Grace Notes

We arrived in Turkey on Wednesday 12th October. It has taken us since the 9th April to deliver the boat here, a particularly long schedule, which has been more about cruising than getting anywhere very fast. It was good to finally meet the owners of Sail in Turkey, and find that they really did want to have Grace on their fleet. We have been over the boat with them, and they seem reasonably pleased with her condition and were not even too freaked out about the fridge. It has all gone really well and really smoothly so far. We have unfortunately, booked our return flights and so now have a definite schedule for our return to the UK. We are therefore on our final jobs list, of which storage, seems to be the key sticking point so far. Although I am sure we will work it all out. Marmaris has made a good first impression. It is a big place with, the good, the pretty, the bad and the ugly, all there for us to navigate depending which kind of mood we are in. The bay itself is ve...

This seems so long ago, but with limited internet access in Turkey it has taken a while to get up to speed. So the weekend I am referring to was the 8th and 9th October. We were aware that the storm was coming and chose Pedi on Simi to see out the event. The forecast was for Force 8 from the south blowing up on the Saturday, with respite on the Sunday, and blowing up again on the Monday, and finally blowing itself out by Tuesday morning. In preparation we laid our 20kg Rocna and 20kg Delta in tandem and pointing south the direction the wind should have come from. I snorkelled them to ensure they were both in, and our only concern on retiring to bed on Saturday night, was that we seemed a little close to the end of the short quay when we swung around. So we picked 5 meters of chain up and went to bed. At 2.45am we were woken by the noise of the wind, which had finally arrived. The whole bay was up as yacht after yacht began to drag their anchor. Some only needed to re-ancho...

Making the most of our last week we spent two nights in Tilos, one at anchor and one on the quay, enjoying every last second of the sun and warm weather. The second morning we went running and ran up the steepest hill yet. Well done us. We then moved down to Khalki which was beautiful. The architecture is Venetian and so the place looks like Fiscardo, but much quieter, with only a few tavernas and a lazy rather than fashionable feel. However it is no place to be in a blow as the floating pontoon provided for visiting yachts offers very little protection from wind or swell. Last stop Simi and then into Marmaris.

We spent two nights on the lovely volcanic island of Nisiros. The main event was our trip around the island on a hired moped. The first thing to note is that, whilst Phil was driving and I was pillion, there were no accidents. We had a thorough briefing of where to go and how to get there from the moped hire man at Eagles Nest, who was from the island and had a lot of really good local knowledge. We started with a volcanic sauna in a natural cave up in the hills and then went down into the crater from there. The whole crater takes up the entire centre of the island, but within this there are two smaller craters. We were able to walk right up to the edge of the smaller and most recent one to erupt, and right down into the larger older one. It was an amazing experience to be in the crater of a volcano. It feels a lot like being in a Star Trek episode, especially as the rocks are all pumice and so weigh nothing, making them feel strangely like polystyrene rocks . The colours of...

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 ...

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.

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.

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".

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...

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...

We have been to Hydra and were lucky enough to get a spot on the quay. We had re-prepped to do a bows-to piggy off two yachts on the North side, just as two Nelson yachts left the quay on the South side. We quickly about turned and pinched a lovely spot. The harbour was particularly full as there was a flotilla of 40 foot catamarans blocking the view along the length of the North quay. The place is very pretty and rightly deserves the tourists it brings in. The lack of motorised transport was great and the donkeys and horses do work hard on everyday stuff as well as rides for the masses. We spent a great evening with a couple from Guernsey, who were just finishing a three week holiday. Lovely meal, great company, but the most expensive meal of the trip so far. Three of us had kalamari, which was nicely done, one whole fresh squid each. But it was 18 euros each! Compared to the 5 euros for a bowl full from the fisherman. We will be anchoring off and cooking on board for the...

We went all around the island on the coast road. The total journey was about 25km. There huge amounts of zig zaging, up then down, then up again. It was worth it for the views and to see into the beautiful little bays. Spetsai is written about as an island without cars. This is mostly true, as there were no cars, but there were hundreds of mopeds and some trucks. It was nice therefore to get out of the town with its constant moped drone. We discovered that the rest of the island is very quiet with virtually no motorised transport.

We loved our time in Navplion. Beautiful place and as Phil said "Very classy!" I especially liked it as I go to wear heals and a posh frock on the two nights we were there. Phil tried to suggest that we ate on board the second night but this was totally vetoed. We found the recommended arty bar that had plastic tat, random moving things and played jazz. I am sure some would describe it as eclectic. We liked it but it was the most expensive gin I have had so far, at 8 euros each, and the bar man was a miserable git. Despite the expense we managed to get quite drunk both nights. We also made use of the shopping opportunity of being in a big place. Shoe shopping was necessary as I needed new pumps. The lack of my size in the ones I really wanted saved us 45 euros. The place has a long and famous history having been the capital of Greece for a short period in the 19th century. It has more castles than you can shake a stick at. We did the walk up to the very top, up...

Grace is sitting pretty in Porto Kheli for a couple of days, enjoying sunshine (1.5-2A, measured by the solar panel), and restful nights thanks to the lack of swell. Finally, a real chandlers! We've upgraded our mooring warps, added re-enforced eye splices, and a couple of rubber surge protectors. (I'll not publish the colloquial name for the surge protector, you'll have to visit us if you want to know). We've also cured the "final" leaking hatch, fixed the seal around the galley sink, and Mrs Goo has been hard at work fixing our sugar scoop following the Ieraka misadventure.

A rainy day in Skala Leonidhion. Nice place, but the weather wasn't great and the constant swell ground us down a little. On Friday, we cycled into the town of Leonidhion.

Just a quick note about the 2 days and 3 nights we spent in Plitra. First of all the place is a tiny holiday resort, which was virtually closed for the off session. Beginning built in a grid formation with wide deserted roads and a stop signs on every corner gave it a strangely American feel. The one mini market was shut and so we had to cycle the 4 km into the next village to get supplies. Unfortunately we were out of the heavy stuff, all kinds of liquid, and so two trips were necessary. Lucky for us it was basically flat to get there and the wind was with us on the way home. There was very little bandwidth in Plitra. Phil tried his best to gain internet access by pegging the dongle in front of a metal sieve and holding up in different directions. He claimed that this improved things enough for us to get the weather but not much else. We ate in the nearest taverna of the two, which was directly at the end of the key. It was a nice place. No menu as it was out of session b...

We've not been blogging nearly a fortnight due to having little or no Internet connectivity. There's been plenty of adventure, which we'll summarise over the next few entries. As usual, more photographs can be found under "Voyage Pictures" on your right. We rounded the bottom of the Mani peninsula on Thursday 21st. There were light winds in the morning, "on the nose", and we had to travel quite a distance, so we motored most of the way. The wind picked up and backed to an Easterly as we passed Cape Grosso, allowing us to sail. We could see a lot of white water at the corner (Tainaro Point), and reaching it, we found this was mainly due to a large swell. The remaining three miles into Porto Kayio was pretty rolly, and when we finally turned left and shot downhill towards the narrow entrance to the bay, I was praying that the shelter was as good as Rod Heikell (the author of the local pilot guides, and minor deity of Mediterranean cruising) clai...