Kythnos to Syros

Big Waves affect everyone differently

This entry could also be labeled the 45 mile beat. We left our beautiful little calm harbour and ventured outside the entrance and were met with 5 to 8 foot seas and a 20-25 knot wind directly on the nose. For those new to sailboat cruising, you may not know that the battery power on the boat can be replenished in one of two ways – plugging into shore power (tough to do at anchor) or running the motor and having the alternator charge the batteries. In our case we also have an engine driven fridge, and when we run the engine it also creates refrigeration. After a couple days at anchor we need an hour or two of powering for the batteries and to cool down the fridge. So …  we drove headlong under power into the wind and waves. Our normal boat-speed is about 7.5 knots at the power setting we used. We were going 4.5 knots … the wind and waves were really slowing us down. The bay in Kythnos is about 5 miles from the top of the island. The wind and waves were getting really big so after considerable debate – one point of which was not wanting to give up any of the hard-earned ground we had just covered, we decided to head into the town of Loutra on the north side of Kythnos. Some decisions you make and you quickly think – good call, some it takes a while to figure out whether it is a good call, and still others you recognize right away it was the wrong thing to do. As soon as we turned the boat down the waves the boat occilated through 40 degrees of course while heeling left to right 40 degrees. This made it worse than going into the waves to windward so we turned around and headed again to Syros. With a reefed jib and main we sailed to windward for 40 miles on port tack close-hauled. We were up and down big waves and everybody took a turn steering. Tara is a dry boat – even in big waves we don’t get wet that often (which is a good thing) and we made it close to the entrance of Syros.

The navigation aids in Greece should be upgraded. I think I have ranted about this before. Marina the intrepid navigator gave us a waypoint and it was between two unmarked reefs. When we saw the one 300 meters ahead off the starboard bow it seemed mighty close. It was about a half-mile from the island and awash in the waves. In Canada we put a concrete marker on it with a light; but in Greece, not so often, so you need to know where you are at all times.

Into Syros we went and tied up on this huge mole with only one other boat (should have figured something out from this – foreshadowing) so we tied stern—to, plugged into the electricity and started using free Internet – woo hoo as Homer Simpson says. Syros is the capital of the Cyclades and has about 15 ferries a day arriving. Some are big and fast, some are small and really fast. They all make a big wake. In the morning after a leisurely breakfast where everyone was on their computer, a really big ferry surge came in. Our boat was pitching and rocking and the boarding ladder fell between the boat and the mole and ‘SNAP’ no more boarding ladder. Bummer but not really a problem, we can buy some lumber and make it. Syros is a big city – that’s good luck ... if you’re going to break something do it somewhere it is easy to fix. But what day was it ??? Sunday of course.

One of the quirks of Greece is that nothing but restaurants and coffee bars are open on Sundays. We were hooped. We met a group of other British Columbians that witnessed our misfortune and they decided to move to the marina across the way. and we moved to a marina on the other side of town. The marina is a bit run down, but it was free and we went side-to and put a ton of fenders out. We learned later that Syros is very exposed to ferry wakes and earlier this year a ferry missed its dock and went max power in the harbour and sent a 1.5 meter wave that pitched a boat up onto the quay breaking its rudder and swamping the cockpit. Yikes! We also went to a yacht chandlery in Naxos and he showed us a cleat from a 60 footer that was snapped in half in Syros – same problem. So the 15 Euros I spent on lumber seems like a small price to pay to “experience”.

We put some more diesel fuel in. Greece is somewhat like Croatia in some ways in that it is mostly a cash society. How many gas stations have you visited in the past 30 years in Canada and the US that wouldn’t take a credit card? I can’t think of any. In Greece we have encountered a couple of fueling stations that only take cash. Perhaps it is a part of their overall credit crunch. Similarly the inventories in most of the stores are very low. Quite in contrast to Canada where land and rent are high, we reckon that land is cheap and inventory is expensive – or perhaps there aren’t many organizations that provide liberal credit terms to retailers so they manage their inventory tightly.