Hiding in the Argolic Gulf

Hiding in the Argolic Gulf

Thursday 28th April...

Linda - A peaceful night, with no katabatic winds off the mountains here in Kiparissi. We rose early again, put on our walking shoes, and took the well marked trail around the bay for about a mile to the little Agios Georgious Chapel.

Starting the walk

Thesee

The pretty trail, Saffy would have loved it 💚

More views and flowers

The Chapel

I have no idea why this Chapel is so remote

Sitting on a bench, time to take in the scenery again

Chapel bell

On the way back now

I'm the leader

Unusual bloom

The swell was coming in slightly when we had finished walking. It was 10am and we raised the anchor and set off for today's destination, Port Kheli. It's on the mainland, but to get there we had to cross the Argolic Gulf. We had visions of finding Argonauts, but sadly it's got nothing to do with Jason and his men. However, we did find something much more interesting.... a submarine! Yikes and double yikes.

We must be getting a bit lackadaisical with our navigation skills, because we didn't realise that we had sailed into a military and submarine exercise area. Once it dawned on us, we put the engine on, changed course 90 degrees, and legged it north. 

Sub approaching, time to get out of here

On the way to Port Kheli we rounded the northern end of Spetses. We'll probably see more of that next week as we sail out of here. The meltemi is going to be blowing for the next few days, which is one of the reasons we came here, and didn't go into the central Aegean islands. Port Kheli is a large pretty much enclosed bay so we're in a good place to stay while it all blows through, and we're not due to get any big winds here.

Lighthouse at the top end of Spetses

Entrance to Port Kheli

Fancy properties

.... and more

Very fancy Church too

As if that wasn't enough excitement, after we anchored (twice, because someone decided to drop their anchor in front of us and we were too close to another boat), Dean started to stitch up the 8 inch split he found in the sprayhood join. 

Too tired to go ashore tonight, and we have all weekend anyway.

Friday 29th April...

Linda -  A dinghy ashore, a visit to the Port Police to get checked in (easy peasy), and a walk around the town. It's quite nice here, there's a marina, and a town quay, plus the anchorage which we are in with lots of other sail boats. In town. all the lamp posts have an easter egg cut out, and two little bird type cages with flowers in. Lovely. 

Pretty lamp posts

The water truck

We came across a hanging seat with flowers, which I took a big liking to, and also a flower bicycle.  We did some shopping and went back to the boat.

Yes, I love this seat

.... and this tricycle.

Notice I'm wearing my new shorts

This afternoon's job was hoisting Dean up the mast. He wanted to remove some tape which had come loose, plus renew some plastic tubing that was protecting the roving backstays from chaffing on the spreaders. All went well, and I didn't drop him. Very calm in the anchorage today. It's nice to have a rest from being on the move.

Hanging around

Saturday 30th April...

Linda - Another shopping expedition this morning, the butcher and the supernarket. Stocking up on meat, wine, and jam. It seems you can't get jam in Turkey. We were back before lunch, then we saw dolphins swimming around the bay. They're too quick to get photos, but I did try. 

The pork chops in Greece are massive.

Almost as long as our 12 inch rule.

Dean's jobs...

1. Patching gel coat on Thesee's stern

2. Polishing out the hull scratches whilst standing in the dinghy

3. Further investigation of solar panel issues 

4. Trying to find the manifold to find out why the shower drains are backing up

I took some photos of our surrounding area in the bay.

5 star hotel with noisy music

Old sunken boat 

Another hotel, not so posh

Looking towards the town

Views out of the bay

Sunday 1st May...

Linda - No photos today, not much going on. Dean rubbed down his new gel coat by hand. He's not completely happy, but I think he will be able to live with it. Then we went ashore again for some fresh veg to go with our huge pork chops for tonight's Sunday dinner. The supermarkets were closed, but there was a green grocers open and they miraculously managed to appear with a lovely broccoli when they saw us turn our noses up at what they were trying to sell. 

Dean had to run the generator this afternoon because the batteries were low after 3 days at anchor, and the solar panels are just not performing as much as they should be. Dean gets very frustrated with it, in fact his favourite word at the moment is **** well less of that anyway. 

We caught up on some sailing videos whilst eating our pork chop dinner. This bay we are in has been so protected, but we would like to get going again and move on. We've checked out with the Port Police, so we should be off somewhere tomorrow it seems. 

Monday 2nd May...

Linda - What a day! Plan A came to fruition, but not without big winds and big waves. By 8am we had raised the anchor and were motoring past the neighbouring island of Spetses. It didn't look so appealing this morning because it was raining.

Spetses town

Our Plan A was to get to the island of Kythnos in the Cyclades, but to do that we needed to motor up the inside of Hydra, and then catch the north winds to take us on a beam reach east to Kythnos, where we had identified a decent anchorage. 

Hydra town

We knew it would take us about 10 or so hours to do the 70 mile journey, and it was going to be a tough day ahead with wind gusts of 24 knots, and a sea state of 0.8 metres. Ha ha, the forecast is playing games with us again. To be honest the winds were pretty spot on, but the sea state was a good 1.5 pushing 2 metres at times. We had 3 reefs in the mainsail, and the staysail instead of the genoa. I swear I saw us doing 10 knots at times, Dean said he saw more. I must give full brownie points to the Captain today, he handled the boat superbly, and full marks to Thesee also for taking it all in his stride.

The weather forecast wasn't the only thing playing games with us. For ages we had dolphins swimming along, around, in front, and all over the place. Sometimes 3 of them jumping in unison on the bow. They actually made it quite difficult to concentrate on steering the boat (which I did for very short periods here and there). We both got a good soaking with waves washing over the bow, me once, and Dean about 3 times. I was under the sprayhood most of the time waiting for instructions to release or tension the mainsheet whilst Dean was at the helm.

Our track on Vessel Finder

This image showing our speed, direction, 

and the wind strength etc

Dean did a fantastic job steering us to our planned anchorage on Kythnos. Our first island in the Cyclades! We're on the west side of the island in a bay called Apokrousi. Well that's what it's called on Google Maps. Still blowy here but we are well sheltered from the waves.

New blog post tomorrow called 'Cyclades'