Into the Saronic Gulf

Saturday 25th May...

Linda - The perfect morning in Vourkari, Kea. Everything you could imagine from a Greek Island in the Cyclades. BUT, we must move on because our unfriendly friend the weather, has something brewing. 

Good Morning Vourkari

It would seem all the boats had the same idea as us, to head to the mainland. However, the weather is lurking there too over the next couple of days. So we must try and find some shelter.

Crossing to the mainland meant we had to cross the major shipping lanes that run all the way from Istanbul down to the bottom of the Greek Pelopponese. So it's BUSY. We thought we were lucky to only close encounter two ships and two ferries today as we crossed the lanes. At one point we had a ship coming one way, and a ferry coming the other!

Grain ship

Ferry

Both together !!

We were having a great sail, good speed, but comfortable all the way to the Greek mainland at Sounio. First thing we saw on top of the cliff was the Temple of Poseidon

Approaching the mainland

Temple of Poseidon

We had to navigate through a gap between the mainland and a large rocky island. The wind became so fluky and we were trying to keep away from the shallows. At one point the wind dropped to zero. Dean rolled the genoa away and switched on the engine on to get us through without any issues,

After this we just had to follow the coast up to our desired anchorage. But, we could see a number of cruising chutes coming towards us, and a big red marker buoy. We realised there was a race going on. We turned to starboard to get out of the way and hug the next big rocky island. I took a photo from 'Vessel finder' which shows us hugging the island, and the race boats heading towards us.

Chart plotter photo

Race boats

Colourful cruisng chutes

Someone having a bit of sail trouble

Huge spinnaker on this boat

Not long afterwards the wind really picked up a lot and was coming from the South instead of the North as expected. It got up to 20 knots at one point. We were on the home straight heading for our desired anchorage.... Ormos Varis. Dean commented that the sea ahead looked odd because the 'white horses' on the sea were breaking in the wrong direction. He is such a good observer and realised that a wind shift was coming up. He quickly rolled the genoa away and within minutes were were in a black hole.... zero wind. Next minute we had the 180 degrees wind shift from North.  

As we approached the anchorage at 7 knots it was very blustery. But we could see boats anchored so that made us feel better that it must be OK in the anchorage. WRONG..... it was blowing a hoolie. We dropped the hook anyway and the boat setttled, but we had so sit out the wind here for over 3 hours before it became acceptable. It's so annoying, because there was only supposed to be a gentle breeze today. Tomorrow is predicted worse winds. 

Boats in our anchorage

Windsurfer

This windsurfer was having the time of his life on his foil board. Can you see that his board is actually out of the water??

The good news is that we have just been offered a place in a marina tomorrow for a couple of days, about 10 miles up the coast. 

Sunday 26th May...

Linda - It was 11.40pm last night, and we were in bed asleep when suddenly the boat started rolling violently, waking us up. We had no idea what was going on, but I jumped out of bed because my first thought was our plant 'Vera' was going to be knocked over on the deck. It was OK, and I brought it inside. The rolling calmed down and we went back to sleep. This morning it all seemed like a dream, but we realised that it must have been an instant wind shift sending us across to the other side of our anchor in one big swoop. I checked our track on 'Vessel Finder' and this kind of confirmed our thoughts. You can see we had been doing a squiggle and then in an instant we were sent in a straight line across to where we squiggled the rest of the night. 

Our crazy track overnight

The weather when we woke was fairly calm. We found out that we needed to pay up front for our marina berth, so that was a bit stressful trying to make an international bank payment before we left.

By 9.15am we had lifted the anchor and was on our way, 10 miles to Alimos Marina. On our way we came across this very weird looking boat. We think we've seen it before somewhere. We call it 'the iron' because it looks like one, don't you think?

We motored all the way into about 8 knots wind and a little lumpy seas. As we approached the marina there was a continuous chain of Charter boats exiting the marina.  Sunday, they are all setting off on their Charter holidays. This is obviously why we could get a space today in this marina, all planned by us of course. 

Dean did a magnificent job reversing us into our berth, and this afternoon he spent hours washing the boat down. It's still windy in the marina but we can relax for a couple of nights without worrying at anchor. 

Approaching the Athens suburbs

We've had a little walkabout and found beautiful flowers in a little garden area. On the complete opposite end of the scale, the marina toilets are more than disgusting, they are absolutely atrociously dirty. Dean said that he wouldn't even let Saffy poop in there. Plus the marina wifi doesn't work. 

Lovely sunflowers

Monday 27th May...

Linda - Big day out in Piraeus, Athens. We've been out all day. What an adventure catching the tram into Piraeus which took about 30 minutes. It literally took us from the marina to the port. The port is huge, being the docks for many different ferries and cruise ships calling into Athens. It was busy busy busy.

The main reason for coming into Piraeus was that Dean could pick up his special spare part for the bow thruster. It's only a (very pricey) small item but it's the heart of the bow thruster, and the only place that you can get it in this part of the world was 'Alex Marine' chandlery in Piraeus. So after disembarking the tram we headed straight to Alex Marine and collected it. Job done. 

Fantastic buildings on arrival in Piraeus

Arriving at the long awaited Alex Marine chandlery store

Thank you, Alex Marine

Time for a coffee. The roadside by the docks was very noisy and hectic, but we found a side street with some cafes and stopped off. The cafe we chose was fantastic. Every kind of croissant, cake, & sandwich you could possibly think of on display and ready to buy.

Delicious looking cakes & doughnuts

.... and more cakes

....and sandwiches galore

We chose good old chocolate croissants (because we've missed them so much). They were the best ever. Sitting outside the cafe indulging ourselves, we began chatting to a nice Austrian gentleman who was on his own with three rucksacks (and no, this Austrian wasn't naked). We talked for about half an hour. He told us about his world travels... Japan four times, motorbike expeditions all over Italy etc. He was waiting for his ferry to Syros, then to Santorini. He was planning a big motorbike expedition in India too and was trying to get visas sorted out. So most of the talk was about motorbikes to Dean's pleasure.

Piraeus Port

More ferries

We then set off to find Marina Zea. It's a huge circular marina. Quite extraordinary if you look on google maps. Full of mainly very large motor yachts. After we encircled virtually the whole marina we stopped for lunch at (for a change) an Italian restaurant. Sitting outside we had a lovely Verona Salad.

Statues in a little park on the way to Marina Zea

This is Piraeus Tower. Luxury offices and shopping.

Dockside traffic 

Officer and Gentlemen...and women

Buy your lovely white uniforms here

The whole area really was very nice with lots of green areas. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many grand buildings.

Parks

Dancing fountains

Marina Zea

Old style ship powered with oars

Our tram 

Dean showing off the new bow thruster gadget

We were back about 5pm and walked locally to try and find a replacement campingaz bottle. As if we hadn't already done enough walking, we trudged to the other side of this massive marina in Alimos to find all the Chandleries closed at 6pm. Typical. Everywhere else we've been they close all afternoon but open in the evenings. Trudge back to the marina, but passing a beach bar we stopped for a quickie sundowner. Nice. What a day!!

Tuesday 28th May...

Linda - Today was all set to be an uneventful journey across the Saronic Gulf to the island of Aegina (Egina), which sits right in the middle of the Gulf itself. The morning was perfectly calm. There was no rush to leave, so Dean set off with his Campingaz bottle to try and find an open shop selling refills. The shops were open but no-on had what he wanted. No surprise there then. This marina is absolutely massive with over 1100 berths, but no-one sells Campingaz! Stoopid.

The last few days our genoa has been sticking a bit when rolling it out. Because this morning was so calm he decided to pull the genoa down and check/lubricate the roller furler. He spent quite a bit of time on it. The sail had come down lovely and sat folded quite nicely on the deck and rail, and it went back up like a dream afterwards. Easy when there's no wind of course. 

Genoa sail down, Dean inspects the furler

Furler TLC

By the time all this was done it was about 11.15am and we started getting ready to depart. The marina instruct you to call for the marinero to assist your departure, so we did. We had to wait for about 30 minutes before they eventually came. What a joke, and when they did come they just basically said to do it ourselves and went off. Idiots.

So it was 12.15pm when we got on our way to Aegina. Once again crossing shipping lanes which lead into Athens and also to the Corinth Canal. After passing the lanes we put the sails up as the wind was filling in. It wasn't long before we had to put two reefs in and were doing over 6 knots. As we approached the north coast of Aegina the wind disappeared and it was dead calm. The island looks very nice, quite a welcome sight after the last few days of city life. And of course there's the lovely backdrop of the Pelopponese.

Aegina north coast

Pelopponese

Approaching the corner of Aegina

Once around the corner we were back in the wind, but motored down towards the desired anchorage called Perdika. With the binoculars we could see that no other boats were anchored there, but a number of boats were anchored on the coast of the small adjacent island called Moni. When this happens we usually head for where all the other boats are, as they must be in the right place. So we arrived at Moni, there was space in one of the two bays so we dropped anchor. It was OK and we were out of the wind for now anyway. 

It's a lovely place, nice water, sandy bottom, peacocks and deer on the shoreline. Dean swam the anchor to check. There was also another boat tied to shore and we were a little close but OK. Dean had been itching to check the prop also because for a couple of days he has felt that there may be something caught around it. He dived under Thesee and came back with the news we had picked up a plastic carrier bag, it was in shreds, but completely wrapped around the prop. 

No sooner said than done, he took his diving knife down and cut the bag away in three attempts with his snorkel. Never a dull moment here on Thesee. 

Arrival at Moni anchorage

Gorgeous water and trees too

Calmness for now

The shoreline

The carrier bag after being removed from the prop

One other thing that has made Dean pleased with himself today is that he has managed to get our Greek (Cosmote) Tourist sim card (that we bought yesterday) to work in our Mi-Fi unit. He knows more than the Cosmote helpline!! Well done Mr C. You are my hero.

By about 7pm the swell started to come in a little, and we were a bit too close to the 'tied to shore' boat. We decided to move further out to give each other more room, and the wind was abating by now. But we couldn't get the anchor to dig in further out, so we nipped around to the next bay and dropped anchor there. Let's hope it's a calm night.

Deer ashore on Moni

Sundown

Wednesday 29th May...

Linda - Yes, thankfully it was a calm night, even at 4am when I woke up and checked, the sea was flat. We did well to get to 6am before the swell started to roll in from the north. Time to move on, early start to the day.

Sunrise at 5am

Today's destination, the long awaited town of Poros. We were able to drift along (after clearing the islands Moni and Aegina) with just the genoa out, and we were in no rush to get there as it was still so early in the day. 

We passed this island (volcano) called Methana

This unusual catamaran passed by us. Dean said he thinks it's a Wharram design.

Just after 9am we entered the big (almost enclosed) bay at Poros. It's a very popular place for yachties, ferries, and holidaymakers alike. Seeing the town on the hill with the clock tower actually reminded us of Croatia. 

Beacon at the entrance

Poros town

Clock tower and quay

We found a decent anchor spot in Navy Bay, albeit at 15 metres deep. When we anchor we never leave the boat straight away, we like to make sure it's settled and safe before going ashore. Dean decided he was going to fit the new bow thruster part that we had collected in Piraeus on Monday. 

Oh No!! He fitted it but it didn't work!! The bow thruster wouldn't even turn on, let alone thrust. The manufacturers had told Dean that it was a direct replacement, straight swap. Dean spent the next few hours communicating with the manufacturer and also with the tech man at the shop where we bought it. But, alas, to no avail. Still not working. 

It was so very annoying, to think we had made the effort to go all the way into Athens to get it, including two nights in the marina, and for nothing. Now we have to post it back to the shop in Athens. Nightmare. 

A little later we went ashore to the Port Police for Transit Log stamping, get a Campingaz refill (bonus), and have a little walk about. It's very nice here, the quay is full of visiting boats both private and charter. Lots of cafes, restaurants, shops, bars all around the quayside. 

We ate dinner at one of the restaurants and then walked up to the clock tower, coincidentally the sun was just setting giving us and many other tourists some great photo opportunities. 

The clock workings

Thursday 30th May...

Linda - Back ashore again this morning to get the bow thruster part sent off to Athens....grrrrrrr.

And also to get the Transit Log stamped out (because they would only stamp us in yesterday)..grrrrr.

Stopped off for coffee, and to get fresh crusty bread and choc croissants from the bakery. Then back on board by noon (ish). We made the decision, now all necessaries were completed, and we had some wind in the right direction, to move further up the coast towards the Corinth Canal. We are hoping to transit the Corinth Canal tomorrow or Saturday 😀. Excitement mounting.

Tonight we are anchored in a nice looking small town and bay at Korfos. We haven't been ashore, we didn't arrive until after 6pm as it was an almost five hour journey. Let's see what tomorrow brings....

Poros quayside this morning

Approaching Korfos, dark skies but no rain

The next blog post will be called 'Corinth Canal Day'