Sunday 2 July 2017 – Ayios Eufimia (Cephalonia)

Well, today was nearly the day that stopped me sailing for good!  We had been watching the weather report for Sunday for days and it was not good.  There were supposed to be strong winds on the nose.  But last night and this morning it seemed to have changed.  The winds were predicted to be strongish on the nose, but not above 17 knots and the sea state was not bad.  Further, the high winds were due in the late afternoon, so if we got an early start then we should be able to get to Cephalonia before really bad weather came in.

Also the Weymers really want to get going.  They have been on the island for a week and want to get on.  So we decided to go.  The Weymers got to us early so we hoped to be ahead of the game.  However things did not start very well, because when we tried to take up the anchor we found that we were under the chain of the boat next to us.  It was probably our fault as when we put the anchor out we did not realize how close to the next boat they wanted us.  But it was solved fairly quickly with Keith using his knowledge to maneouver us around and the use of our little trip hook to lift the other boat’s chain.

So the day started as predicted.  Sunny and very little wind, though what there was was on the nose.  By lunch time the wind had hardly picked up at all and Richard was wondering where the force 4 predicted was.  Well he didn’t have to wonder for long.  The wind steadily built, 11 and 12 knots, then 15-17 knots and then a full blown 6 on the nose with the sea getting more and more choppy.  By 4pm the wind was gusting and 25-30 knots.  The sea was so choppy that waves were breaking over the top drenching us all.  By this time we are all in life jackets.  The dinghy is being a real problem flipping over all the time and diving in such a way as to act like a sea anchor stopping us from making even the modest progress we were making in the face of the wind and the waves.

By this time I am ready to jump ship, only that seemed marginally more likely to get me drowned than staying aboard!  When we finally turn into the bay where the harbour we are making for is, things get worse not better.  It is now regularly blowing 29-31 knots and the sea is as rough as before.  After what seemed to be hours we finally got into more settled waters, although the wind was still blowing a 6.  I see from the entrance that there is a VHF channel to call up on, which I do, and not to my surprise we are told that there are no berths on the pier.  We are given the choice of anchoring on the other side of the breakwater with the rocks behind us tying a long line to the rocks.  This would be safe because the wind is blowing from behind in that position, but we don’t fancy trying to do that in these conditions.  We not that there are about 5-6 boats anchored in the harbour itself, swinging free, and we decide to do that.  It takes us two goes to get the anchor to dig in, but after a long time checking it we are content that we are safe.  For the first time in about 4 hours I start to breath a bit easy.

So here we sit in Euphimia harbour at anchor.  We have an anchor warning on but we haven’t moved.  We have had dinner on board.  It is still  blowing at least a 4 gusting 5.  We had hoped the wind would die down more, but it hasn’t.  We should consider ourselves lucky because not long after we anchored we heard the harbour authorities tell other boats that the harbour is full and they cannot even anchor where we are.  The weather report for tomorrow is still bad.  We hope someone will move and we can get on the pier.  In any event I am not going out to see in these conditions again!