I was surprised we had not left the marina yet, but May was unusually cold and wet for Crete, and we didn’t want to leave with crummy weather. We had a terrible rainy Friday, but then the rest of the week looked good, and most importantly we had east-west winds so we could sail north.
The one disadvantage of Crete for wintering is that it is far away from the rest of the other islands. If you are going north, most people will head to Astypalia, which is north-east of Agios Nicholaos. Because it is a 15+hour trip people generally will take a short hop to a nice bay about an hour north of our marina (Elounda) and then wake up very early (3am or 4am) and start the long trip and arrive in the early evening.
When Victoria and I left the marina, we were both extremely happy to be finally on our way. The weather was perfect, the winds were perfect (just under 20 knots) and Victoria said….”Let’s just keep going all the way to Astypalae!” This is a big deal because Victoria has not wanted to sail at night before…..so I said “of course!” We had just left around 1pm and had the 88nm (163km) journey ahead of usin our magic floating home that moves between 5nm and 7.5nm/hour depending on the wind. Plus Victoria knew that we had a full moon so it would never be completely dark. And she offered to take the watch until 3am! This was going to be an easy trip for me. (Turned out to be too cold so the night watch offer was rescinded 😉
I had sailed at night and was looking forward to some star gazing.
Since we decided to do the big sail at the last minute, we had not fully prepared the boat for sailing in typical Mediterranean conditions (some heeling and decent waves)….i.e. we hadn’t secured a few things. Inevitably as soon as we hit some waves and strong winds we had a few big ‘crash’ sounds from inside when books went flying. Duh.
We had 18-25 knots of wind for most of the night, and I reefed the mizzen and main to keep the boat flatter and Victoria more comfortable. The radar is amazing. It can see 10+ miles all around. All the big boats have AIS and they also show up on my radar, along with lots of info like their Name/heading/speed/closest-approach-point and time and MMSI if you want to call them up and ask them not to run over you. The chartplotter (navigation map) also makes the little boat symbol flashing red to let you know it has calculated a possible problem.
Before nighttime we were on a ‘very close’ approach course with an Italian fishing-boat. He is under power and technically should be the one moving (sail boat has priority)…..but he is also working and I don’t want to be a jerk…..so at one point I turned on the engine early to add speed and let him know I was going to pass well in front of him. It is safer to go ‘behind’ a boat but with a fishing boat you don’t know what they have behind them.
Around midnight I was on a ‘close to collision ‘approach with a large boat that looked like a ferry….it was *really* lit up….but it was weird because it was only moving 15 kts.
Usually the ferries are going at 25+ knots…..they are just zooming along in comparison to us…..which also makes collision avoidance a bit trickier. I didn’t have internet at the time or I would have looked up the boat name. Anyway he saw me and changed to a more or less parallel course so we were not going to collide.
I was on watch from 11pm to 4am and the oddly lit boat was the only real thing I had to keep an eye on. I saw the sunset, which is always beautiful on the water, then the moonrise, then the moonset and then the sunrise all in one night! It was pretty cold though so we had the Bimini all buttoned down and I was wearing long-pants(!) and a jacket. I didn’t go out to look at the stars for long.
Before sun-down our trusted AutoPilot #1 decided to go crazy. Victoria called me and told me we were off-course and I came up and the AP had taken itself off-line. It didn’t know where it was anymore. I re-set it a few times but it was not happy. Fortunately these great boats have a second Auto-Pilot so I switched to that one and everything was good again. I suspect I know what happened to AP#1….I keep tools near it’s magnetic compass and I think one of my metal tools shifted too closely to the compass and was making it confused…..will verify that soon.
The other excitement was when we finally came in to anchor. We have been in this bay probably 5 or 6 times before so we know it well.
We were just dropping the anchor and I was starting to back-up when suddenly there was a very loud alarm in the cockpit. It was the sea-water-intake alarm, which brings in water for the toilets and for cooling the engine. I looked at the engine temperature gauge and it was normal, so I decided to ignore the alarm for a few seconds while we set the anchor. I then turned off the engine, all the while the alarm is screaming like a Banshee, got a tool to help open the clogged sea-water filter (I was expecting a plastic bag or similar caught in the filter) but when I opened the hatch to the engine room I saw about 6″ of water covering the floor! Yikes! I forgot the ‘water in the engine room’ alarm is also connected to the clogged sea-water filter alarm. I heard both the bilge pump working and suspiciously the fresh water pump….the fresh water pump had no reason to be running. I must have a fresh water leak somewhere…..so I popped into the cabin to turn off the fresh water pump breaker and then watched the bilge pump remove the water from the engine room. It wasn’t high enough to cause any problems (although there are a few pumps mounted close to the floor) but still it is stimulating to see water in your engine room. Also fresh water is very gentle compared to sea-water. Sea-water is a mild acid. I probably lost a few hundred litres of fresh water which is annoying since I’m now going to have to run the water maker to get it back. But the other issue was I had been up for 24+ hours and would love nothing more than to go to bed…..but now I had to fix a plumbing problem.
Anyway I found the bad hose and fixed it (bad clamp that I replaced….I’m leaving out some details) and now all is good again…..but this is one of the things about cruising: we move from paradise to paradise but sometimes you have to do stuff even when you are very tired…..you are responsible! My scotch and cashews while watching the sunset was my consolation prize that night.
I have now gone diving to check the anchor and had a deck shower and am very happy to be back sailing with Victoria in the Greek islands. It may not be Eden but it is close.
Adventures on Spruzzo 