Kioni – Day 2 – Tummy Troubles

Unfortunately, we think the sausages we used in the pasta had gone off and we were both rather violently ill in the middle of the night. Yes, we drank sambuca…and yes, Kirk didn’t quite make it off the neighbours gangplank…well he did…just not the usual way….he apparently decided on an involuntary midnight swim. Alcohol and gangplanks don’t mix where Kirk is concerned. But really, what we are suffering is WAY more than a hangover.

As a result, we stayed in bed until very late and so far have really only moved out of the bed and onto the settees. We see a couple of familiar boats arrive. A woman pops over, said our conspicuous flags were a dead giveaway that it was us again. She is the woman from San Francisco traveling with the three British we met in Poros.

A boat docks to our port side and we hear him say that he is across our anchor line. Crappy, but good to know.

I look out the front hatch and see a flotilla lead boat docked three down. It’s flying the Canucks flag. Pretty sure I know who’s on board that one, likely the fellows we saw in Gouvia on day 1 getting their boat prepped for the season.

A boat pulls in beside us and it turns out they chartered Nikolas two years ago. They are two couples from Holland and they say they liked Nikolas very much and they and Kirk agree that it is a very well outfitted boat. She says “lots of tools, and two of every part you could ever need”. Sounds about right. They are having trouble with their battery and their windlass won’t work so they had to lay and pull their anchor by hand and as a result it’s not dug in. The winds are gusting off the hills and down into the bay, sometimes rather violently. We adjust fenders since the boats on both sides are much smaller than yesterday. They are worried about falling back onto the quay and ask if they may tie to our cleat to help hold themselves off. We say of course!

A boat flying a Swedish flag comes in beside them and they arrive yelling. At each other or someone else we aren’t sure. But they seem very nasty.

As the afternoon wears on and the the next wave of boats arrives, everyone wants to talk and we just don’t feel up to it. So we retire below again and try to get our tummies happier.

Later in the evening the winds are gusting harder and a few ferry swells make their way into the bay. When the couples from Holland came in next to us they pushed in across our starboard stern line. There is a ring missing on the dock so we had no choice but run farther. It means that our line is helping keep them off the quay, but it has also twisted us and when the gusts blow the boat it twists the port stern too close the the quay for comfort and pushes our bow onto the other boat on the port side. I stuff the dinghy in there to keep anything bad from happening. One thing about inflatable boats…they make fantastic fenders! We decide to tie a longer line off the starboard to try and let the boat off the quay a bit farther. As we do, the four cranky Swedes watch on silently. Eventually they come back and Kirk tells them what we did and that they should probably run a kedge anchor out because they are now sliding close to the dock. Kirk says that they asked the Swedes if they could run a line to their boat and received nothing but anger and ignorance. In Kirk’s words, the four fellows on that boat are pricks. So much for mariners helping mariners the woman on the neighbouring boat says. We feel a bit badly that we had to let off a bit and it slid them closer, but we really do need to look after Nikolas first.

A boat came in late and tried for the far spot on the quay, they didn’t manage to set properly and had to pull out. But when they did so they hooked another anchor. We then witnessed the most amazing educational display of how to properly extricate oneself. The fellow went down, grabbed line and a boat hook and the captain of the boat that had been hooked released more chain from the windlass. The fellow on the hooked boat brought up the anchor and the hooked chain and tied a loop in the rope and fed it down and around the chain then tied it off on his cleat. He then lowered his anchor, unhooked the chain from the anchor, raised his anchor, dropped the chain, and the fellow on the other boat retightened his chain from the quay. Everyone clapped! Masterfully done.

A bit later, three more boats came in but had no choice but to anchor. The first was a single handed German boat and he caused endless problems for over an hour. He’d anchor too close to the docked boats, people would yell, he’d drag, he hooked someone, but had a trip line to release. He just couldn’t get through the weeds and the winds were strong. An Austrian boat came in and anchored behind him, but the German fellow dragged and the Austrian boat had to pull up too. For a few minutes it looked a bit like bumper boats out there. They tried a couple of times and eventually went to the outside of the mole although they came off it last night at some point and re-anchored in the bay. The third boat is a British boat and they tried two or three times to anchor and pull to shore on the other side but apparently the gusts were proving to much and they eventually pulled off and went to outside of the mole too.

The gusts built later into full fledged winds but with the rejigging of the lines everything seemed fine and we slept fitfully. Morning could bring some interesting things as we know that at least one anchor line is across us.