August ‘chill out’ part 1
 
August was to be our ‘chill out’ month we planned to do nothing but swim, snorkel, fish, read (Che Guevara’s autobiography has been taking up valuable cabin space since we left Blighty), eat, drink, sail between anchorage's and generally be very lazy. If I’m going on too much just tell me. The plan it has to be said went a bit awry at times!! We left Nea Marmara and headed down to Porto Koufo a picturesque and more importantly protected bay in Halkidiki. We anchored up and all was good, let the ‘chilling out’ begin. We were sort of on a ‘semi chill’ as it was windy and quite busy in the bay. One morning we rowed ashore and were told by a French lady that there was a Force 8 coming in. We hot tailed it back to Stella and decided to re anchor just in case it did for want of a better word ‘kick off’. We anchored as far away from other boats as we could, when you looked at Stella from the shore she looked like she’d been abandoned in the middle of the bay. The Force 8 didn’t really materialise but the storm clouds did gather for a shindig a couple of days later. The sky was getting darker and darker, then at around 5.00pm there was this huge enormous massive (you get the picture, it was a big one) gust on the land. We looked on in astonishment (The Captain made a comment about some boats being in trouble) then the penny dropped that it would be coming our way. When it hit the boat Stella heeled over as if we were under full sail. Engine on time!!! We sat there with the motor running, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife (and a blunt one at that). We then had a bit of a deja vu moment. A boat that had been anchored in front of us was being blown towards us. The Captains comment ‘I think that one’s on the move’ was not wrong. What made this situation ever so slightly different from our previous encounter was that there was no-one on the boat, in fact the boat was on a mooring!! Time to up anchor!! Just to take an already scary 40 knot moment up a notch we were down to line on our anchor which meant the captain had to thread the line through before he could use the windlass to up the anchor (for those of you who haven’t a clue what I’m saying it means the whole process of upping the anchor takes longer). I was gripping the helm and gritting my teeth (something I seem to do a lot of when I’m not ‘chilling out’). The Captain managed to get the anchor up and the boat that was coming our way passed us by, luckily it stopped just at the entrance to the bay, mere metres from the rocks!! Other boats had rushed into the anchorage to take shelter and it was all a bit busy. We managed to re-anchor when things had calmed down a bit (I’d un gritted my teeth a tad). A boat left from the quay side so we decided that was enough excitement for one day and if we were going to get any sleep that night it would be best to go alongside the quay, which we duly did. We spent a couple of days on the quay then decided we really needed to move on and do some some serious ‘chilling out’. We headed back to an area called Dhiaporos (we’d made a whistle stop tour there with crew mates Harriet & Marcus) Rod the God says it’s an ‘A’ for shelter perfect spot to ‘chill’ and we did matey’s. Chez Guevara’s autobiography was done and dusted by us both (No, I’m not joking) I even broke out my rubber ring so we could laze about in the water, I’m going on a bit aren’t I? The Captain did a spot of fishing and got round to fixing the outboard. After which we jumped in the dinghy to go ashore, halfway across the bay the engine stopped! Yes we did have the oars and no we hadn’t run out of fuel (it was a slight overheating problem caused by a bit of a blockage). Despite people stopping to offer us a tow the Captain insisted on rowing the rest of the way to shore. We got our supplies and managed to make it back to the boat by going for the the old ‘floor it and get as far as you can before the engine cuts out’ method. The days and nights were passing and the time had come to think about moving on. We made a quick pit stop at Porto Koufo for supplies then it was off to Skiathos. Just to give you a taster for the next instalment there are 40 knot winds, torch light departures from anchorage’s and waves over the bow. In case your in any doubt the ‘chilling out’ is coming to an end! Love & rubber rings The Semi chilled XX
Thursday, 28 August 2008