never wrong. I managed to get off the control unit (which was only one screw) and I could see inside the unit and it was quite brown…..it looked cooked. I suspected the control unit itself might be bad. I ordered a new fan and control unit from Athens (Veco/Frigoboat has excellent parts service), they arrived 3 days later and after replacing the control unit the fridge now works again. Turned out to be a simple problem but I’m quite happy I fixed it.

One of our dingy trips to town was memorable. We went with Lucille and Laurent and Nino in 2 separate dingys to Naousa. There is a small dock where we left the tenders. We did our tourist stuff in town (the girls shopping, Laurent and I silently suffering, although Laurent being French suffers more elegantly) and by the time we decided to go back home the wind had really picked up. The trip back was about 20 minutes long and we had white-tipped waves, and at one point really large swells to motor through. I was very glad I had a 20hp motor, but we were getting so much spray in the boat not only were both Victoria and I soaked to the skin (it was warm enough out we weren’t cold) but we were collecting water in the boat! The boat was smashing through waves and I was turning into the swells. It was an adventure getting back. Victoria later said she was proud she hadn’t screamed once. After we got home we had a few inches of water in the boat. This is the reason you keep something to bail water in the dingy.

On Friday we hope to go to Ikaria island which is on the other side of the Agean. Assuming the wind dies down as expected. You never know. Stay tuned for what Neptune has in store for us.