Sailing The Full Story

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The Cyclades (Ke clad ies)

Week 1

Crew: Sam, Debbie, Shirin, Yiannis, Costantinos, Kojo

We started our Epic adventure round the Cyclades in Athens. We arrived to pick up the boat on Sat, we were stunned by the number of luxury boats in the Marina, they would give Warren Buffet a run for his money!

After provisioning the boat and getting our crap in order we left early Sunday and headed for Cape Sounio, which is South East coast of Athens, unfortunately it was blowing a force 7 (about 30 knots) so we had to anchor up in a bay for 2 days rather than head straight for the islands. We ended up putting 2 anchors down as it was blowing which was fortunate as we had gusts during the night of 40-knots! It was a good way to get into the swing of things, lots of swimming and drinking was done of course but it also gave us a chance to get to know the boat! It was also Shrin's birthday so it gave us an excuse to eat cake!

Then 2 days later we moved onto Kythnos, which was small island, pretty enough, but we managed to find a bay (see pics) which was stunning and secluded, the sail from Cape Sounio took about 4 hours and by the time we anchored up we were all starving, fortunately we spotted a small Taverna on the shore, so we dropped the dingy and headed for land.

We then moved onto and Island called Serifos, which was absolutely amazing, the port was great, buzzing and lots of nice patisseries and coffee shops ( I became addicted to Frappe's while we were there due to lack of Starbucks!) but the crown jewel was the town (Chora), at the top. It looks like the sort of things we expected to see, lots of white house, beautiful churches and an amazing view at the top (see pics). Only down side was a scary bus ride to the bottom by crazy Greek drivers!

Next day we moved to Milos which is a large island. We stumbled across Kleftiko which has beautiful cliffs riddled with caves above and below water. We anchored right next to it and toured around in our dingy, see pics. The water was as warm as a bath and the sea was stunning blue! Yes yes, we were very spoilt - oh and i forgot to mention it was sunny everyday and about 30 degrees and we had cold beers!

We then moved round to the main port, which was also great, it was a very vibrant happening place. This was the week 1's crew last night and Constantine and Kojo managed to find a great bar which overlooked the Marina, we sipped Gin and Tonic's while watching the sun set and then stuffed our faces with Souvlaki (Greek name for Kebab, but has Tzatziki, chicken or pork, salad and chips)
We had a great night with the gang and we very sad to see them go....
The crew we great, Yiannis is a professional photographer and managed to capture some amazing photos, Constantine and Kojo were the night owls, proving to find parties and bars wherever they went and Shirin kept us all in line....

Thanks guys we had a ball!!!

Week 2
Crew Sam, Debbie, Ollie, Miriam, Chris
Due to Chris's 21st being the Saturday that Shirin, Yiannis and co got off Debbie and I had a few days alone on the boat until the others arrived on Monday.. Fortunately for us that coincided with the bad weather with more force 6-7's blowing through Sat and Sunday. I must admit to being quite surprised by the weather and quite how much wind we had in the Cyclades.. Apparently it was unusual for the winds to have lasted so long or to be quite so intense. Various locals admitting that they had had the Meltemi (strong north wind) all summer and it was wearing thin.
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wind/The-Meltemi.htm
Still Debs and I had a couple of days chilling out on the boat reading eating lots of ice cream and eating at some great little places. We even found some strange fruit (see pic to understand).

With Ollie Miz and Chris arriving directly from Plymouth and Chris's 21st (bus journey to London, flight to Athens on Sunday then up early and ferry to Milos on Monday) We had a restful afternoon with them just swimming and chilling. It turned out that the Monday was Chris's 21st so we went out to the bar overlooking the bay for some evening drinks and got a great photo which is the crew pic. Tuesday saw us back to Kleftiko to show the new crew something beautiful.. We spent about 6 hours there running underwater with rocks, holding the boat up and tombstoning off the cliffs. (See Pics and picture only blog for video). In all a very satisfactory day and return to many a youthful day spent in NZ on boats.. After a final night in Milos we headed off on Wednesday early for a 30 mile beat to windward to the Island of Sifnos. It turned out to be a great sail winds in the early 20's and we managed to lay Sifnos on one tack. We even managed a little speed competition which somehow the first mate managed to win.. 6.5 knots on the speedo.. she very kindly didn't mention it again..

At Sifnos we lucked into our favourite place. Plati Gialos on the charts was an open bay that had reasonable holding (and was our second choice, the first was full) We found a newly constructed marina that wasn't on the charts so we tied up stern to here and it was a fantastic little spot. The beach was the longest on Sifnos and full of great little tavernas and bars. Our two favourite were the place that did a belgium waffle with ice cream, caramel sauce nuts and was the nuts... The other was a little beach bar that will live in Chris's mind for undisclosed reasons where they did the best cocktail ever a lemon sorbet mojito. Anyway we liked it so much we stayed two days lazing on the beach, throwing a rugby ball around swimming and drinking in the bars. Tres relaxing.

Friday saw us having to get to the port of Paroikia on the Island of Paros. This was the main ferry port and the island with the airport to meet crew three. After a windless sail using the iron sail we arrived in the port and to be honest were relatively disgusted. Polluted too many people and a little to cheap package holiday us. So we hired two four wheelers and a scooter and headed North to Naousa which was again stunningly beautiful. We had a lot of fun on those bikes cruising around, racing up hills (top speed of very slow) and generally having a good look around.

Sadly Saturday saw the departure of Ollie and Miz.. an all too short time guys will have to make sure next time is a lot longer and look forward to spending more time with my Bro. It's cool to confirm how much fun your siblings are.

Week 3
Crew Sam, Debbie, Neil, Tessa, Chloe (18months old) & Chris (we persuaded him to stay to help if the wind got up)

Saturday changeover day saw us cleaning and provisioning the boat for the final week. Neil, Tessa and Chloe arrived to a hot sweaty welcome and with Debs promptly departed for the beach to cool off. Leaving me to deal with the Greek Coastguard. One of the rules of the sea with greece is to always have filed a accurate crew list and planned schedule with the coastguard. Sadly the facilities to comply with this requirement are run in the traditional greek manner, i.e. haphazard. Now I admire them for having sensible rules on who can run a boat and keeping track of them it's just wasting an hour to get a piece of paper stamped in triplicate is well.. not ideal.

Also I should say at this point that the provision of maritime forecasts is non existent. The Cyclades are supposed have broadcast on channel 4 but it seems they do not have any repeater stations so unless you are in direct line of sight to the island of Syros you have no hope of getting a forecast from Olympic radio (the coastguard).

Anyway we ate on board the first night and introduced Chloe to boat life. Chloe is the most well behaved, bubbly two year old that you will meet. In the entire week I heard her cry twice and have only one temper tantrum. Surely a testament to the parenting skills of the two most laid back people in the world ;-). Debs and I are in agreement that we want to steal her and that we have no hope of our kids being so well behaved with debbies strong will and my penchant for throwing myself off things. Anyway Chloe a pleasure having you on board.

Sunday was a most unexpected day.. keen to get underway, and back to our favourite port of Sifnos to show Crew 3 something beautiful we woke up early and set off only to run smack into a fog bank. Still plenty of time we thought and headed up back to Paros to have a swim in a nice little bay just out of the main port. Here Chloe had her first taste of deep water swimming and after a little climatisation took to it like only kids can. Swimming by herself between us watchful adults in 10 meters of water 500m off shore. Something to be proud of ;-) Anyway by about mid day the fog seemed to have burned off and with a four hour journey ahead we set off. 2 hours in and the fog was back. With Vis down to 20 meters at times and wind at 10 knots we ghosted forward at a reduced speed for another two spooky hours. Culminating when we expected to make landfall and the fog had closed right up we were on 10 minute position checks 3 knots boat speed watching the bottom come up. Loads of calls to Neil on the fore-deck later (can you see land yet?) we got the affirmative reply and turned sharp right 20 meters away from the cliffs. Fortunately we had sailed down here 2 days previous in full vis and verified the water was deep to the cliffs. I was quite glad to tie up that night but got some stunning views of the fog that lasted until sunset. Fog in the Med at 3pm.. The local fisherman said the last time he remembered this in Summer was 10 years prior... Too much wind one day.. fog the next.. ah well that's sailing..

We showed Neil, Tessa and Chloe our favourite beach which they took too and had a relaxing two days chilling here. Chris went awol one night turning up the next morning a half hour after cast off time.. but with a big grin.. good lad...

Next stop Serifos for the pretty upper city of Chora. The trip saw a mildly sea sick Chloe (semi chewed orange everywhere) and due to a dodgy moussaka and clean up duty a more sea sick Neil. Still it was a relatively short trip and before long we were tied up in Serifos again for two nights. The highlights of the next two days being us sailing out to find a nice beach to swim at and ending up at the local nudist beach which meant more off shore swiming for Chloe. The other highlight was more a lowlight for others.

Upon returning from the nudist beach Debs was mastering the art of berthing and put our boat perfectly bum in next to an English couple from portsmouth. In an act that saved us later on, once we were berthed I decided we didn't have quite enough chain out and we should do it again (more practice as well) The next time (again perfect from the mate) we went further up the quay and put out heaps of chain. As per my normal practice I put a couple of springs to the bow on to ensure we wouldn't go anywhere and then left to do other things. Later on that evening Debs pulled me out of the Internet shop to say there was something going on with the other boats and that one of our springs was loose. After checking our boat out we witnessed one of the most abominal pieces of seamanship I've ever seen from the boat next door. Their anchor had dragged and they had no springs on so there boat was yawing right in the cross wind (left to right) hitting the boat of the english couple to the right of them. Now these boys were three sheets to the wind having been dragged back from the pub by Tony (the english guy) Instead of roping her up they decided to taker her out and reset the anchor. By now the cross wind was gusting 20 knots and these guys even when sober were probably not qualified to attempt a manouver like this. Anyway to cut a long story short they managed to roll their boat around the front of Tony's snagging his anchor with their keel and smashing into the next boat along as well (where we first berthed!!!!) At this point there was 6 of us pushing Tony's stern off the concrete pier, unfortunately a chunk of the gel coat around 10 centimetres was knocked off.. gutting. Anyway after much confusion we got the other boat out of there by lowering Tony's and the next boats anchor chains. Then had to reset them all as they had picked them up with their anchor.. what a mare and a good lesson for always assuming the worst when tying up.

Anyway the wind got up in Serifos and with the threat of force 8-9's coming in we put Neil, Tessa and Chloe on the ferry home on Thursday and did a 10 hour 80 mile sail back. After the first hour bashing into 3 m waves we concluded it was a good thing but then got lucky and laid athens on one tack hard to wind. A beautiful sail when we got in the lee of the islands and the athens peninsular. To top it off as we were coming into port on sunset we briefly had a dolphin playing on the bow wave. An auspicious end of a good sailing trip. Friday saw a visit by all to the Acropolis and the beginning of our shore week in Athens a day early but a good trip none the less. The storm came in on time on Saturday morning so glad for the days grace.

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