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Published: July 19th 2023
After our lovely stay in Elounda Bay near Spinolonga we moved into a different mode as we keep thinking about our 90-day limit here in the Schengen countries (most of Europe with very few exceptions) so we decided we needed to start moving every day as much as we could. We know this is definitely not the way we typically like to travel as we enjoy stopping on the way to see things of interest, but time marches on and we have a long way to go to get to Cartagena, Spain. We know we could do some larger jumps by doing some overnight and multi-day trips which we know are definitely in our future, but for now we decided to just try this with long day trips. We will see how this works out throughout our time in Greece as we know we will be doing an overnight to Italy. As this period of time is mainly about moving from anchorage to anchorage or harbor, I thought I’d try to just do short diary type entries and include photos of the beautiful coastline we have been able to enjoy.
June 7 – We left the anchorage near Elounda at
5:09 AM as we had heard from many that we should do this to have low winds until we get up to the “point” that we must get around to then proceed further west along the coast of Crete. This was good advice as when we rounded the corner, we did get some wind on the nose, but fortunately it wasn’t too strongly Today was actually a short day, but decided on this as we had learned that there was a good anchorage on the island of Dhir just off the coast of Crete. It turned out to be a lovely anchorage, but decided it must have been a seagull rookery as almost every spot on the cliffs around the edges had an individual seagull on it so the “hills were alive with the sounds of gulls”. We had been told there was sand and rocks on the bottom – guess the first time we went to anchor we caught a rock (or two) as it didn’t feel right when we were checking our anchor so decided to test it – well, I was on the helm and Bob was at the bow and I could see the bow going
lower and lower in the water so knew something was wrong – Bob used the windlass to bring up the anchor and all of a sudden there was a “pop” when it came off the rock, but then we still weren’t moving so got a second “pop” and we were free. Thankfully, the second time we put the anchor down we found a sand patch and all was good for the evening. A nice quiet spot with only one other sailboat anchored overnight.
June 8 – We left the anchorage on the island of Dhia at 5:40 AM as we were planning a little longer trip today. We know from what we have read that the anchorage we were aiming for was close to the military zone near the NATO base. We had found that there is an area here where they have gun firing activities with live ammunition so it is advisable to contact them to find out their schedule as they do the firings during the day time hours. We also know that the next day, the 9
th we would need to travel north directly through this firing zone so needless to say I sent them an
email to ask and fortunately found that they were not going to be doing any firing from the Missile Firing Installation NAMFI. That was great news as that would have meant either changing our plans to a nighttime passage or going miles out of our way. As Bob says he is glad I read the fine print and follow up on these issues to be sure all is ok with the planning that he has made for our travels. Definitely happy to hear that there won’t be any live missiles being fired when we go through the area today or tomorrow! Today’s passage wasn’t bad, just had to motor with only a little help from the sails as what wind we did have was on the nose. That seems to be the rule! We are definitely enjoyed our views of mountainous Crete. In this area you do near talk on the radio from “NATO warships” calling boats in the area and asking particulars such as number of passengers and destination. We didn’t get a call so guess we were fine (or too small to bother with!)
June 9 – Last night was the last anchorage on the island of
Crete as we now head north to the mainland of Greece, but will stop tonight at an anchorage on Kythira Island. Left at 5:10AM as the plan today is a 14-hour passage. They aren’t bad as with the long summer days we still are able to get to a new location in daylight. About 1:30PM when Janice was on duty, she saw out of the corner of her eye something jumps out of the water so thought it was a fish. Looked again more closely and saw one lone dolphin jump completely out of the water and then went on its way. Somewhat unusual to see only one but we still take a dolphin sighting as a sign of good luck! We had a really nice sail today and for a part of it we had a favorable current that helped us along as well – always nice when that happens! Maybe that dolphin was the lucky charm…
June 10 - Left the lovely anchorage on Kythira Island at 5:15am and saw a very large turtle on our way out of the harbor. We heard that there are many turtles in the area so we were glad to see
one before leaving. About 10:30AM while Janice was on duty got a chance to see a pod of dolphin. They were definitely on a mission as they came toward the boat at a 45-degree angle, swam around (and under) the boat and then continued on their 45-degree path. They didn’t hang around to “play” but we still take seeing dolphins as a good sign – we definitely never tire of seeing them. There was also an area that we had to travel through that was full of commercial ships. At first, we couldn’t tell if this was just a large anchorage/mooring field for them or if some of them were moving through as many of their AIS were showing that they were moving. Janice was on duty during this time so after figuring out which ones were only moving very slowly, she still called some of them to let them know we were coming through. I was told even though they are moving a little it is because they are actually drifting waiting for a process to be done in a few hours. Not sure what was going to be done but as long as they knew we were there
and moving through it worked out fine. Only one that made us think twice was when I called one of the ships and informed him, I was off his port bow he said “are you sure you are calling the right ship as I don’t see you” - I informed him that I did call the correct ship and repeated where we were located and he then said he could see me and it was ok to pass by. With some of them stopped but still with engines on, just wanted to double check that they were not going to start moving when I was close by.
Did see one unusual one – when looked at the AIS on our chart plotter there were 2 boats very close together and it stated that they had restricted maneuverability. They did pass in front of us and then turned around and stopped. When they did, we could see that it was actually 2 ships connected together next to each other. Not really sure why they would do that – sure was something different for us to see.
While on our journey today we kept hearing what sounded on the radio
like “Libya Radio calling” – They were calling for boats near a particular area to respond to a sinking sailboat. Always hate to hear anything like that. Only could hear one side of the conversation so not sure of the final outcome on that one – sure hope it was as positive as possible for all involved.
This was a short day as we anchored at 1:45pm in with Ormos Skoutari with high winds still blowing. Never like an anchorage that has white caps in it! Not the best but got a good hook as the winds ran from 15 – 27 knots all day and most of the night so not a calm night for sleeping.
We now have made it from Crete to mainland Greece. Tomorrow we will head to a marina in Kalamata for a few days which will be a nice break from the daily moves we have been making.
June 11 – Got our usual early morning start out of the anchorage at 4:55am to get to the Kalamata marina today. We many times are surprised with what we hear on the VHF radio. Today there was an airplane that identified itself
Plenty of Seagulls in This Achorage
look closely to see them on the hillsas part of the EU forces that wanted to talk to a ship. We listened in and it appears they stated they were checking on the illegal import of weapons. You never know what you may hear!
We made it to the Kalamata Marina by 4:30pm so gave us time to check in to the office and then just take a quick wander around the area. Looking forward to staying in one place for a couple of days to be able to wash the boat down from all the salt, do some laundry and stretch our legs for a bit.
Will put up photos of our time in Kalamata in the next blog entry so can get this one posted as know I am so far behind already with it being the middle of July in reality right now. Oh well, as they say, better late than never as try to fill in our blog so we can remember our travels later on!
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