Tuesday 6 June 2017 – Giaropounta Island, between Paros and Antiparos

Well the morning started out quite well.  We flaked out very early and woke up fairly early.  So we made a quick getaway from what was a very pleasant stop.  The weather forecast was for virtually no wind from the north.  So it seemed to be a motoring job to the next stop. 

We did have one little hiccup.  Richard said that when he looked at the anchor it seemed to be caught on a tyre.  Now I know that tyres are often put down full of cement to hang mooring buoys from.  I suspected that was what was going on.  I proved to be right because when I took up the anchor it was fouled with a large hook of rope, which luckily I was able to free without problems.

So off we go to what was described to us as the best anchorage in Greece.  It is only good in settled weather but the weather forecast seem to indicate this was the case.  We motored for most of the way, finding that there was a little wind but it was a westerly, not northerly as predicted.  This meant that it was on the nose until the last hour.  Then the wind went around to the beam and Richard decided to put of the mainsail.  But as our luck would have it as soon as the sail went up, the wind dropped to nothing, so it was still a motoring job.

When we got to the anchorage we really couldn’t work out where to set down.  So we just let the anchor out in more or less the first place we came to.  There are no other boats around.  The anchor went down well and seemed to dig in beautifully.  But then near disaster.  The pilot book says you are supposed to tie a long line ashore here.  Our first problem is that we don’t really have a suitable line.  We have planned to us our old main hayiard, but that isn’t so long.  In order to be able to tie that one we need to be close in shore.  But now the wind has really got up and is blowing the top of a 4 and the boat it blowing all around.  We make a terrible mess of tying the line on the shore.  First we got it all tangled up in the rudders.  Then the boat blew around so far the rope was too short. 

Eventually after nearly an hour the line was tied to a rock on the shore.  It was then that near disaster occurred.  I noticed that the line ashore had got caught up in the swimming ladder and looked like it would take the top wooden steps up.  I asked Richard to loosen the rope so I could free it, but it became stuck and suddenly the rope tightened with my left hand under it being squashed between it and the boarding ladder!  I screamed in agony and finally the line loosened and I was able to retrieve my hand, all grazed and bruised.  But luckily I do not seem to have done permanent damage.  I will have a hand full of wonderfully multicoloured bruises, but it seems to be working OK.

After that close shave I was a bit shaken, and let Richard persuade me to have a swim before lunch.  Boy is the water cold (22.5C).  Also a stiff breeze remains and that makes the air temperature seem cooler than it is.  So I think I was brave to go in.

Here the afternoon wasn’t very comfortable with a swell and the boat rocking about.  But thankfully by the evening the wind seems to have died down and turned around so it is far more comfortable.

I have used up nearly all our fresh food so tomorrow we go to a town to reprovision and maybe wait out a Meltemi (due Friday).