Votsi, a Marine Park, a Mama-Mia beach and Volos!

We stayed in Votsi, a very small protected harbour, for 8 days which might be a record for us. The main port of Patitiri (in Alonissos) was a short dingy ride away. There were a few windy days but we were super well protected. The water was crystal clear. I bought a new starter battery in town because the generator was getting hard to start (but not the main engine) and ended up getting a young engine guy on the boat for an afternoon in very hot weather (he left a puddle of sweat in the engine room) and he fixed a few bad connections to the battery. The generator seems to start better now so it was a good spend.

We picked up Victoria’s daughter and her guest at Patitiri, stayed at Votsi for a few more days and then headed to the marine park just east of Alonissos. They have monk seals there (a protected species), and you have to buy park tickets for each person and for the boat to enter. We ended up in a nice and quiet bay, but it was no better than any of the nice bays in Alonissos and we didn’t see any of the seals. Most of the marine park is totally off limits to boats so maybe the seals hang out there.

After the marine park we dropped off our guests and headed to Volos. The winds were going to be weirdly from the south overnight, so it was hard to find a protected anchorage. We motored into 2 of the bays we considered and they both had lots of swell (not good for sleeping), so we kept heading west. I was thinking I had made a mistake staying on the south side of the islands, because all of the bays were going to be exposed. Finally we got to Skiathos and there was a small bay that looked like it might be protected, and it turned out to be a Momma- Mia location! It was a little tiny deserted island with a nice beach (they are everywhere) and hollywood picked this one to build a set for some shot for the movie. (The current bar there now is the main post picture.) They have 2 generators running constantly (drove me nuts) but tour boats came and went continually the entire time we were there. There was also a large Mega-yacht beside us:

I think we have crossed paths with this boat before. It is 100m long….a monster. After 7pm everyone had left (the staff waved at us when they left in a small power boat) and we spent a reasonably comfortable night.

The next morning we headed to the big bay just south of Volos. The bay is very roughly a giant circle of a 10km radius. We picked a harbour to the south and anchored. The Pagasitikos Gulf is not as pristine as the sea outside, and the water was a bit murky. The bottoms are more mud than sand which causes the murky. We stayed one night at Pigadi beach and then headed north about half way up to another spot near a big Greek military base (F16’s are based there) and I had to be careful not to enter the ‘military restricted’ zone that took up a big part of the anchorage we were entering. I doubt the Greeks would shoot at me…..but best not to find out. We had a nice few days there and then headed into Volos!

Victoria is from Volos, her mother lives there, and we have been there about 6 times in the last 3 years so I know the city quite well. There is a very large commercial port (sadly not as busy as in the past) and the city is nice but not very touristy. (My touristy crap limit has been reached.) I really wanted to take the boat into the port. The port was *FREE* we only had to pay for water and electricity, and one of the local boat service guys even sent someone over to help us dock! It was great!

As an aside, this is one of the best things about Greece: docking your boat can be like public parking, and you meet helpful people. Volos is beautiful: mountains all around, you are right by the sea with a very long wide pedestrian path by the port filled with cafes and places to eat. Most of the city goes for a walk by the water after the sun sets.

We were right downtown, about 100m from city hall, just off a main street and had a coffee shop just across the street from us. Most of the spots are taken up by local charter boats but we were in one of the best protected spots. Only downsides are we cannot swim (harbour is dirty) and we are in a city and it is noisy. Exactly the opposite of what we normally do when we anchor in deserted pristinely clear bays with ideally no one around.

The upsides were: we can use the air-conditioning when we have shore power (although we tried to use it as little as possible), it was very easy to re-provision the boat (Victoria bought 100 lbs of groceries, I re-stocked our bar) and we had a few very nice meals out and saw Victoria’s family. I really like Volos. We just left and will chill in an anchorage in the big bay and then start heading south and east to Lesvos. Stay tuned.