As I said I didn’t post yesterday because no sailing was involved in
our activities. We hired a car
which turned up at about 10:30 and drove around the island. We went to see a few beaches and were
unimpressed with them all. I had
to drive because Richard’s new licence after his 70th birthday
didn’t get to us before we left home. I am a nervous driver in a strange car and on strange
roads and this was not helped by R’s navigation which took me along a beach at
one point! It also helps to drive
on the right I am told.
A long hard look at the weather forecast made us decide to leave Patmos
today. The Meltemi is still
blowing strong, but the winds are not forecast for 7’s and 8’s and the sea
state is just over 1 meter high.
The direction of the wind will put us on a reach to get to the island of
Lipsi (or Lipsos depending on which book you read). So we decide to set for there. Jonnie and Marion have come to the same conclusion, so we
hope to meet them there.
The plan was to fill the car up with fuel, collect the laundry and
leave at about 10am to get there before the winds pick up in the afternoon. Everything went to plan and we even
slipped our lines half an hour early when disaster struck. Our anchor was horribly fouled on
mooring lines and chain from the neighbouring fishing boats. We first tried to just manoeuvre around
to free it, but that didn’t work.
Then R got out his hook gadget with which you are supposed to hook the
line fouling the anchor, pull the anchor free and then trip the hook to free
it. Richard played with this for
about 45 minutes and all that happened was that we picked up more ropes to foul
the anchor.
By this time I am getting hysterical. No one is coming to help even though they can plainly see
our problem. We will be a hazard
to the other boats soon. I start
to shout for help and wave and finally someone responds. It is a man who was on a boat along
from us with a family. He dived
off his boat and swam over to us.
He then borrowed R’s face mask and snorkel and dived down to the anchor
and managed to free it. What a
relief! We were not even able to
give him a bottle of wine to say thank you and we were sailing off and he was
swimming.
So we got away about an hour later than planned. The weather forecast was more or less
spot on. The wind was blowing top
of a Force 5 with regular gusts up to 24 knots. We sailed all the way on Genoa making 5-6knots. We got in just before 1pm. By now the wind was blowing a steady
force 6, even in the harbour where at least the sea is flat. It took some effort to moor the boat
stern to with the wind constantly blowing us sideways. We did it without mishap, but heaven
knows where the anchor is and how many other anchors will be over it by the
time we want to leave!
Just as we tied up Jonnie and Marion came in. They had similar trouble mooring, but finally came safely
in. We should have had lunch then, but were persuaded to go to the good local
bakery and have coffee and cake instead.
Then back to the boat where the wind is still howling away as a force
6. We manage to connect to
electricity and fill up with water and clean the cockpit.
We went to dinner with the Luries and their Belgium friends who live
here, Jos and Marie-Claire Vanstraelen.
It was a very nice evening.
We will almost certainly stay here for another night. The Luries may well leave early
tomorrow because they have to fly back to London on Tuesday to sort out
building problems with their letting flats.
So we are off to bed. I
need the sleep. The boat is
rocking about in the wind. That
should put me to sleep.
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