One Last dinner out at Poros

Chelsea treated us to a great dinner at the Poseidon Restaurant in Poros. It’s run by a local guy that has a fish boat as well as the restaurant. Very well run place, very friendly staff with excellent food at good prices. How can you go wrong?

I had a lamb Kleftico – which is a baked lamb shank that is so tender that it falls off the bone. Jess had the Special Chicken Souvlaki, Chelsea tried a lamb/beef mince souvlaki, Ross had (surprise surprise) Spaghetti Bolognese, and then we had the classic Greek Salad, cheese balls, saganaki cheese, a liter of rose, a couple of Mythos and watermelon to top it off.

 After the kids departed for the Gelato store, Marina and I snacked on the watermelon and remaining bits of food on everyone’s plate. We even managed to leave a little left over to bring home and have for lunch. What a great evening! Thanks Chelsea


The quay at Poros...a favourite.

 

Out of Poros and the Arrival of Joost

Marcel had to go to Athens to drop of Stan and the boys and to pick up his son Joost. We first met Joost at Kremik (“My name is Joost – like toast but with a Yo”) and the kids have been great ever since. We have managed to connect with Joost each of the last 4 summers for a little while. The boys seem to start up where they left off, computer gaming, playing in the water, goofing around. Joost is also nice to Jessie which is a good thing as well. He has a kind heart.

Ross, Jess and Joost on the SUP

 

And sometimes...just too much technology!

And then Chelsea arrived. It was a somewhat close connection after her flight arrival in Athens to get to Piraeus (the ferry port) to catch the last ferry to Poros where we waited for her. She was taking the same route as Marina and Jess...taking a little longer to get to us with the 1 hour ferry ride to Poros but saving a lousy trip to Athens with Tara which is 30 miles straight upwind. We had agreed if she missed the ferry she would find an internet café and let us know. We didn't hear anything so we waited at the ferry dock on Poros.


Jess waiting for Chelsea



In came the 'Flying Cat 6" and off came the passengers...and off they came...and more came off...and then none. About 15 seconds later came Chelsea running off, she didn't realize this was the Poros stop! After a good laugh and lots of hugs we settled into dinner at the tavern right across from the ferry dock, all happy to be here!

She arrived safe and sound!

After another day in Poros where Marcel got his fridge repaired by the same guy that fixed ours, we headed off to Kithnos for a few days. Kithnos is 43 miles from Poros and we ended up powering for a couple, then we set the “whomper” … our mast-head spinnaker and sailed for an hour before we gave up and powered until we were about 10 miles away. Marcel started a half hour before us and continued to power while we were sailing in a dying wind – slowly extending his lead to about 2 miles. At around 10 miles off of Kithnos the wind started picking up so we hoisted our sails (technically we unrolled them) and started sailing. The wind shifted unfavourably at first, for a time we were pointing at Serifos, but as we got closer the Kithnos the wind lifted 70 degrees right into the bay we were aiming at.  We were retracing some steps that we had made a couple years ago on our year away. We had stayed in this bay that we call Hot-tub bay for three nights waiting out the Meltemi.

Matt and Ross taking a break on the bow

We made it into Hot-tub bay around 17:00, anchored and then hit the beach. There is an awesome sand beach there with a Kafe on the point that serves excellent food. We planned on staying at least two nights so we put our anchor in good and solid, let out half a mile of chain and started to have fun.

 

Tara at anchor on Kythnos

Ross and Joost goofing around.

Tomskii had to move on the next morning to pickup more passengers in Santorini. They decided to press on to Naxos – another 55 miles then take the ferry from there to Thira (Santorini) rather than risk the boat in a dodgy anchorage.

The Black Boat Size Competition at Kythnos...the small
one came in first, then the next size up, then the biggest one.
Then the power boat...do they know each other??

After dark Marcel and Lena rowed over and said their goodbyes over a couple of beers and some wine. We talked about a 7am coffee on Tomskii. I got up at 5:30 and they were there – I was startled by Chelsea being awake on deck along with Jess sleeping. It was too early so I went back to bed and got up at 07:00 but unfortunately Tomskii and crew had left – however (Marina’s favourite part of the story) not before I got in the dinghy and nearly stepped on someone else’s boat and got their dog barking at me. The boat that took their place had the same colour bimini, dodger and sails but it turned out to be a Beneteau 50 – just like ours – and I remember thinking on my way over, “I don’t remember Tomskii looking as much like Tara as it does this morning … hmmm” and as I got within 20 feet of the boat that had two people enjoying a coffee in the cockpit, I waved and slowly headed back to Tara.

Sunset on Kythnos

Later that morning Marina was SUPping and the kids took after her in the dinghy. Ross tried to jump onto the SUP from the moving dinghy to knock his mom into the water and in the process, got tomahawked in the head by the SUP paddle. They came back to the boat a few minutes later and Ross had blood streaming down his face. It took some doing but we got it staunched and he’s been cooped up with a headache and unable to swim until it scabs over a bit. We might take him in for stiches back at Poros.

NOT HAPPY!

Needless to say the departure of our friends and Ross having a gash in his head put a bit of a damper on staying in Kithnos. We thought after two nights we might spend a 3^rd however Windfinder put the fear of the 35knot Meltemi in us and we decided to bug out the next morning.

Playing on the beach at Kythnos

Marina and I awoke and we prepared the boat getting ready for the open ocean swells. The wind was in the high-teens/low 20’s and as we exited Hot-tub Bay the waves were a couple of meters high. We started sailing immediately and put our nose towards Poros – some 43 miles away at 270 degrees.

 

Our return sail to Poros turned into a very enjoyable 45 mile down-hill ride with the jib, main, then spinnaker, then back to the jib. We sailed all but a half mile, with speeds in the 7’s and 8’s for most of it. We wind softened after passing the island of Georgios so we hoisted the spinnaker and covered another 20 miles or so until the wind picked up to 12knots true – and we were doing as high as 9.6knots boatspeed. Our safety zone is if we are over 8 knots of boatspeed for 15 minutes we shorten sail, so we switched back to white sails and only lost a knot of boatspeed. It was a bit less exciting but alas, it was much more comfortable.

Jess found a friend

 

Up Close and Personal

Most cruising sailors don’t get close to another boat except at the dock – and as we learned in Poros this can be quite close – as in bash you around if you aren’t there fending off. We decided to go to Aigina – Stan says that it is home to the world’s best pistachio nuts and he needed a few kilos of them.

The Skipper

We tried to anchor in a small bay but it was just too crowded. We then powered behind Tomskii and since Tara is faster I closed the distance between the boats to about 25 centimeters. You could see the eyes of the crew of Tomskii get a little wide while I kept closing up closer and closer.

 

We then decided to stop and have a swim. The wind was blowing maybe 5 knots and so I pulled out part of the jib and sailed ‘racing’ close to Tomskii, cutting within a foot or two of their transom as we crossed or heading up past their bow a foot or two away.

Nose to tail....

My guess is that racing boats of 50 feet don’t get as close as we do in Martin 242’s, but it is fun every once in a while to give it a try.

Two Engineers and an IT guy tackle an Intermittent Windlass

Stan and Marcel are oilmen – engineers first for Shell, now line executives. Stan is off for a four year assignment in Singapore where he oversees 15Billion of turnover. Marcel is in between assignments having finished running the oil company in New Zealand he’s eyeing an opportunity in Ethiopia. Me, I’m just an IT guy from Vancouver.

A boat in the Med without a windlass can’t really go anywhere. Unlike my brother-in-law Mike who would prefer to hand haul the anchor up and eschews such comforts as a windlass, a 50 foot boat without an operating windlass is nearly impossible to retrieve the anchor.



Marcel supervising, Matt and Stan working on the windlass.

We tied off the anchor so it wouldn’t slip and proceeded to do problem determination. First we checked the switch, all OK. When the switch was thrown we could hear the solenoid clicking off. The circuit breaker was OK. We pulled the cover off the winch to check the motor and the connections were clean and all good.  The electrical connections on the winch have two positive and one negative. One positive connection turns the winch one way, the other causes the electric motor to go the opposite way.

When we tested it both positive connections showed voltage in both up and down directions. This is usually caused by worn brushes. Off came the windlass, off came the motor, and out came the brushes. We cleaned them (sanded them flat again) and then we reinstalled the windlass motor – problem solved. We also cleaned and greased all the moving parts including the clutch and the manual retrieval mechanism. Stan delighted in testing it – man was it smooth and powerful.
 

I went back to Tara and tore my winch down later that same day. I hadn’t serviced it yet this year and so I disassembled it and greased all the connections. I reckoned that if we did it for Marcel, Tara’s winch might get jealous and act up too.

The only thing left to do is purchase a few of these brushes and then install them on Tara to ensure the same intermittent windlass doesn’t happen to us.

Sunset on Poros

 

Friends Depart, Friends Arrive

After our tearful goodbye with the Chernoffs we got a message from my buddy Marcel that they were coming through the Corinth Canal and were headed to Athens to pick up some friends. We waited for them in Poros (a recurring theme you will find over the next couple of weeks) and they came in from Athens arriving in the harbour right around dinner time from Athens. Marcel, Lena and Lena’s son Anton were aboard plus a university chum of Marcel’s named Stan and his 14 year old son Max and Max’s friend Dirk (pronounced Dear-ick). Jess and Ross were keen to meet the boys, but were disappointed in the end because they kept mostly to themselves – plus they made the same mistake Ross has in the past thinking that Jess was 18 years old. 

Dirk, Max, Jess and Ross

Went for a hike on Dhokos - family "farm" in the background.

Goats on the trail

 

Matt at the top of Dhokos

Tara at anchor at Dhokos, wayyyy down there!

 

 



Someone's "Front Door" on Hydra



We walked the 25 minute walk from Mandraki Haroubour to
the town of Hydra for sups...Dirk, Max and Anton decided to
stay until 5:30 am and check out the night clubs
...Dirk and Max (Jessie's age) paid dearly the next day.

 

Anyway, we retraced many of our steps with the Lensveldts and went back to Dhokos and Hydra. Unfortunately when we went back to Mandraki we tied two long lines ashore but on the opposite side of the bay than when we were with the Chernoffs. Unlike the previous time, where the boat was snug as a bug in a rug, this time it was quite tenuous.



Tara is the left white boat...Tomskii the one on the right.
 Both in trouble the next morning!

We woke up several times during the night and by 07:00 we were only a few meters from shore with a wind blowing us more or less onto the rocks. We ended up dropping the stern lines completely and booting the engine while pulling in the anchor. We reset the anchor in the middle of the bay (25 meters deep) and then sent Marina and Ross to retrieve the lines. I suffered a bit of a mental block when I had Ross jump off the back of the boat earlier to unhook a line from around a rock. I was paranoid about getting it caught in the prop. He argued but in the end he jumped in and cleared it so we could put it in the dinghy. Thanks Ross.

Marcel had a tougher time of it. His anchor windlass was intermittent and was decided this was a good time to go on the blink. He had 40 meters of chain out plus his secondary anchor and he was nearly pinned against a salt-water swimming pool (plastic floats around arranged in a square of ocean is what passes for a pool on Hydra) that had a big chain anchor. To keep from swinging he was tied to the shore as well. I went over to help armed with my volt meter … thinking we should fix the windlass before pulling up the anchor, but first things first, we needed to get him out of danger. I managed to teach him something about his windlass in that he didn’t know how to crank it up manually. I started pulling in the anchor chain 1 link at a time and we cinched up the second anchor at the same time. Once we had the boat half way past the swimming pool’s anchor chain Marcel dropped the stern line and gunned the engine. We squirted out like a watermelon seed shot between your thumb and index finger. At that moment in time we also found that the windlass started working again – so we pulled up the main anchor. I then rigged the spare anchor rope around the windlass but alas, it had decided to quit again.

Jess on the bow...

We decided it was time to shop, power and water up so back to Poros. We also wanted to check out and fix Marcel’s anchor windlass. We sailed back to Poros on a beautiful beat to windward, legging out at 6 to 7 knots and basically enjoyed the ride back towards civilization.

Ross at the helm

Matt (and Marina) enjoying a beachside bevy in Russian Bay,
just outside Poros town.

 

A week goes by in a Blur

Payton, Jess and Chloe...BFFs!! 

It is hard to tell whether it was the level of alcohol consumption or just the good company, but the week the Chernys were on the boat went by in a flash. We stayed in Poros until the Marina and Jess arrived and packed up the next day and sailed to the island of Dhokos, then we spent a very nice evening at Mandraki on the island of Hydra, over to the Peloponnese to Ermioni, then back to Dhokos and finally back to anchor at Poros, then into the quay at Poros the day that they had to leave for smoggy old Athens.

Kym and Jess

Matt and Mark

It was a flash of brilliance on my part to get everyone to take a ferry to Poros. The difference between Poros and the Saronic islands and Athens is like the difference between the Lower East Side of Vancouver and West Van. It’s cleaner, slower, more friendly – probably more expensive – but who cares. It also saved us about 70 miles of sailing or two full days of travel time to get to and from where we wanted to sail.

Loading up with groceries in Ermioni

You figure it out....

None of the Chernoff clan had spent any time on a sailboat before. Mark seemed amazed that we could just set the sails and carry on using wind power for free … and also a 50 footer is fairly spacious and stable. Kym apparently had some reservations about being on the boat but appeared to take to it just fine. Jessie was in heaven that two of her best friends were here at the same time. Last year Ross got to bring his buddy Hayden for a month – and then the Fedaks came with both Matt and Megan for the kids. This year Jessie gets two sets of friends.

Boat fun on Dhokos

Jess and Payton Goofing on the SUP

Ross the dinghy driver! Best and knocking people off the SUP. 

Ross being nice

After Ross was not so nice... 

The week came and went, we learned how to use the SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard) Marina brought with her – that quickly became a tow-toy for the inflatable, we had lots of good food, wine,  beer and awesome company. Thanks for making the week so much fun.

Mark and Ross diving into the daily cocktail hour. 

Mark loved the size of the wine "bottles"!

One of our many meals out at a lovely taverna in Poros (I think)

A very home style taverna in Mandraki where we sampled many local dishes...yum!

Women -- The Boat is Full of Them

Mark and Kym Chernoff were planning to tour Europe with their twin girls Payton and Chloe from the end of June to mid-July. One of the places they were going to was Greece, so we said, “why don’t you join us on Tara.”

We went from no girls to being a minority in just one day.

Ross and I had to boogey to get to Poros by the 8^th. We made it through the Corinth Canal on an 80 mile day from a nice little inlet near Itea. The area around the Corinth Canal is well known for high wind and waves that pile up at the end of the Gulf f Corinth. We made it to Poros on the 6^th of July and anchored out in Navy Bay. The next day we moved to the pier – between two 150 foot yachts. Tara has a lot of chain on board, nearly 90 meters. Our first med-mooring of the year we put the anchor out well in front of the lead boat --  not thinking that the boats beside us were 3 times as long. Anyway we ended up letting out 88 meters … Ross was looking at what was left in the chain locker … I kept asking for more chain but Ross was smart enough to leave enough in the boat that we wouldn’t be swimming to retrieve it.

Poros has two different types of quays, some are concrete, others have a wood frame. As it turns out the wood framed quays are much more comfortable and better sized for boats that are less than 30 meters long. We made the mistake of going on the cement quay the first night. We fixed that mistake and, in the process, only let out 30 meters of chain this time. :-)

Some of our neighbours at Poros

We also used this time to have our engine-driven fridge repaired. I called a Vangelis from Vikos marine in Poros and had a refrigerator guy out to fix the boat that afternoon. Cold beer … it’s a good thing ... a very good thing.

Ross and I were looking forward to company. While we get along well and truly enjoy the  other’s company, two weeks alone together and I’m pretty sure that Ross was looking forward to some new people to talk to.

The Chernoff’s ferry from Pireus was at 17:30 and we watched for it. At around 17:40 we wandered up from the boat just in time to get a call from Mark “Hey, where are you guys?” It turned out we were busy helping other boats dock (also known as protecting your own boat from the wankers that park by feel) and missed the arrival of the ferry. Anyway, they had gone the opposite way from Tara but sat down at a shady spot and were having a beer. Ross and I arrived with the luggage cart and after a few Fix beers we  all made our way back to Tara.

We gave the obligatory tour of the boat, and the all-important marine head discussion –“ only human waste, no paper, floss or girly stuff. If it gets clogged, you’ll fix it, I’ll supervise. Worst case is you need to haul the boat out of the water to fix it and that costs 1000 euros.” Living on septic at their lake cottage has them ‘on the program’ anyway … and living in Greece for any time you get used to throwing your TP in the garbage instead of down the toilet.

We settled in and then went out for dinner, the rest is pretty foggy. Anytime that you start out with a couple of liters of beer and then keep going … it gets a bit hazy.

The next morning I woke at 7am to catch the ferry From Poros to Pireaus to meet Marina. At Pireaus I walked around, ate a cardboard sandwich, checked out a couple of chandlerys and wrote a consulting report (always working it seems). I was looking for the girls, sitting outside, and I got a call from a nice guy who offered his phone that they were at the terminal. I looked up, walked 50 meters left and there were my girls. They had been travelling for 15 hours so were a little bit tired but they looked great and happy to see me.

The Flying Dolphin

We boarded the Flying Dolphin – a 1960 vintage hydrofoil that we nicknamed a “Bug” because they look like waterbugs, and made our way to Poros. We were some of the first in line for the hydrofoil because we knew the boat number and queued up. We had a laugh as this lady with a very large bag walked to the front and butts right in front of us. You must experience queuing in Europe to get an appreciation of it.

The lot of them picked us up at the ferry and hugs were all around. We took the girls to the boat and got them settled in. Marina and the kids went for a swim, we had dinner and made plans for the week.

Onto the Corinth Canal

Sometimes you will try just about anything to relieve the
boredom of a long passage.

We had a fairly good weather window to get through the Corinth Canal – but it also means powering for 20 hours -- which is a real drag. There is a distinct difference between cruising and passage making. One has a leisurely pace and is very relaxing. The other is a sprint to cover as much ground as possible as quickly as possible. Kind of like the difference between a motorcycle trip up Whistler for fun versus a drive from Vancouver to Calgary. One is full of the experience of the sights, the curves, a coffee in Squamish, lunch in Whistler. The other is about how many miles to go between the next fuel-up and a White-spot or McDonald’s hamburger.

Occasionally the boredom is lifted though. About 10 miles outside of Corinth we encountered three dolphins that swam around the boat and in the bow wave for 20 minutes or so. The speed at which they swim and the ridiculously minimal effort they expend to go very fast is amazing. Truly a gift from nature when they arrive and spend some time with us; it is like they enjoy the company as well, turning on their sides to look at us on the bow.

They were side by side and very close. I was tempted to reach down and see if I could touch their dorsal fins, but then thought that might frighten them away so we didn’t. Maybe next time.

I had hoped to video our trip through the Corinth Canal but my GoPro Camera wasn't cooperating with me. Maybe on the return trip it will work.