Grace Notes

We have been pottering around Khios and adjacent islands for the last few days. Mostly the places have been lovely, with the exception of Khios town itself. Marmaro and Emborios on Khios were both pretty places where we spent comfortable nights. Mandraki on the island of Oinoussa was slightly odd, as it had a yacht club with private pier, floodlit clay tennis court and basketball courts, full size athletics stadium, separate football stadium, outside cinema but no bakery. It was a place that did not exploit its water front and so you had to look for things, but however hard you looked no bakery, apparently they ship all their fresh bread over from Khios. However a very lovely, pretty and quiet place. The meltemi has been blowing on and off and we did have one disturbed night at anchor in a bay on Oinoussa. The bay was sheltered from the swell but not from the wind which blew up to 28 knots in the night. Anchor watch was required for a couple of hours to ensure that all was ...

We took advantage of a break in the weather to head for the Eastern Sporades. The omens looked good, a pod of dolphins escorted us for half an hour on our departure from Skyros. The official forecast was F7 locally F8, but we could see from the GRIBs (localised lies about what the wind might do) that in the afternoon the wind should drop a little and back, giving us a good blast ESE. Here's a picture of Grace in full flight, taken by S/Y Orpheus who were alongside us in Linari. The GRIBs turned out to be spot on for once. 10 hours and 60NM later we tied up in Psara alongside Orpheus and another yacht that had made the same trip. We're now at Kardhamila on the top of Khios. With the prevailing northerlies, its downhill all the way to Marmaris.

Yesterday was a very busy day, with three events worthy of note in just one day. The first was that we cycled over Skyros to the Chora. It was a hard ride there as it was both up hill and into the wind but stunning scenery. The Chora itself was well worth the climb, with the cobbled winding alleys and whitewashed houses and the occasional gem of a church. The fortification on the very top was closed due to earthquake damage. We stopped in one of the cafés, that gave the place it's classy feel, before flying home on the bikes. The second event was less positive as it involved me picking up another injury. We needed to re-anchor, as on our return had begun to drag the anchor. During this procedure I managed to get my hand trapped between our pull pit and the stanchion of another boat. We have so often said, "Keep your hands and feet out of the way", and I now realise just how good this advice is. There is nothing broken, scrapped skin and bruising but a defin...

So since Graham left us the Meltemi has turned itself back on. The forecast is now F7 locally gale 8, very different to the week when Graham was here. We are currently making the hop over from the western side of the Aegean to the eastern side, which means going across 40 miles of open sea. Therefore we are taking a weekend break in Skiros and are planning to make a dash for it on Tuesday, when there seems to be a small decrease in the wind. So in the mean time we are going to get the bikes out and cycle up to the Chora, 10km away, and then on to have a bit of a poke around and see what trouble we can get ourselves into.

Phil and Sara kindly invited me to join them for a week on Grace pottering around the NW Aegean and I flew out last Wednesday to join them in Skiathos. There was a hell of a blow on that day and into the next day; pushing well into 30 knots. And that was it. Since then there has been almost no wind so the lesson appears to be: I must not be greedy and use up all the wind on the first day of my holiday! However no wind does enable you to see some places and moor up in some tiny inlets that would otherwise be impossible with the Meltemi blowing as usual. We anchored beam-on across an inlet in the Maritime Park of Alonnisos and ate Phil's Thai Curry. The next morning we spotted a turtle - something we would not have been able to see if there was any more than a ripple on the water. It was good to see that the maritime park seems to be having a positive effect on the wildlife. We then motored down the north of Nisos Alonnisos and anchored where the sea bed sloped so deeply t...

This chap was so insistent on hitching a ride, he stayed where he was while we hauled the dinghy up onto the transom. He stayed there for a couple of hours, all the way from Orei to Ormos Pteloú.

As we have completed our last stop on Evia and head out into the Northern Sporades I would like to take a moment to appreciate the return of the green. The Cyclades were impressive in their own barren rugged way. The Choras looked pretty from a distance and the sunsets to be seen from them were some of the best we have ever seen. But I missed the green. I particularly love looking at the different shades of green from different types of foliage and as we moved north up Evia we saw more and more of this.

Monday night was hard work. We were at anchor, in a reasonably sheltered, shallow bay on the south side of the North Evia Gulf. View Larger Map At around 2330, we were about to turn in for the night. I did a final check on deck, only to witness a fantastic display of sheet lightning to the north, on the other side of Evia. We watched it for ten minutes. We became fairly confident it was not heading in our direction, but we know a thunderstorm can bring strong winds so decided to lay a second anchor. The ten minutes spent enjoying the spectacle cost us dearly. Lesson 1 : If a thunderstorm is about, don't dawdle - get prepared. We laid our second anchor, which is a 16kg Delta plus about 25kg of chain - not an easy thing to lug about. While doing so, it became apparent that the chain of the primary Rocna anchor was caught round something on the bottom. It looked to us (in the pitch black - a new moon), that the two chains were somehow entangled, but in thinking about it aft...