Batsi, Andros was a great anchorage for holding: our anchor was totally buried in sand on the bottom, but we were both getting tired of the high winds. The winds were always higher than the forecast and some local terrain was not blocking but enhancing the wind. Saturday was a day where the winds were mild, and the following days looked windier. Saturday was the day to leave.
The trip was along the shore of Andros (2hrs), then north through a 5 mile wide channel between Andros and Evia (a huge island that is essentially part of the Greek mainland) about 2 hours, then a turn north-west for another 4 or so hours. I was hoping we could sail for a few hours at least as we headed west with winds from the north.
The winds were forecast to be 15 to 16 knots. It was a 48nm trip so we left at 6am to experience the lightest wind, in particular through the channel. We have had bad experience with the tunnel effects of channels really boosting wind speeds and making big waves and we wanted to be through the channel as early as possible.
Everything started fine. We raised anchor and motored NW along the base of Andros. When we turned into the channel the winds picked up as expected….so we had 30 knots of wind on our nose and maybe 2m waves straight ahead. This was more than I expected but not too surprising. I had to increase our engine RPM to make 4+ knots of speed into the wind and waves. The boat was pitching up and down a bit….occasionally hitting a wave with a big SMASH, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
At one point I saw a Tugboat on AIS with the status ‘limited maneuverability’. I also noticed a big white ship nearby that was not on AIS…I immediately thought it might be a warship (they don’t use AIS for obvious reasons but probably are not painted white). Turns out the tugboat was towing the big white ship! It looked like a derelict mega-power yacht…..maybe 80m long. I suspect it was going somewhere to be scrapped. Here is a picture:
I was looking forward to getting to the end of the channel, and out into the open water where I was expecting the wind and waves to be less. As we turned the corner they both got worse.
After the turn, we now had 35-40 knots of wind plus 2m to 3m waves coming at us at about a 20 degree angle. This was not better. We were doing less ‘bow slamming’ into the waves, but we were still pitching up and down and rolling 30 degrees side to side and sometimes more. There was too much wind to sail, but we were heading in the right direction so I kept motoring.
At one point a bigger than normal breaking wave must have hit us on the right side. I didn’t see it (not sure what I was looking at) but suddenly we were pitched to the left and water was everywhere. We had a kayak bungie tied to the side just forward of the cockpit, and it was torn away and ended up at the back of the boat. It was too rough for me to try to secure it, so if it was going to wash away it was going to go (it ended up stuck somehow and we kept it). Of course we had lots of crashing inside the boat at the same time. Stuff flew off shelves that had not moved before….we really got smacked.
I’m not sure this was the worst conditions we have been in…..but it is in the top 3 for sure. We had the most water in the cockpit, and I stopped counting how many times we had water running over the top of the bimini (2m above the deck) and dripping water on me through the zippers.
I imagined making a video of the trip. It would be a YouTube video with the title ‘How to ensure your spouse never lets you buy a sailboat’.
Of course the boat was fine, we just had to hang on. We were on a very high-definition Disney experience called ‘Ride the High Seas’ where you are moved around side to side and up and down and have a bit of water splashed on you….lots of fun for 5 minutes. We had about 4 hours worth. Thank goodness we were not in a smaller or lighter boat…..that would have been ‘turn around and go back’ conditions.
On the plus side we had been growing a bit of seaweed on the sides of the boat….it has all been cleared off. And, when we finally anchored in our nice quite bay I went to check on the anchor and I saw a big sea-turtle sitting on the bottom! Very neat! And I get to find better storage spots for the items that went flying.
We are going to stay here for some time, and leave when we are sure we have calm seas 😉
Adventures on Spruzzo 