Morning and it’s gorgeous. There is a bit of wind, but the predictions for the next 48 hours are between 1 and 4. Perfect. N-NW winds will make it a little slower than the SW winds we started out with, but such is life.
Boats that have been stuck here for days, like us, are finally leaving the dock. There has been a boat called the Arianna docked across from us. www.arianna.gr. Expensive charter boat!
People here are still talking about that storm that we went through two weeks ago. We have finally come to the conclusion that it was a Beaufort 8.
We had cloud for the first time yesterday but it blew itself away in the evening and we are cloudless again today. Approaching 30 degrees at 0900.
Heading back towards Seriphos today, a long haul but good weather finally. Then we will probably head for Kythnos, a different port probably, then Sounion on the mainland before finally ending up back in our home port. Our route means that we will be without internet for a few days so in all likelihood we probably won’t update again until Athens.
Bye for now!
We headed for Seriphos, we rounded the corner out of Paroikia and into some great wind!.
We fight with the mainsail for a few minutes, me cursing it with a vengeance. If we do decide to sell and go sail, we will NOT have a mast furling main. A pain in the patootie is what they are. You can only tighten them up so much, and man, do they jam up on you. We hate the thing.
Sails up, off we go! Winds died, seas flattened, we cursed. Motor on, sails down, straight to Seriphos. 32 nautical miles, straight. Very uneventful. Our sole emergency on this crossing was that my birthday card flipped out of my book and into the sea. We did an emergency card overboard drill and rescued it. Then back on our way.
The lack of other boats out on the water is still surprising to us. We counted a grand total of 6 boats today. One of which was a 60 foot power boat, one of the first we have seen out. The Mediterranean is dominated by sailboats and we can see why. With the way the seas can come alive here, a sailboat is much more steady in the water.
It was so calm out that we ended up on opposite ends of the boat, reading, making the occasional course correction. Autopilot would be nice at this point, but not necessary.
Because we were on a straight line to Seriphos, there wasn’t really anything to take pictures of, so we resorted to photos of each other….. When we left Vancouver, Kirk’s co-workers presented him with a holiday gift of a Speedo, some lime green flip flops, and some circa 1970’s Foster Grant sunglasses. Got an email from Les the other day, said no Speedo, no payo….. Well, we figured we were in the middle of the channel so there wasn’t anyone to scare, except maybe the dolphins. We laughed so hard we cried. What Kirk will do for money!
Finally into Seriphos, quieter here than last week. Had dinner, lounged a bit, went for a walk, visited the woman at the jewelry store again, back to the boat for a nightcap. All in all, probably the most relaxing day we have had.
