End of an Era?

We first met the Tomskii crew in Kremik in 2010. They purchased Tomskii Kastan from the same outfit we bought Tara in. Marcel is an oil executive and wanted to buy a boat and chose a Beneteau 473 from Hungarian Yachting, same as us. Marcel understood the game that was afoot in Kremik much before we did and was invaluable in helping us through the difficult time we had exporting the boat (in reality having the lein removed).

Marcel and Lena

Through this process we became friends and his youngest, Joost, gets along very well with Ross and Jessie. Joost can be a little quirky and is usually very quiet at home in Holland. Marcel has said to me he reckons Joost talks more in the two or three weeks with Ross and Jessie than he does the rest of the year.

Joost eating his annual feast of lobster. 

Since we got along really well and the kids did too, it made sense that we would try to meet up in Europe as time allowed. I think that we have managed to meet up with the Tomskii crew every year we have returned to Europe. Once in Poros, a couple of times in the Aegean and possibly once in Italy -- the memory goes after your 1,000,000th litre of Heineken.

Anyway, it is sad that this is possibly the last year for meeting up with Tomskii in Europe. Marcel and Lena are planning on crossing the Atlantic this year and heading to the Caribbean for a couple of years and then on-to New Zealand. 

Tomskii and Tara...will they meet again? 

Pargas .. Becoming a Favorite

We might need to come up with a new favourite place in the Ionian since Gaios is infested with rats! Pargas might be a good alternative. It's a large bay on the mainland coast and offers excellent shelter as long as the wind is not from the South or Southwest -- where it offers no shelter at all.This is rare as predominant winds in the Ionian are Northwest. 

The beach at Pargas is crowded (I mean covered!) with 100's of lounge chairs -- they offer free showers, free change room, and free lifeguards, but the costs 7.50 Euros ... Interesting advertising. 

To get to Pargas town you have two ways -- climb up and down a very steep hill -- think Esquimalt between 11th and 9th street in West Van, or hail a water taxi that goes around the fort and deposits you in the midst of downtown. We being the frugal types look at the 3 Euro fare as 3x3x2 or 18 euros -- that could buy ten 500ml Heinekens in a restaurant! We're taking the dinghy in, pulling it up on the sand, and walking to town thank-you-very-much.

Centre of the photo is Bonnie Blue up on the beach. 

We decided to go to dinner at Romantika, a restaurant we have visited before that affords an excellent view of the bay we anchor in. Marcel and Yelena also joined us for a drink -- it was their 7th anniversary and we were really pleased to be able to share it with them.

Our table and the view behind...Tara is on the right. 

After dinner we took a walk as we were on a mission to buy some special "bottle openers" for friends and family. We found them at a great price and size and look forward to handing them out to friends.

Our night in Pargas represented the penultimate night on board Tara for 2016. It is always sad leaving the boat although we had a lot of anxiety looking for evidence of rodents -- which we are pleased to say there wasn't any. Marina had a last swim at Pargas and we needed to head to Preveza. While Port Police are open 24x7, Customs is not open on weekends, so I wanted to get there early enough to the put the boat into "bond". I didn't do this the first two years we were at Cleopatra and it cost me $1,500 in fees ... Hard lessons are lessons that are remembered.

Arriving in Preveza at the town. 

Marina and I were on Tara, Ross was riding with Joost on Tomskii. We dropped a hook and I took off in the dinghy to do my paperwork. I finished just as Tomskii arrived and we both backed into the quay in Preveza and had one more night out on the town. 

Tomskii arriving at Preveza

Marina and Yalena ordered a bunch of appetizers that everyone shared -- except Joost who wanted a pork steak. We went back to the boat and bid our goodbyes to the Tomskii team who are off to Rocella Ionica on the Italian coast -- I guess they have a hankering for Pizza.

There is an arcade in Preveza...packed at
midnight with kids...and Matt and Ross.

                                                                         

How could they pass this up? 

                                                            
Tomskii pulled out at 05:00 having just over 200 miles to cover. We got up a little late, did some marketing in Preveza and then pulled out to anchor and take the sails down. We arrived at Cleopatra about 11:30 for our 13:00 haul out. We folded the sails and organized ourselves for the 2 day boat preparation marathon that is decommissioning.    

Tara ready at the lift berth.

Photo from Tara on the hard to Ross waving from the balcony of his
room at Cleopatra. 

                                                                                                                      

Come Hell or High-water, we are outta Gaios

We’ve had a pretty crummy last week in terms of weather and luck. The collision at Sivota, the rat a Gaios … And 3 days with 30 knots forecast during the evening had us looking for places to hide out. I think our current cadence is a maximum of 2 days per location, then it is time to move on. This week we have had 3 days in Sivota and 3 days in Gaios – so we are itching to get going. We hope that our rat problem is behind us so at around 14:00 we set off from Gaios, lifted our anchor and motored down to Antipaxos where Ross managed to free-dive to 17 meters below Tomskii, once using fins, and once without fins. According to my calculations, that’s 57 feet. Me, I start to run out of breath when I go under Tara’s keel at 2.3 meters – Ross goes another 50 feet deeper than I do … Sheesh, it scares me a bit because he’s down so long and if he got into trouble, I don’t know if I could help him.

Tomskii in the background making tracks.

Anyway after a couple or hours of swimming, we pointed the nose of Tara to Pargas and had a really nice sail with Tomskii … They must have been working hard because for the first time in recent memory, they were faster than us. We managed to close about a half mile distance and got ahead of them, then they sailed right by us and led us into Pargas … Good for them. Time to consider some new sails!

Tara gains an unfortunate 500 grams

Tara stern to the mole at Gaios. 

We figured hiding from the wind was a fools errand. After 2 days in the gong show called Sivota and what felt like a wasted day in Igoumenitsa we sailed (powered in no wind) to Gaios, tied into the island and were snug as we were expecting up to 34 knot gusts – that never materialized. What did happen however during the night is that we got a visitor – a rat. What an effing disaster in a half-kilo package. Notwithstanding that they’re like a Pez dispenser except instead of candy they dispense rat-poop, they are devilishly clever. This particular rat managed to get on board in spite of rat protection on our long-lines to shore. He either did a 50 foot tightrope and jumped across a couple of bottles that we put in the way … Or he climbed up hand-over-hand up the anchor chain, or he swam to the back of the boat and climbed up the boarding steps. However he got onboard he had a party. We saw some droppings on deck, then we saw one on the counter. We started clearing out our flags and inside were four pieces of bread and a nectarine-pit that he had grabbed out of the compost bin and began to make a nest with. Apparently he liked his spot because he was planning on spending some quality time eating and pooping and eating and pooping. We quickly tore down the nest, I washed all the flags and we cleared off the area behind the sink, we moved from the island side of Gaios to the town side ... again going stern to...went to the hardware store and bought 40Euros worth of traps and set them out. 

Tara stern to the mole at Gaios -
dressed with all the flags on board. 

Some of the traps were the conventional snappers, some were the sticky-glue traps. He ended up wading through the the sticky traps and snapped off one of the snappers and licked the peanut butter clean off another snapper...without a hitch. 

Later, when we came back from dinner we checked the traps again and Marina saw him in the corner of the boat near the TV screen. Ross and I grabbed implements to crush/stab him and went in for the kill. Unfortunately, he was hidden behind a small piece of wood that deflected our shots and he seemed to fly (literally) across the bookcase and disappeared up into the ceiling. Not being deterred, I took the ceiling piece down and there was a little highway that he could run around the entire boat with.  Ok, we’ll leave the traps out and see what happens tomorrow – and we all chose to sleep on-deck.

The next morning there were a couple of new droppings and with the help and encouragement of Marcel, Lena and Joost (our Dutch friends on Tomskii Kastan), we completely emptied the boat onto shore. Every cupboard, every floorboard, every piece of clothing, all spares and equipment ... onto the dirt and cement off the stern of the boat. Fortunately where we were tied up was very easy to transport the gear to shore but unfortunately it gets quite busy in the afternoon with tourists coming from Corfu or the mainland.  

Matt with Marcel at the "Yard Sale" 

I am not sure whether they thought we were homeless people camping out, or street merchants, or just plain crazy. A couple of people thought we were having a yard sale and picked stuff up and started looking at it … Prompting us to say – “this isn’t a yard sale, we have a rat on board the boat that we’re trying to catch." 

I managed to sort through a ton of stuff and we actually lost a large inventory of books, a number of tools that were no longer useful, some of our spares that were beyond their usefulness, and lots of grungy clothes and boat interior pieces. I managed to find an umbrella and used it as a sun shade so I wasn't getting broiled in the sun.

Once the boys came back from scuba diving Marina took over my spot on shore as the proprietor of the Tara clearance warehouse. I went back to Tara and cleaned up the interior of the boat, wiping down every surface and checking for rat activity – which there wasn't any.

By 19:00 after buying and setting another 5 traps –the entire trap inventory in Gaios – we had not seen or heard activity.  Marina saw a couple of poops on the back deck by the stern lines in the morning … so there was a possibility that we had a rat that liked his hometown and wanted to stay.  We humped all the stuff onto the boat again and now Tara looked like the Beverly Hillbillies truck … loaded to the brim with stuff all on deck.

Beverly Hillbillies Boat

That evening, Marina took the offer from Tomskii and slept on board with Yalena, Joost and Marcel. Ross and I slept outside on the bow. Apparently in the middle of the night Ross jumped off the boat to take a whizz and managed to fall in on the way back onboard – so there could have been 50 rats having a big party and I wouldn’t have had a clue as I blithely slept through all the excitement. 

Matt and Ross sleeping on deck

As we woke up the third morning in Gaios there was no evidence of activity.  Marina was up on Tomskii and we played a little joke on Ross as I pretended to spoon him while Marina took a photo. It was worth a pretty good laugh when she showed him the photo later in the morning at the restaurant we were having breakfast at. 

The posed picture with Ross unawares...
until later when we had a good laugh. 

After walking around town until about 14:00 we decided that if there was no activity we will put the boat back together and vamoose out of Gaios … With most of our stuff on deck protected by garbage bags and suitcases. Quite frankly we'd had enough of the place!

We did have a nice BBQ on shore - eating on Tomskii 
as no room on Tara. 

Wankering – enough to make you a hermit

According to Malcolm Gladwell it’s 10,000 hours to mastery. We figure we’re well over 10,000 miles on Tara and probably more than 15,000 and we have dropped anchor a few hundred times so if we don’t have 10,000 hours we must be getting close. I would describe us as “Conservative” anchorers. We don’t get too close to people, we let out lots of chain, we are respectful when we arrive making sure that we don’t put our anchor on anyone else's, these kind of things. It drives us a bit batty when others ruin our party doing the things that we choose deliberately not do. 

Tara close to Tomskii...but they are friends and we're all
on board, just in case. 

Here’s my list of anchoring faux-pas:

• Like standing too close to someone at a party – everyone needs a reasonable amount of personal space. Don’t come into anchor and drop too close, you cause at minimum anxiety and possibly damage.
• Make sure you put an appropriate amount of chain out. Recently in a 10 meter deep bay we put out 40 meters, but we had two neighbours, one that put out 70 meters and another than put out 17 meters. Unless you expect a hurricane, more than 4:1 or 5:1 just takes up too much space and. 2:1 is at best a lunch hook.
• In case you hadn’t noticed before, 95% of the time boats that are anchored face into the wind. Basically you are head-to-wind unless you have a lot of current effect or no wind at all. Trying to back up into the wind (believe it or not you see it all the time) to put the boat into a spot you like will simply end in you bashing into other boats when the wind takes you where it is going to. Pull into the anchorage, position your bow, come back to the spot you want to occupy.
• When anchoring and tying into the shore try to understand where the other anchors are so that you don’t put yours on top – if you do it can be a bit of a gong-show recovering. Patience is a virtue in this case and the reality is that everyone has had their anchor lifted before and everyone has crossed someone else’s anchor … either that or you haven’t done much anchoring stern-to in tight bays.
• When you come into anchor survey where the other boats are lined up, look for their anchors, ask how much chain they have out and try to visualize  where their anchors are – eventually that’s where you end up. We were recently in a bay that had a current running through and a new person arrived just as the current was switching to the other direction and everyone’s chain was stretched out one way, he came in and dropped and within an hour was within a few feet of another boat.
• Be mindful of the types of boats you are anchoring near to. My friend Marcel and I anchor close to each other quite often, but our boats are nearly identical in size, weight, rigging windage, so we move together the majority of the time. We can be close together because the boats act the same way when the wind hits us. I am amazed sometimes when completely different boat types anchor close because they swing differently. Our heavy cruising boat beside a smaller race-boat will always have challenges, we tend to be slow and steady at anchor while the race boat sails all over its anchor.

A picture of a boat too close...we took it in case we
needed to contact the charter company for insurance coverage. 

Here are a few tips for those who are experts but don’t like to share …

• Tight anchorages are tight for a reason – usually they're excellent places to hide out or they’re just terrific places to stay. You don’t own the bay … Don’t take up too much room or yell at others. I can remember one time in a calanque in Spain where a boat took the entire bay up because he refused to tie to shore and had 50 meters of chain out … We tried anchoring 4x and each time his boat was magnetically attracted to us. We eventually moved – which was probably his objective but he was a bit of a hoarder in that situation

Tara and Tomskii going "stern to" in Lakka ... a very
effective way to avoid others' wankering...unless they
drop on top of your anchor which happens rather often. 

• If you're anchoring in a tight bay where you know lots of others will be, do not put a float on top of your anchor – it will eventually foul someone’s propellor (hopefully yours) and it’s a bit like parking sideways across three parking spots on a Christmas shopping day at a busy mall
• Don’t wig out too much. We have had guys yell at us for putting our anchor too close to their stern – “you realize that we will drop back 40 meters when we let the anchor out” or I have had some guys yell that I cannot run my Honda 1KW generator in the afternoon – which is quieter than our diesel or our low-key music, or a fly buzzing around the room. Last, I actually heard a guy at Sivota on the island of Lefkada tell Marina to “shut up” when she told him he was about to drop directly on top of our anchor … I hailed back “Hey Buddy, if you want to tell your wife to shut up … That’s your lookout … But do not tell my wife to shut up”.” He went away grumbling, fouled 2 other boat's anchors, collided with one and then pulled another boat’s anchor up so that it dragged and collided with the boat beside him …. Karma can be cruel.

Tara and others beautifully spaced out at Pargas. We
dropped twice because we felt the first spot was too
close to other boats. 

Collision at Anchor :-(

We had been guarding our spot (amazing what a hairy eyeball can do to people thinking they can anchor too close) as the sun was going down but we decided to go for an evening swim and an Italian boat dropped anchor waaaaay too close.

The anchorage at Sivota when we first arrived...lots of room!

The Italian boat “EOS” came in at about 19:00 (after we had moved twice during the day to secure a near perfect anchorage) and he dropped his anchor inappropriately close to us.  We told him from the water – (hard to have that hairy eyeball when you’re swimming around the boat) that he was pretty close and that we had 40 meters out. Their crew said that they had 17 meters out .. a 3:1 ratio. Our depth sounder read 10.3 meters – and we have a keel offset of 2.3 meters … so it’s really 13 meters x 3 = 39 meters … oh dear, he’s in trouble. They were nice but perhaps naive.

The wind started howling a little later in the evening … a new Hanse 575 (most of $1,5M) was in the bay and he hailed another boat that he had 70 meters of chain out (70 meters!!) and discouraged him from being too close.

At around 11:30 the wind increased to about 20 knots and the boat beside us started to sail on its anchor as did Tara. If you haven’t experienced it, the way it works is that anchored boats almost always go head-to-wind … which is why we love anchoring because there is always good airflow over the boat and if you pick your anchorages carefully you make sure that the waves are blocked by some land.

Anyway, when the wind is blowing above 15 knots the boat starts sailing … just like when you are sailing upwind. The boat sails on one tack because of the wind blowing against the hull and rigging – it gets to a level of tightness on the chain, then it tacks and does the same on the other side. You end up going in a regular rhythm and if you have enough space, it’s actually a natural and relaxing motion in heavy wind.

This is what crowded looks like...it's at Lakka but you
get the idea. In light wind it's fine...heavy air ... crash!

Unfortunately a 42 Jeanneau doesn’t act the same way as a 50 footer and we ended up coming together bow to bow. There is a small pair of chunks out of our anchor roller … don’t know what happened to their boat … but they we quite gracious and apologetic and immediately lifted their anchor and threw it a few more times until they got it right - somewhere not near us.  I stayed on deck for a couple of hours to make sure that we weren’t going to have more trouble. At a little after midnight another boat came and anchored fairly close to us … GRRRR … after another 2 hours on deck the wind died and I joined Marina in bed. Ross continued to play his WW2 computer game and agreed to look outside every half hour or so. Two more GPS anchor alarms later, we all retire and woke up around 09:00 a little worse for wear.

From d'Artagnan to Ivy Leaguer

Ross and I had been growing our beards since we left Vancouver and Marina suggested she didn't exactly love the 'old man from the sea' look (for me apparently). So I had a shave and a haircut. Well. Ross finally grew weary of his shaggy look the other day and insisted on a haircut and shaving.

The d'Artagnan look...we quite liked it. 

He took his sideburns and chin off first, then his soul-patch and finally his moustache. I kind of like the rascally look, but it is good to see the boy can buff up nice.

A little fuzzy but at least he's smiling...rare for a photo.

Hiding out in Igomenitsa

We did find a nice walk at Sivota...aside
from the wankering it's a nice place.

After the “Gong Show” at  Sivota we were worried about being at anchor and having a wanker come in at dusk and upset our plans. Our friends Marcel, Lena and Joost Lensveldt came in from Corfu and they were also concerned with the Sivota anchorage. Marcel had messaged Marina on Skype saying that we should go to Igoumenitsa – a ferry port on the coast . I was (half-heartedly) advocating for Gaios on Paxos. There is always space there, particularly tied up against the island that makes the bay … it was downwind when Igomenitsa is upwind, it’s only 15 miles downwind vs. 8 miles upwind … which is actually shorter distance. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to discuss it before Tomskii pulled up anchor. So we sailed upwind to Igoumenitsa – (if I write it 5 times I might actually get it right) and found a very protected anchorage with no one here, but with green water that we cannot see the bottom in 4 meters depth. Nobody is interested in swimming here and the town is really far away and in reality is a ferry terminal… So …  tomorrow, I don’t care if we are out in 30 knots of breeze – Tara has done that dozens of times, we’re going to a better anchorage with Tavernas that sell ice-cold Mythos on-tap.

Up at 7 am...Marina on the bow in her PJ's
lifting the anchor...we're outta here.

Crazy Weather in the Ionian

People cruise the Ionian for lots of reasons … pristine crystal clear blue water, awesome anchorages, lots of villages to visit and most important settled and mild weather. In the several years that we have been cruising the Ionian we have found that most days you are powering between destinations. There is a general northwest wind that comes up in the afternoon and dissipates by the time the sun goes down. If you time it right you can get some reasonable sailing in when you want, and power against the wind before it gets too strong … pretty much perfect cruising sailboat conditions – probably why it is so crowded.

Not often you see 30+ knots at Gaios

From a chartering perspective it means that you can cover a fair amount of ground without worrying that you’re going to spend a few days hidden out somewhere against the weather or that you might have a couple of long days against some ugly wind and seas.

Blame it on kismet, global-warming, or the law of averages but the wind and weather in the Ionian has gotten more intense the last two years. The last couple of days we have been hiding out from the wind. A couple of nights ago we had our first ever collision with another boat at anchor.