It took us 5 days to leave the big bay south of Volos We anchored in 4 different places. The water is clean, but since the sea-bottom is generally mud it is murkier than the Agean.
We headed out to Skopelos, and stopped in Limnenari Beach Bay, where we ended up anchored beside an almost identical Amel! Their solar arch (added in Pireaus) was nicer/sturdier than ours (all the internal structure had 2 tubes of stainless steel) but our bimini was nicer. We were anchored parallel to them, about 2 boat lengths apart (the bay was small and there were 4 boats there already). In the middle of the night I heard a knocking on our boat. The wind had shifted and his stern was about 1m from our bow (he must have had out more chain than me). I suggested he pull in a few meters of chain and I would let out 6m so we would be far enough apart, so crisis averted…..but never fun to get woken up in the middle of the night!
The next day we moved to Stafylos which is a big bay and has about 200 beach beds and umbrellas. It was very nice, but we wanted to get to Lesvos which is quite a big trip south and east of where we were, and the winds looked bad for the trip for the next 10 days or so. …..plus there were jellyfish in the water. These guys apparently don’t sting too badly but obviously you don’t want to find out.
Victoria suggested we head north! This was a great idea because it would get us to a new spot (we had spent a long time in the Skopelos area already this year) and get us away from the wind. It would be a long trip…9 or 10 hours so we left at first light the next morning.
There is a saying in the Mediterranean about the wind: There is either no wind, too much wind, or wind in the wrong direction. We were hoping to sail but the wind was just off of our nose for almost the entire time, and when it shifted it became too light to sail with….so we motored the entire way. If we tried to sail we would have arrived after dark. (Maybe next year we can do a ‘no motor’ tour of the area for fun 😉 The waves were interesting. At the beginning they were the typical waves we see: 1m high and about 2m or so apart (if they get 3m high it becomes a party). We lightly pounded through these for most of the trip, but in the last 2 hours the waves became 3m high swells from our side and quite far apart. I suspect this is because the area we were sailing in had a very long distance for the waves to grow with the wind and join together (sailors call this ‘fetch‘). I needed to change course so we had a sharper angle into these big swells to stop the boat from rolling sharply from side to side which causes the occasional screaming from Victoria.
In the late afternoon we arrived at the perfect natural harbour of Port Koufo.
Apparently Germany kept submarines in the bay during WWII because it is so deep (40m in places). It was perfectly calm for us, but quite busy and had a muddy bottom. We ended up anchoring in 10m, so roughly 35m of chain, which means the boat will make a big arc when the wind shifts, and there were several boats around us.
I thought I did a great job of finding a spot equidistant from a few boats…..but again around midnight I was awakened by a call of ‘Hey Maramu!’! One of the boats that was far away, and on a mooring buoy, apparently had a lot of chain attached (this should not be necessary for a permanent anchor, but whatever). He had swung and his stern was too close. I let out a few meters of chain and we both went back to bed. Not that I’m counting, but this was the second time I was awakened in the middle of the night because of an anchoring issue. I hope this is because the bays are busier in August. It is always nice to get an uninterrupted night of sleep although being on a boat you are always on call.
This perfectly protected bay had the shiftiest wind I have yet experienced. I’m not sure if this was from the weather or the shape of the land around the bay, but the wind shifted 180 degrees several times during the night. I could see lots of boats having ‘you are too close’ discussions. The etiquette is if you were the later boat to arrive then it is ‘your fault’ and you should fix the problem.
The not-perfectly clear water, plus the fact we are in a bay made us not want to swim so much, so we decided to provision at the local grocery store and head out to somewhere more less busy. We found a perfect spot! You will read about that next time.
Adventures on Spruzzo 