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.

Up Till Now I wasn't Sure Who Had the Harder Job

As you may know, we sold our Taylorwood Place house after 15 years and are moving to the one we bought a few years ago on Mathers Avenue. While the house is an up in some ways – nicer yard, closer to the school, it is quite a bit smaller and it needs work. Having been a rental for 10 years or more shows on the state both the house and the yard. There is a lot of work to do when we move in this fall starting with the renovation of a few bathrooms.

First things first, we need to move out of the Taylorwood house. We’ve been planning the move for six months or so, starting with the showings – that led to some purging of some junk. The reality is that you don’t start to get an appreciation of all the junk you accumulate over 15 years until you move. We have every nook and cranny of the 4,460 square foot house filled to capacity. In addition, we have a lot of stuff in the back-yard and also in our double detached garage with workshop.

The people who rent our other house are looking to buy a house and they’ve been having a bit of a time finding a place so we agreed that they would stay at the house (except the Garage where we would put my cars, the motorcycles and tools) and we would load the rest of our stuff into PODS and store it until our return in September. This seemed to work for both of us.

We then came upon Ross and I leaving on June 23^rd so we could get the boat commissioned and sail to Athens to meet up with Marina and Jessie her competing in the girls U15 Provincial Soccer Tournament.

The West Vancouver Spuraways -- BC Provincial B-Cup Soccer Champions for 2012/2013

Ross and I were working on the house right up until we left, we were carrying lots of boat parts and we made our way to Cleopatra. We braved the heat and hot sun. We sweated and cut ourselves pulling cables and wiring, hooking up alternators and battery chargers.

Reaching along to Messalongia

Then when the boat was in the water we kept working on it, fixing things here and there. Basically we were starting to get sick of working on Tara. We kept going through Lefkas to Megasini, then back to Lefkas, visiting Port Police and the Tax office a couple of times, plus going to the bank again and again.

Wing-on-wing downwind for miles

Now we’re sailing to Messalongia, I realize we got the better end of this deal. While it has been a bit of a grunt to get the boat running, we’ve been here in Greece on the water the last couple of days and, in particular today, has been amazing. We woke up in Vathy after our midnight anchor episode and had a bacon and egg breakfast.

We then powered out into the harbour in preparation for our 40 mile trip. Of the 40 miles we have powered only about 5 miles, the rest has been a beam-to-broad reach, with an hour or so of running wing-on-wing in about 12 knots of breeze. The only thing that would have been better would have been to use the spinnaker, but with just two of us on board, we decided that might be a bad idea.

As we sip a beer watching the sun set over the marina in Mesalongia, it occurred to us that life wasn't so bad.

So in summary, Ross and I got the better deal. We’ll have to make it up to Marina, Jessie, Chelsea, and of course, Tina, somehow when we return to Vancouver.

Midnight Move

One of our Neighbours, a nice 120 footer anchored and tied
to the shoreline

At around 1am Ross banged on my door “Dad, get up I think we are dragging the anchor” Considering we were 30 meters from shore, the wind was blowing high teens and we’re in 3 meters of water, it didn’t take me long to throw on my shorts and get out of bed.

The Anchor Dragged straight back. We were less than 2
boatlengths from shore

We checked the GPS and anchor alarms and they weren’t going off, but you could see the track was definitely inching closer to shore. We had tried to set the anchor in sand but were probably too close to some weed – expecting it to be calm at night like it usually is in the Ionian. We also had more than 40 meters of chain out in 8 meters of water, so lots of scope.

After a few minutes of watching, Ross on the bow, me on the stern, Ross ran back and declared “We have to move now!” I had the engine idling and we had to execute the dreaded “Midnight Move” off a lee shore in  15+ knots of wind – and if you look at the lunar charts – during a new moon … so it was dark, completely dark. At least it wasn’t raining or blowing 30 knots, though if it were either of these there is no way we would have anchored there in the first place.

Ross had his headlight on and took the brake off the windlass and began grinding in the chain, clearing the hawspipe every 5 meters or so to make sure that we don’t jam the mechanism (maybe jamming the windlass on our first anchoring this year was actually someone looking out for us and getting us prepared for this one). I kept the boat on station with the motor. You can sure tell when the anchor comes off the bottom as the bow swings about 90 degrees. As we were getting close to the anchor being off the bottom I had turned the boat away from the 120 footer parked beside us and towards open water. Ross finished hauling the anchor up and we were on our way … but where.

The track from Ormos Skhidinos to Vathy at 01:30am in the dark, no moon either.

Basically we had 3 choices – motor around in circles for 5 hours staying clear of stuff along the way, head out to open ocean, put up the sails and sail towards Athens, or try to navigate into the next bay that has a much better anchorage. My vote was for heading out towards Athens but Ross tempered this with “I don’t want to go out sailing in 20 knots with big waves at night”. When put that way, neither did I. That left powering around for 5 hours until dawn – not my preferred approach, or head into Vathy and its protected anchorage. Plan C it was. Using the GPS(s) … the main Garmin GPS, the IPAD’s Navionics GPS and Mark 1 Eyeball, we gingerly navigated into the fairly narrow pass of Vathy avoiding the island park towards the end of the bay. Ross thought we might want to go stern-to-the-mole, though I think that would have been exceedingly difficult. My thought was to tie up to the gas dock side-to and then get up early and leave – but someone already had that idea and was tied up at the gas dock – plus our charts said that the depths were marginal there for us.

The narrows at Vathy ... nice and wide during the day,
seemed a lot tighter at night-time

In the end we did a couple of loops close to other yachts and dropped anchor. We remained on deck for a half hour watching the other boats and how we anchored relative to them and the wind. At around 02:30 the wind dropped and the boats all changed direction 180 degrees. After a few minutes of near-calm while we were perfectly aligned with the other boats, we declared victory and I went to bed, Ross made himself a sandwich and, I think, made it to bed a little later.

In the bright morning sunshine we see Vathy, a pretty little Greek Island city with an excellent anchorage. Reflecting on it, we dodged a bit of a bullet. Thanks to quick thinking by Ross and some decisiveness, he got us off that bad anchorage. Also it’s fun to see how we all react in difficult situations. Hard to believe – I am the calm one. “Don’t worry, I can control the boat”, “I think we need to start turning here, there is the light, I understand where it is on the chart”. Ross was switched into Overdrive, thinking through options, “I’m going to put the fenders down now so we don’t have to worry about it later”, “do we have the proper lines on the bow and stern if we need them?”, and heading down to the Garmin chartplotter to confirm our positioning relative to the IPAD. I think in the end each of us gained more confidence in the other and each of us credits the other one with having saved the day. I guess that’s what they call Teamwork.

On the Move to Athens

A "Superyacht" doing a flyby

Finally getting on our way to Athens we left Tranquil bay for points East – destination unknown as we were not sure what we were getting into weather wise and reality is that there aren’t all that many places on the mainland coast that accept yachts of our size. If you have a Super Yacht – 45 meters or longer, no problem – you anchor out securely and take your 15 meter matching powerboat into town, but for us with a mid-sized yacht, you need to find a place that is both safe at anchor and close enough to where you need to be.

We powered out of Tranquil Bay and headed out of the Stenon Meganisiou – basically the Meganisi Straight, and we found wind. Lots of it. 25 knots close reach we had a half a jib out and were averaging eight knots in lumpy seas. For those of you that don’t think 8 knots is all that fast – it’s a fairly brisk run of about 15 km/hour … think of it as driving a Motorhome at 90 miles an hour on the road to Whistler. Things are flying around in the cabin, you come down below and find kitchen knives on the floor, the coffee pot in the sink and anything not tied down is now somewhere else.

A good portion of the journey was sheltered from the waves, though as we went between Lefkas and Ithaki there was precious little between us and Italy and you can certainly tell when the 1-2 meter wave surface wave pattern (waves close together) hits the underlying 2-3 meter long swell from Italy (waves 50 meters between crests). This made for some lively up and down sailing.

Ross continues to wear his IPad while trimming the jib

After a couple of hours of this we decided to go to a place we had anchored before. Approaching Ithaki the wind completely shut off, and we anchored in this secluded bay with only 3 super-yachts in it. We had anchored here before, it’s a bit of a dodgy place, very deep in the middle so you need to get close to the shore. Most people take a long-line ashore but we chose just to anchor as we’re short-handed. Both Ross and I were tired and kind of bored, so I suggested after a couple of conference calls that I would turn on the trusty Honda generator and we’d watch a movie. We watched Will Farrell in “Stranger than Fiction” – not at all his normal stuff (thankfully because I nearly switched it off when I saw he was starring in it). During the movie the wind came up from 5 to 10 to 15 knots. After a final check I went to bed leaving Ross on his computer and watching over things.

The Work Continues …

Once we spashed Tara there was still plenty of work to do. Somehow during the installation of the new Alternator, a ground was loose and that affected both the windlass and the bow thruster.

Some assembly required

The wind in the afternoon at Preveza is a thermal and it is generally calm in the morning building to 18-20 knots in the afternoon. We launched at 3pm and we didn’t know yet the thruster and windlass didn’t work so when we were told to go to a dock it was “yikes” I haven’t done this in a year and I don’t have a bow thruster. Gulp!

Tara back in the water ... She's Happy Again!

So we took her out of the marina entrance to get a good long run at the slip, testing the new alternator, and her new gear shifter in the process. The Yanmar engine worked flawlessly – always like a champ. We pulled 100 meters out of the marina put it in reverse and promptly went sideways – attempt 1. The next time I remembered to orient the bow 30 degrees to the left and then the prop-walk will bring the transom up by the time the boat gets moving.

We backed in a ‘warp speed’ into the slip and thankfully there was another 50 foot sailboat beside us to hang onto as the wind pushed the boat sideways hard. We managed to get it all tied up and secured, and then we plugged in for the first time with the new charger – 14+ volts … high fives for everyone.

Also delivered at launching was the mainsail, and Bonnie Blue – Tara’s trusty RIB – rigid inflatable boat. More work to do.

The new 140 Amp Alternator installed

Once we figured out the windlass and the bow thruster weren’t working it became obvious that there was a wiring problem. I reckoned it had something to do with the alternator because both of them only work with the engine running. I tried some combinations that didn’t work, and finally figured out that it was a ground. The windlass was working but not the thruster. After an hour of cleaning contacts and testing, it was ready for re-installation and it worked. Yes! Then it stopped working. No! Finally after putting new connections on, it worked and we’re not touching it again.

The only other nagging problem is the engine driven freezer needs to be charged with Freon. This has happened before although we had a technician think that he had fixed the problem. It could be that the o-ring that he installed last year broke again as there is a fair amount of vibration.

Anyway, we figure we can get a refrigeration technician somewhere along the route to Athens.

Out of Preveza – onto Lefkas

Two days in the water at Cleopatra and it was time to go. The afternoon breeze there funnels down the channel and creates an unpleasant 2 foot chop that attacks the docks and the transoms of the boats. We didn’t have the main in the mast for the first night and we got to listen to the Clang, Clang, Clang of the roller furling hitting the inside of the mast.

The afternoon thermal arrives at Preveza and keeps you
awake at night. This is the view from the Restaurant where
we ate Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner for nearly five
days in a row.

Day 2 morning we got up really early and installed the mainsail. We also put the jib and the jib sheets on properly – though we threaded the jib incorrectly and had a spinnaker halyard between the jib and the forestay so Ross had to go all the way to the top of the mast a few days later to fix it. We were feeling better about ourselves, we had fixed the windlass and the thruster, the sails were on, the water tanks filled, we had gas for the outboard, and some food in the fridge. I put an extra fender on our right transom corner as we had a tight left turn to make and I didn’t want to bash into the boat beside us. We dropped the lines, cast off, hit the throttle and we were off. We decided to put Bonnie Blue in the water.  It was a bit of a gong-show, but we got it done. Off to Lefkas. We pulled out the jib and were tooling along pretty well. Lefkas opens up the floating bridge on the hour. We were going to either be right on time or an hour early. We got there and the bridge hadn’t opened up yet. We drove by a guy that was hard aground who yelled for us to give him a rope to pull him off. I had 0.3M of water under the keel, one other person on board and a channel about 50 feet wide. I felt bad about not helping him but the reality is that 1) Tara would have been put in danger; 2) there are commercial operators that could help him if he wanted to pay the fee; and 3) the bridge was open and damned if we were going to float around for an hour waiting for another opening.

Matt happily steering Tara towards Lefkas

We charged through Lefkas channel … me swearing at the guy in front that was going so slow that I needed to put the boat in neutral half the time. Also in 20 knots of breeze, the boat can be a handful if you lose tracking of the keel and rudder. I was tailgating him enough that he got the message and pulled over to let us through. Freaking pushy Canadians!

We went on to Meganisi island. Reading the Imray book you must be mindful of lines ashore on Meganisi as rats have a habit of climbing on board your boat. Ross was reading an annotation for a bay we were looking at and it said: “There is 100% chance a rat will get on board your boat in this anchorage. They only come on-board at night though – so you can enjoy all the wasps during the day”. We have seen up close what a mouse/rat can do on board a boat – we saw one at Kremik and they needed to tear the boat apart to catch the thing after it had chewed through a bunch of wire and hoses. Just as we were about to give in we went into an anchorage and threw the hook and it held. The disco pumped out fireworks at midnight and kept going full-tilt-boogey until 6am Sunday morning. We hope that was because it was a holiday and not just Saturday night. We got up a little late the next morning and went ashore, had a coffee, breakfast, bought some provisions and surfed the internet. Ross downloaded $30 of Archie Comics. That IB program is really paying off!

Ross on Meganisi resisting the temptation to hold up Tara with one hand

In the afternoon we headed to Tranquil Bay in Nydri, a town about half way down Lefkas. There we secured rental of 2 scooters that we would take to Preveza on Monday morning. We ate out, bought food and hung out on the boat. Monday morning at 9 we picked up our scooters, a 50cc one for Ross, 100cc’s for me, and rode the 50kms to Preveza, including the 2 km tunnel under the Preveza harbour. We payed our 800 Euros tax, got our cruising permit stamped and we were good to go. On the way back we stopped in Lefkas town and checked out the beach there – a mecca for windsurfing and kitesurfing. Both Ross and I looked at the kitesurfing and thought it would be a blast – provided the water is warm.

Ross and I both enjoyed the ride, once I got over being a bit panicked about how people ride your butt when they want to pass. We are thinking about a motorcycle trip next June to visit Marina’s brother Mike in the Yukon for the summer solstice.

Safe and sound back on Tara, we loaded up on more food and beverages and started thinking about getting to Athens. We have about a week to get there … and we always like to be early as opposed to late to the party. Looks like it’s time to leave Tranquil Bay for the windy side of Greece.