Grace Notes

There is a small road bridge joining Evia to the main land which needs to be passed to proceed up to the Northern Sporades. Having read about it, it all sounded reasonably worrying with talk of 6-7 knots of tide at springs as you pass through the bridge and yachts being left out by the call by the port police and it all having to be done in the dark, as they only open the bridge between 10pm and 4am to avoid disrupting the traffic as much as possible. So we went and paid our dues and were given very clear instructions by the Port Police, who seemed very well organised and told us to expect the call about 2.00am, which would be around slack water. The whole event passed off pretty much as they said it would. We were prepared early and rigged the boat ready for an along side whilst we still had light. The Port Police called each boat individually to stand by at about 2.30am and then called each boat again individually to proceed through the bridge in turn. We went through, watche...

Karavos was a strange little place to stop, as you can see it was a place of two halves. The beautiful little harbour lined with bars and tavernas on the one side and the massive power station and cement factory on the other. Also strangely a place without any useful shops, a furniture shop, a boat brokerage, two kiosks and a bakery with no power, so no bread.   To add to the pleasant strangeness the evening saw a parade of possibly 100 youngsters, ageing from 4 to 16, parade through the streets, with candle lights, in celebration of the local swimming clubs 50th anniversary, singing rounds of "Go baby! Go baby! Go".

The dolphins gave us a show on our way from Karastos to Erétria.

We've left the Cyclades, and crossed "the windiest place in Greece" over to Evia. There was certainly evidence of wind. Here's a bent generator we saw on our way into the bay in which we spent the night. Ironically, we motor-sailed across the channel in light winds. On the way we had a brief encounter with some dolphins: There was a blowy kick in the tail though. The wind got up through the night, F6-7 across us. We'd laid our anchors to place our bows into the swell (a good move), but it did mean we had to stand anchor watches, and are a little groggy today. During the night, we were amazed by the performance of our lightweight Fortress anchor, expecting it to drag at any time. We've not had the best of experiences with it since we removed the very heavy length of chain from its rode, (there's no point having a 4kg anchor with 30kg of chain). but we chuck it out when we're not expecting much wind and we want to be able to retrieve it simply...

This chap manages the quay at Batsi, Andros. He's helpful, and has an amusing fluorescent vest. Sadly, we left with a sour taste in our mouths after he tried to rip us off.

On Saturday we arrived in Loutra on Kithnos. A lovely little place with a hot spring. We went and sat in 50° water just in one corner of the beach. The minerals are supposed to be good for your skin and give other health benefits too. What was less good for your health was the mooring on the quay. We had to abort the trip to the spring once as a 54ft charter yacht came in and crossed us. On returning from the spring the harbour master tried to squeeze another yacht into the space at the other side of us, which was far too small. They got wedged about half way down our boat. Another boat was wedged into a similarly small gap next door but one on the other side. The 54fter was apparently leaving in an hour and, as we were all by now criss crossed, we all had to sit and wait. Everyone remained good humoured and it all sorted itself out at about 9pm when the 54fter left. We then went for a drink, but were interupted again as a Sunsail boat came very late to the party. They ende...

Yesterday we were on a collision course with this convoy: That's a tug towing a barge with a crane on it, some sort of tanker, and another tug. Being Greece, none of the vessels showed any of the appropriate day shapes. We were on a collision course for a good half hour, but they didn't show any sign of budging. We had to approach within a mile to see the towing cables. We applied Rule 2 and Rule 17 (which essentially say "even if the other guy isn't behaving, you're not allowed to crash into him"), and Rule 0 (a local special rule - "if its Greek, keep out of its way"), and hove-to to let them pass.

We have spent 3 night holed up on Mykonos waiting for the Meltemi to calm down. We have had an excellent time here, despite thoroughly disliking Mykonos town. The army of yachties, as Phil referred to them, turned out to be not only helpful but very friendly. We went to dinner with three other couples the first night and had a lovely drunken evening, with good food and a lot of laughs. Everyone was incredibly helpful including the motor yacht crew and owners, who joined in the chatting and on one occasion asked if we needed anything from the shop, as he was going! We were all out on the quay for most new arrivals as the 30 knots of breeze made mooring up especially tricky. Unfortunately there were some accidents. Some were just minor wind induced mess ups and no damage was done, a lot pushing and shoving from the shore crew was enough to solve the issue. However some were more serious and several boats were damaged, pull pits bent, smashed fibre glass bathing platform, scratch...

Let me correct my last post about the Meltemi being more about the sea state than the wind. Its definitely about the wind too. This morning we came to Mykonos and had a very windy last couple of hours (F7, gusting F8). Thanks to the assistance of a small army of yachties on the quay, we moored alongside in 35 knots. We've got all our string out.   Its still giving it some out there.

Common wisdom is that its a bad idea to go North up the Cyclades in July or August, due to the regular northerly wind called the "Meltemi". Here's the weather forecast for today, typical Meltemi stuff: SOUTHEAST AEGEAN IKARIO WEST OF 26.00 NORTH NORTHWEST 5 LOCALLY 6 OVER NORTH PART 6 LOCALLY 7 AND EAST OF 26.00 NORTH NORTHWEST 5 LOCALLY 6. MODERATE We wanted to go fifteen miles to the North. "Fine", we thought, "We'll reef and put in a couple of long tacks. We'll end up going 25 miles through the water, but that will only take 4-5 hours". We set off, reefed down, ready for a good sail. To start off we were storming along at 6 knots in the right direction, but about a mile out of the bay, the wind died. The sea state was very confused, with large swells coming from several directions and many white horses. It certainly looked as though there was wind, but there was only 6-7 knots, changing direction through 100 degrees every ten minutes....

The new alternator arrived on this morning's first ferry. Look at the shiny-shiny: I had to swap the pulley for one the right size, but otherwise its all fine. - Phil

I have at last been trying to do some of my Yacht Master Theory, after Phil successfully completed his several weeks ago. I have the technique for secondary ports down perfectly, my methodology would gain many marks, as I show my workings every time. However what these working show every time so far, is the stupid error that I have made. From selecting the 31st instead of the 21st to missing the midnight cross over into the next day and through getting the numbers right and then still putting the line in the wrong place, I have done the lot. The only consolation is that I have not made the same mistake twice and I must be running out of mistakes to make. It feels a lot like my GCSE Maths homework used to but it will not defeat me.

It will be shocking news to those of you who know me, to hear that I have been subject to a whole string of accidents. Fate has been against me from the start. The current issue has been with my right foot. The initial injury occured two weeks ago today. I did what can only be described as a complete air step, having tried to put my full weight down on the seat that was just not there. A big bang followed, along with some bruising and a small amount of swelling to the top of my right foot. Very serious, as it has prevented me wearing heals now for a fortnight. As the week I rested it before running again ended, I stubbed it quite badly into the door that allows access to the compressor for the fridge, left open by the other member of team Grace. This morning we went running at 6.10am (be impressed) and I managed to stub the same foot on a cat's eye and do a very dramatic falling roll in the street. The impact of this is not really serious, however I will be attending the 8...

Things I did today: Went running at crap o'clock, sun came over the hill as we climbed back on board. Re-installed the old alternator to double check it was kaput. Yup - no output. Re-re-installed the good alternator. Asked around in Paros, and discovered Νίκος Καστανιάς, an alternator doctor. Walked up the hill, talked to Nikos. He took the back off  the old one and placed his money on in needing re-winding. Unfortunately, that means shipping it back to Athens, and there's no guarantee fixing it would be cheaper than a new one. So I ordered a new one - and was promised it will come on a ferry tomorrow (will be stunned if it does). There's one a little cheaper on e-bay, but that would take a few weeks before we could get our hands on it. Wired up our smart charger properly.   The "smart" charger has been bugging me for months. Its a magic box that provides the appropriate charging regimes for the domestic and engine batteries. The charger is effective at ...

At the start of the week, we moored in the crater of an extinct volcano, wondering what to right about on the blog.... Setting off, Grace provided the material. Our alternator went phut (smelt a bit, and stopped producing the juice). Now I have it on good authority from Nigel Calder (who writes books on the subject) that "alternators are virtually maintenance and trouble free". Knowing this not to be true, since we've been up the creek without an alternator before, we paid out big bucks for a rebuilt spare before we left Nidri. Half an hour later, Team Grace had replaced the alternator and we were on our way again. Now we just have to find another spare.