August ‘chill out’ part 2
 
Next stop Skiathos island. We left at crack of sparrows as it was a good 60 miler. The wind blows from the North, we were heading South so you’d expect us to have a good sail there wouldn’t you? What lickle ickle wind there was came from the South (darn that wily wind). We had to motor all the way!! On the plus side we saw dolphins and caught a fish (only to loose it again). As we rounded the bottom of Skiathos it was blowing 15 knots from the South which meant the anchorage we had planned to go to was really roly. We moved on to the next bay which seemed a lot calmer inside, there were boats on moorings and no other yachts, so we decided to spend the night there. After a quick swim and some dinner we went to bed. It was at this point that things went a bit down hill. First came the swell although looking back now that didn’t seem too bad. At around 04.30am we were both woken up by a rather large gust of wind (If it woke the Captain it must have been a big one). We went up on deck it was dark, all seemed ok but the gusts kept coming. We then spent the next hour in the cockpit waiting and watching. We both knew we were going to have to leave as the gusts increased to 40 knots (seems to be a magic number for us these days). But we really didn’t want to have to up anchor in the dark as there were so many boats around on moorings. At about 05.30am a few boats appeared to be a bit closer. Time to leave, we managed to get the anchor up without incident despite the gusts which kept coming. It was starting to get light and the sea outside the anchorage was looking a bit feisty. We decided to head for Skiathos town which was only a couple of miles away and take refuge there. The wind was behind us all 40 knots and we had the teeniest bit of Genoa out. The gusts from the land were coming thick and fast. We could see little fishing boats racing in to try and take shelter. As we tried to head towards Skiathos we found ourselves into wind and the waves were coming over the boat. So we had to abort that idea. Plan B to head for the town on the neighbouring island, after 15 minutes or so we aborted that idea to. Nothing left for it but to head back into wind (all 43 knots of it) to the very first anchorage we’d been to the day before, it was big so if the anchor did drag there was plenty of room. After battling into wind and waves we eventually arrived, were able to anchor up, collapsed and un gritted teeth!! We spent a couple of nights in the bay which is lovely but quite busy with jet skis, paragliders and fast bananas (don’t ask). We decided to head for Skiathos town midweek as it is very busy there. After finding a nice spot on the quay we settled down to enjoy some ice cream given to us by a very grateful Greek man (The Captain had helped him moor up). It was then that we had a run in with the ‘Marina manager’ (who apparently is just the water man). After this we moved to a pontoon which is used by some flotilla companies. They can be quite aggressive towards people trying to moor up on their pontoon, but they took pity on us and let us stay for a couple of nights. They were somewhat reluctant to let us leave until late afternoon as us being there meant no one would try and moor there before their boats returned. We felt like pawns in the flotilla mooring war! We headed off to Loutraki on Skopelos and moored up on a small pontoon. It was quite windy so we decided to hire a moped for the day and went off to see some of the island, when we left Stella was the only boat on the pontoon. When we returned there were two flotilla’s in the harbour, boats moored in the bay and a container ship at the breakwater. Methinks there’s some bad weather on it’s way!! And there was. At about 1.00am we were awoken by the boat rocking violently from side to side. The flotilla staff and some of their guests were up on deck. A few boats dragged anchors and had to move, our main concern was the mast spreaders having a bit of a coming together as we had a right old rock on!! Unfortunately Stella caught one of her stanchions on the boat next to us and it got a bit bent!! But other than that all was o.k. We went to bed a couple of hours later and tried to sleep through the thunder and lightening that followed and carried on into the next day. The following evening one of the flotilla staff checked the weather and said there was no more rain coming. That night we had another torrential downpour!!! The weather seems to be clearing now the flotilla boats left today and we are going to leave tomorrow our next stop is an island called Alonnisos, then it’s onto Skyros it’s ancient name was ‘Anemosa’ which apparently means windy. Ooooh I can’t wait!!! We need to do a quick shimmy across the Aegean then it’s down to Samos to meet up with shipmates Rich and Paula who are coming for a jolly jaunt on Stella. Love and phooey to 40 Knot winds The Captain and the gritter of teeth XX
Monday, 1 September 2008