Author Archives: Jeff Williams

If you are not interested in technical stuff you probably should skip this post. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings….only because I won’t know 😉 When sailing here in the Med, I often think about people hundreds of years ago navigating between the islands. No radios, no maps, no GPS, no weather information. ThisContinue reading “Spruzzo Technology”

Our eventual destination is Lesvos, and Lemnos is on the way. We left Chalkidiki on the mainland at first light again for a long day on the water, and we had almost perfect wind so we sailed for much of the way. We only saw one boat the entire day, and it was an 80mContinue reading “Lemnos: Beloved but remote”

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 almostContinue reading “Northern Greece!”

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 batteryContinue reading “Votsi, a Marine Park, a Mama-Mia beach and Volos!”

Last night at 3am I was awakened by shouting from outside. The winds had picked up, and shouting in a crowded harbour is never good news. Anchoring in harbours is an opportunity to observe humanity operating in a free-form environment: there are no rules. You find a spot and you drop your anchor. This isContinue reading “3am: Trouble in the Harbour”

Skopelos was beautiful. Crystal clear water, not too much wind. The only issue we had was the taverna on the beach which was expensive and taking advantage of tourists (charged us 6 euros for a small plate of onions). Clearly this was a fleecing operation masquerading as a place to eat. After a few daysContinue reading “Skopelos to Alonnisos: little pieces of paradise”

Agoi Apostoli Bay in Evia was a very nice spot.  We had the bay to ourselves most of the time (probably because only idiots would come here from the south ), and we had our very own sea-turtle in the bay!  Even though there was supposedly outside wind we felt almost none of it inContinue reading “Evia to Skopelos: Smooth Sailing”

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 wereContinue reading “Batsi to Evia: Try not to scream”

We left Syros on a day forecast to have a very rare thing: winds from the south. We are heading as far north as we can this summer. Winds in this area are almost always from the north and sometimes very strong. We would absolutely take advantage of favourable wind. First we had to getContinue reading “Syros to Andros: Thanks for all the fish”

We had friends I’d known for 40 years on the boat (does that mean I’m old?) for about a week. It was nice to have help with the anchor and the dingy and motor. We moved around more than we usually do, since they had a limited time to see the ‘less touristy’ Greek islands.Continue reading “Beautiful Syros”