Two powerboaters spend three weeks on a sailboat in the Greek Islands
Almost a year in the works, we finally have the opportunity to take a real vacation together. In 18 years, Kirk and I have only really had vacations that tagged onto the end of family trips, weddings, conferences, or research trips. We left Vancouver on April 29th 2005 at 8:30pm. We Made it! Our flight to England was long and sleepless. And when we arrived in Heathrow airport at 1:30pm, we realized that we had over 7 hours to kill! What to do, what to do. How about a trip to Piccadilly Circus on the tubes?! Store our carryon bags at the “Left luggage” centre, change some cash to Sterling, buy a couple of day passes…and we were off! 7 Hours to Kill in London – Photo album Enough of that, another plane ride and on to Greece! We arrived at 2:10 am (Greece time) after 21 hours in transit. … …..continue reading →
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Athens to Sounion
Well, we finally made it off the dock. We spent the morning trying to find an internet cafe… The first one we came across was managed by kids playing computer games who were pretty much techno-useless. We then got back on the tram and found another place a few blocks away…they didn’t mind us unplugging their machine and hooking up the laptop. After we did an upload we went grocery shopping….a few times. Cheap wine! Finally off the dock at 1500….for a three hour tour! No pun intended…we really did hit our first hurdle (literally) after roughly three hours. OK everyone…take note…..they do not have deadheads in the Mediterranean….they do however….have lots and lots of plastic! At least you can see a crab trap line….maybe a little late occasionally (Rob?) but clear plastic is a little more difficult. Hmm, how much do we actually want to divulge on this trip…is … …..continue reading →
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Sounion to Kea
A little groggy this morning. Flat calm out there and a lovely little cove complete with an old chapel on the side of the hill, hence the name of the cove. Today was really rather uneventful…thankfully. We headed out of Chapel cove at around noon and pulled up the sails. We had a beautiful tack taking us straight on our intended course. The winds finally died on us and we motored for awhile. The wind came back, and we sailed, the winds dies and we motored, the wind came back and we sailed, the winds died, and we motored. That’s kinda how the day went. We spotted a pod of dolphins about a mile off of the anchorage (Ormos Kavia on the Island of Kea) that seemed to be far too well hidden. We thought we had the anchorage all to ourselves, alas, several other boats showed up a few … …..continue reading →
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Kea to Kythnos
Today we woke up relatively early, had a late breakfast, went for a hike and came back for a swim. We hung about for a little bit and then headed off to Kythnos as a stopover on our way to Seriphos. We headed out, got some good wind and had a good sail. Kirk saw a freighter headed our way and we tacked to keep clear. We saw another boat coming around the tip of Kea and realized it was a fast ferry. We altered our course to avoid it…and it altered its course to head us off! When we thought we were well out of harms way, he altered towards us again. We didn’t have anything out there to compare relative sizes to, but we figure the fast ferries here are bigger than the fast cats that we had (briefly). The major difference is that they clock in at … …..continue reading →
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Kythnos – Part 1
Well, after a lousy nights sleep bouncing around in the bay, we woke up to a weather system sitting overtop of us and decided to stay put. We took the dinghy out to the mouth of the bay to see what the seas were like and when we rounded the corner and found the waters to be quite large, we chose the cowardly route and decided to spend another night. Since our anchor held last night we know it’s OK. We watched the fishermen bring in their net and tried to see what they caught. Mostly small stuff but a couple of octopus too. So since we chose to hang out on Kythnos today we went ashore around noon and walked about 4 or 5 km up into the hills and into Chora (Hora, Kithnos, Kythnos, take your pick, everything here seems to have at least three spellings or names) … …..continue reading →
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Kythnos – Part 2
The night from hell….the abridged version Sleep has eluded us and Mother nature has thrown a fastball at us, or a curve ball, or probably it would be more appropriate to say she flung a fast curve ball. The winds have picked up and the weather has worsened. We are beginning to give up on sleep. Kirk had far more faith in the anchor that I did. We had been on the anchor for 24 hours…but it just didn’t feel right to me. Unfortunately, at least in this case, I was right. The next 12 hours became the “proving ground”. We had crawled into our bunk and were just beginning to doze off when the winds picked up. The gusts pushed the boat in some cases at a 25 to 30 degree angle. A touch un-nerving. The dinghy tried to blow away and we lashed it down further. Anchor watch … …..continue reading →
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