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.
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| Dirk, Max, Jess and Ross |
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| Went for a hike on Dhokos - family "farm" in the background. |
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| Goats on the trail |
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| Matt at the top of Dhokos |
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| Tara at anchor at Dhokos, wayyyy down there! |
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| Someone's "Front Door" on Hydra |
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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
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| Jess on the bow... |
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| Ross at the helm |
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| Matt (and Marina) enjoying a beachside bevy in Russian Bay, just outside Poros town. |
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