Sunday 4 June 2017 – Amorgos

Well I am sorry that I did not get to post yesterday’s instalment.  In the end we decided it was too risky to take the computer to the island in the dinghy without a waterproof bag.  Our luck was such that I didn’t want to risk it.  Anyway Richard reckons that the signal at the taverna wasn’t strong enough to post it.

So after a nice dinner of fresh grilled red snapper we made our way back to the boat and to bed.  We got up fairly early (7:30) to make a good early start only to find half the boats in the bay had already gone!  By 8:45 we too were away.  The weather forecast was for cloudy skies and very light winds going in every direction.  Well, the cloudy skies were correct, but it was much worse that the suggestions on the web site.  In fact at one time there was a bit of light rain.  Richard and I were shivering in the cockpit and had to put on long sleeved tops!  Then the wind came up and was 11-12 knots at one point.  Mostly the wind was on the nose but then it moved around to the beam.  In the meantime the sea had gone quite choppy.  I haven’t got my sea legs yet, so it seemed more uncomfortable that it was although it did at one stage get very choppy and rolly.  We stopped in a bay on Amorgos for lunch.  I became paranoid about something else going wrong.  I realised that we had not tested the windlass and the boatyard had installed a new on off switch.  But it was all fine and we anchored with no problem.  We had a hot lunch of giant beans and sausage left over from the other night.  As we were cold, a hot meal was welcome.  The anchorage we were in didn’t seem great so we went on to the town of Katapola where we have been before.  On the way here we even got all the sails up.  We persevered just sailing for about 30 minutes or so (at times we were going at 5.2 knots in a wind speed under 10 knots) and then decided we would get into port too late and put the engine on.


We then took the sails down as we entered what Richard thought was to the creek that leads to the town only to realise after about 15 minutes that this was not the entrance.  So out we went with prematurely lowered sails.  We go to town at about 5:30 and found plenty of space on the town wall.  However we made a hash of setting the anchor.  Apparently it was my fault for not digging in the anchor.  So we had to go out and try again.  Luckily there were some nice men in the neighbouring boat who helped us to tie up as no one else from the port was here.  We are now moored though I am still not convinced that our anchor is holding us off the wall properly.  However, it is now very settled and after 4 hours we haven’t moved back, so we assume we will be OK.  I am hoping I can have a leisurely morning here shopping and maybe even having a coffee out before we set off for the next island.

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