Skindos Bay – Dhokos
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After the crowds of Spetses, the guests had asked for a more relaxed day, so I took them to another favourite spot of mine, Skindos Bay on Dhokos. This island is very barren and only has a few inhabitants including goats, turkeys and a very friendly donkey as well as the farmer who looks after them all. It is a very quiet island and as the bay is quite deep (we were anchored in 25 metres) it only fits a few yachts and most only stay for lunch. After some swimming, a lazy lunch with the last bottle of provencal Rose we had bought in Bandol earlier in the season and an even lazier afternoon, I took a couple of guests ashore in the tender to climb the hill overlooking the anchorage. It is not a terribly strenuous climb but it was quite steep in places and as there was very little vegetation it was quite slippery underfoot. At the top the views we were rewarded with were well worth the climb. We could see the whole length of the Kolpos Idhras (Gulf of Hydra ) which looked like it had plenty of breeze judging by the wild heeling of some of the flotilla boats. On the other side of the hill where we had left Concerto, it was flat calm. Also on the top were a few olive groves with some of the trees so thick that two of us would not have been able to get our arms around them.
Concerto at Anchor in Skindos Bay
Clare picked us up from the beach and most of the other yachts then left leaving us to the peace and quiet only interrupted every so often by our friend, the donkey, ashore. We had a whole leg of lamb in the fridge so it was decided that this was a good evening to get the barbecue out. Although I do say so my self, it was rather tasty!
Gordon
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Sep 18 2009
Armata Festival, Spetses
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We had some friends staying in the same anchorage as us near Spetses having just completed a circumnavigation onboard their 54 foot Oyster Capriccio who knew the area very well and so gave us some invaluable information on the best places to eat and drink whilst we were there. They also told us of the Spetses Festival that was apparently well worth the trip and so much so that their trip to Majorca for the Oyster Regatta was going to be postponed until after the festival.
The Armata Festival happens every September and it celebrates the setting on fire of the Turkish fleet on 8th September 1822. At this time, Nafplion (around the corner from Spetses) was in Turkish hands and so the Greek fleet (owned by a local Spetsai woman called Laskarina Bouboulina) were positioned near Spetses to stop any supplies reaching Nafplion. When the Turkish fleet approached Spetses, a large fight broke out between the two countries and a local man Kosmas Barabtswis rushed through the Turkish ships and reached the flagship vessel. It was set on fire and according to tradition, it sank just off Spetses. To commemorate this, each year in September, they set fire to a model ship just off the harbour along with a huge fireworks and music display.
Saturday came and we all set off for Spetses donning our waterproofs (it poured with rain all night!). The whole town was alive with people as well as a huge array of superyachts anchored off and in the harbour (it felt like we were back in Cannes!). There was a large separation zone however around the model ship so that they all kept a safe distance from the pyrotechnics that were to follow. The model was the most amazing replica of a traditional square rigged sailing ship complete with sails but on a slightly smaller scale. We took cover in one of the local drinking holes whilst the worst of the rain fell and before the excitement began before braving it outside and finding a spot with a decent view (there weren’t many left at this stage). There was then an introduction into the story and history (all in Greek so who knows what they were saying!) followed by the beginning of the musical performance through huge speakers along the harbour front. Five water taxis then took off from the harbour armed with their flamed torches as the supposed armada to some very appropriate music and circled the bay quickly before heading for the ship. It didn’t take long to light (we’d heard there was the a massive amount of gunpowder loaded inside to ensure it gave a worthy performance) and suddenly the whole ship was engulfed in flames. We watched eagerly as the first mast fell and then soon after came the second and every time the flames found a box of gunpowder, there was the most extraordinary show of fireworks dancing out of the hull! Back onshore there were more fireworks lined up along the harbour wall which were brilliantly choreographed with the music and matched up beat to beat. We thought the best fireworks of them all were these long bright lights that would rise into the sky and then fall towards the floor but then suddenly rise again, all whilst the music in the background sang “rise, rise rise”!
Fireworks blasting from the buring ship
It was a truly impressive fireworks display and didn’t seem to be anywhere near stopping but after about half an hour of amusement, it all started to calm down with just the faint burning of the ship in the background. The rain had finally stopped falling so we went for a little walk around Spetses. It’s one of those harbour fronts that seems to go on forever with these wonderful hidden inlets with an array of brightly painted local fishing boats but most of the harbour was completely bursting with every possible gin palace/superyacht/sailing yacht possible. All the shops were still open even though it was 10:30pm and the restaurants were suddenly bustling with all the Greeks having their dinner once the celebrations had finished. We hope we’ll be able to attend again next year…
Clare
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Sep 14 2009
Back in Athens
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All too quickly our two week cruise was coming to an end and we found ourselves back in Athens with the larger than life character Michael the taxi driver waiting to take the guests back to the airport. After doing all the boring but necessary post charter tasks we took a day off to explore Athens. The flea market was very busy and loud with lots of smells coming from the different vendors and the parliament sits in contrast to most of the other buildings in that it doesn’t look like it took 10 minutes to build or is about to fall down. A highlight was finding the shop of Pantellis Melissinos the “poet sandal maker” whose father and grandfathers have been hand making leather sandals to the stars and public for 5 decades. The shop smells strongly of new leather and is adorned with Pantellis’artwork and letters from various dignitaries including Prince Charles. Clare bought a pair of his sandals which he personally fitted and adjusted as we waited. It was really nice to see the smile on his face when he had got them the way Clare wanted. Quite different from the usual faceless branding we are all used to. That evening we splashed out and had an excellent meal on the roof top terrace of the Hotel Grande Bretagne which has a commanding view over the Acropolis. Great food, attentive service, awesome setting and a colossal bill, well you only live once!
The View of the Acropolis from the Restaurant
Unfortunately while we’ve been in Athens, massive forest fires have broken out to the north of the city and while I write this some 30000 acres are affected with 1000’s of people having to flee their homes. Thankfully no casualties have been recorded yet and with international help from France, Italy and Cyprus hopefully it will be under control soon.
The Smoke from the Forest Fires over Athens taken from the Marina
Gordon
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Aug 23 2009
Hydra and Spetses
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Our next port of call was Hydra Island. We anchored in a secluded bay just along from Hydra town and were nearly the only ones there. The following morning I was outside preparing the cushions and I heard a bleeting noise coming from the island next to us and looked up to see a goat running down the rocks! After breakfast, we moved the yacht and anchored nearer the town so that a water taxi could pick them up and take them in to have a look round. Hydra town is full of grand mansions scattered around the hill overlooking the small harbour. It’s a beautiful place to sail past and I’m sure a wonderful place to explore too although neither of us had the opportunity. The island has no cars so transport is by donkey and boat. We had a quick swim instead in the very warm waters (27 degrees) which was very nice if a little too warm!
Hydra Town
We anchored off for the night on the next door island called Dhokos which is a really pretty anchorage but seemed to be fairly busy. The following day was a quick motor down to Spetses Island, another little gem. This time I was able to go ashore for a quick shop for provisions. It’s a lovely little town with narrow pedestrianised cobbled streets lined with smart boutique shops and very busy tavernas. The guests arrived back with a gorgeous array of flowers for my birthday which they then put into a beautiful arrangement for the saloon.
After having anchored nearby for the night with Enigma as our neighbour (Larry Ellison’s previous yacht and one of the 100 largest in the world) we had a very breezy beat with the sails up and the birthday girl was even given the helm! The guests looked slightly uneasy in their seats so we weren’t quite as powered up as we could have been (thank goodness otherwise my galley starts flying around!) but once the wind hit 35 knots, the sails had to come back down again and we sheltered on Dhokos again for lunch whilst waiting for the winds to calm a little. After a trip to Ermioni that night on the mainland and a lack of sleep (combination of bouncing music till 3am and then a huge swell after that) we made our way back to lovely Poros for our final night anchored off a little beach along the coast from the town.
Clare
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Aug 17 2009
Poros
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Finally we had some wind and after a bit of motor-sailing, we set full main and genoa and sailed around the Methana peninsula. With the guests at the helm and helping with the trimming of the sails we clocked 8.5knots briefly in 10knots of wind showing that the big girl does actually sail well! As the wind veered we gybed and then ran goose-winged with the mainsail out on one side and the genoa out on the other through the narrow channel between the mainland and the island of Poros. The town and anchorage here is one of my personal favourites in Greece. It is a picture postcard town perched on a hill over looking a large totally enclosed bay.
Poros Town
The water is always very flat and the holding for the anchor is excellent meaning I get a good nights sleep! Also the selection of bars and restaurants and the quality of the food is much better then in most other areas of tourist Greece. Being the weekend we were joined by quite a few large super-yachts including the very sleek looking 200+ feet Perini-Navi “Saudade”, one day……
Gordon
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Aug 12 2009
Idyllic anchorage and Epidavros
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After spending the night anchored off the busy Aegina town we headed off reasonably early to our lunch spot. Thankfully the day was a lot cooler than the previous week with temperatures in the mid 30’s instead of 40’s although the flat calm conditions meant motoring all the way. The bay (really a channel between the south western side of Angistri and an off-lying islet) was idyllic, even after all the bays we have travelled to on Concerto, this one still took the breath away. The channel is quite enclosed by the high land either side which when added to the wind indicator’s 0.0 knot wind speed made for one of the quietest anchorages we’ve been to. There was no noise from other boats, people, even the water was silent. The sea was so clear that even though we were anchored in 25 metres of water you could make out the sandy bottom quite clearly and could see the anchor.
If you look closely you can see the anchor on the seabed!
After a lazy lunch and lots of swimming we headed off to the small village of Epidavros. The anchorage here is a pleasant enough place and the village worth a wander but the real reason to come here is to take a taxi to the ancient Greek theatre of Epidavros 25mins inland. The theatre is one of the best preserved theatres in the world built around 400BC and is vast. The acoustics are world renowned and are used as a case study on acoustics in universities. It is said that a coin dropped or a whispered line can be heard by all the 15000 people it can seat.
Gordon
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Aug 09 2009
Piraeus
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After a week of fixing various odds and ends along with some cleaning and polishing, we moved the yacht up to the marina in Piraeus right on the outskirts of Athens where we would be picking up our next lot of guests. Not the most exciting of marinas but still a nice spot to be in and close to the city centre. Our first port of call was the Kitchen Bar, a restaurant along the marina which offers a good selection of non-Greek food (something we were beginning to get a little tired of!) for a bit of beef and red wine! Provisioning here is perfect with a huge Carrefour supermarket along the marina with plenty of European/French products available which certainly makes my life easier! I even had the time for a quick trip into Athens to the central market which was apparently ‘a must’ and indeed it was. I’d never seen anything quite like it. The meat market was along three of the sides of the building where each vendor had a cubicle and then their meat selection hanging inside clear boxes. The atmosphere was incredible with all the vendors shouting away at the crowds of Greeks and tourists. In the middle of the building was the fish market where rows and rows of ice displays sat with such a variety of fish. I decided I wasn’t quite brave enough to buy anything from the meat market (I’m sure it was very safe but something put me off the fairly dried looking bits of carcasses hanging from their boxes!) but I bought a fair amount of fish including seabass, bream, sole, prawns and salmon. It all turned out to be very good and very fresh although my galley resembled the fish market after I’d finished scaling, gutting and filleting most of them! Getting the yacht charter ready over the few days in Piraeus was a huge struggle because of the heat. It was 42 degrees in the shade at one point so our days would often start at 7 for all the polishing outside before retreating inside at lunchtime to do all the bits and pieces out of the glaring sun. Guests arrived and after one final night in Zea Marina we headed off to the Argo-Saronic islands for two weeks.
Clare
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Aug 04 2009
Crew Holiday Time!
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After 9 weeks non-stop without a day off, we thought we probably needed a little break! Seeing as we had two weeks without any charters we decided to take the time off. The boat was packed up after our delivery trip and left in Lavrion Marina whilst we headed home for some R&R. We had a very relaxing five days down in Portugal followed by a not quite so relaxing but thoroughly enjoyable weekend of mountain biking and camping in Wales with some friends. We both then spent some time with our respective families before making the journey back out to a very hot Athens. In true british holiday style, we had a three hour delay at Gatwick (one of the hours being spent on the plane) and so finally arrived at the yacht around midnight.
Clare
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Jul 26 2009
Delivery from Palermo, Sicily to Lavrion, Greece
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Our trip to Greece was a bit more chilled out as we were in no rush. It was just the two of us so we took it easy.We left on the evening of the 5th and headed east along the north coast of Sicily through the Straits of Messina for the third time in three weeks, along the toe of Italy before heading across to where I spent a “flotilla” season in the Ionian sea and our first stop Vathi on Ithaca about 350nm away.
Company en route..
It was a very easy trip with just the mainsail up to give us some drive and the engine on. It was very flat water so we made the trip averaging 9 knots. Not a single bite on the fishing line though despite being in the best place in Europe for catching Tuna/swordfish, any ideas?
We arrived in Ithaca which was as beautiful as I remembered and with a cross wind stronger than I remembered, we moored up on the quay. We were to be here until late the next day to get all the paper work completed and it did take all day! Just as well as we met some lovely people who moored up along the quay with us. During the day we had some Italian bare boaters catch our anchor with their anchor and with a strong 25knot crosswind blowing I didn’t want to pick it up.Also with it being 25 meters deep we couldn’t dive down to undo it. They were well and truly stuck but with the help of a quick thinking fellow Scot, Keith, and some others we were able to free him after quite a few near misses of him collecting some other boats! Then only 30mins later an Italian boat did the same thing and out went Keith to sort it out, what a guy!
As our paper work still wasn’t ready that night we decided to eat out at an old favourite that serves traditional Greek food that tastes as it should. Not the oily dried over cooked stuff you get in most Greek restaurants. It is owned by the great host Dimitrios who is helped by his very friendly daughter Lula. The food is great as is the company, everyone should go!
We left Vathi at 5am to head towards the Corinth canal, Athens and then Lavrion. We motored the whole way as there was no wind but the highlight has to be the canal. It is the most expensive water way in the world meter for meter, was finished in 1893 and is 25 meters wide. The sides are almost vertical and reach up to almost 79 meters high. Its only 3.5nm long and saves the massive detour around the Peloponnisos. Clare took plenty photographs as I had to really concentrate to steer a straight course as there wasn’t much room either side.
Keeping to the middle!
After passing the massive ship anchorage off Athens we arrived at about 2200 in Sounio Bay under the watchful eyes of the temple of Poseidon to anchor for the night before sailing the 4nm to Lavrion the next morning.
Gordon
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Jul 09 2009
Stromboli Storm
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I’m writing this from Lipari after quite a passage. After the guests had enjoyed a night hike up Stromboli the day before to get closer to the action I had heard a bad weather forecast for the area due in the next day at midday. As the anchorage offered no real protection and the pilot-guide said leave immediately in bad weather I was a little worried and I didn’t want to arrive in a busy anchorage on one of the more sheltered islands at night and not be able to find a place so I decided to sleep with one eye open. At 0430 I heard a boat’s horn so shot up on deck to see the wind was blowing only about 12kn but a 40foot charter boat had slipped its mooring and was heading rather quickly our way while its crew were down below. Fortunately for us (and especially the 35 footer he would have hit just before us) the crew was awakened just in time to start the engine and move it away.
At 0530 the wind had built to 15knots and it looked like the weather was coming in early so I decided to wake Clare up and get out of there. The anchor was holding fine and no other boats had left but I had a feeling something wasn’t right. We found out just how not right things were about an hour later as we were motoring into 40kn head winds and one of the most massive seas I’ve ever seen in the med. I was getting very very wet in the cockpit! Thankfully the engine and systems worked really well with the oil pressure, water temperature and exhaust temperature not any different from what they are in mill pond flat water.
It was reasonably hairy for the 3 hours it took us to cover just 14nm to Lipari and we saw two coast guard boats heading for Stomboli. I wouldn’t have wanted to have been there any longer than we were especially if I were in an ill-equipped “bare boat”. In Lipari we docked up without any fuss and relaxed. Thankfully our guests were pretty game and found it all quite exciting although they did admit that they probably didn’t want to do that again tomorrow! The boat behaved impeccably and I now have a lot of confidence in the new changes.
It was a big storm that took a lot of people by surprise. Over the next few hours and the next day quite a few boats came in with a lot of damage including ripped sails, broken booms and lost tenders. Just 100nm north of us 2 people were killed in a harbour in Capri in the same storm. A sobering thought….
Gordon
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Jun 22 2009