I slept very well, but Richard didn’t and that wasn’t the cause of the
motion of the boat. We tried to
have a fairly early start and did get away by 9am, which wasn’t bad. I had hoped the sea had flattened, but
when we got out of the bay it was the same thing as yesterday. Force 4 on the nose with a lumpy sea.
Last night in the restaurant we met a German who comes here regularly
and he claimed that there hadn’t been big winds or big seas in the Dodecanese
this month. We aren’t sure which
Dodecanese he was talking about.
Everyone else has said this has been the worst July in years for the Meltemi. To make the point we have just heard
from Jonnie and Marion that they have made it to Amorgos, but it took over 6
hours in a 4 metre high sea!
Anyway, we slogged away and made it to Lipsi (Lipso, if you
prefer). We are not in the main
harbour. We are in an anchorage
called Kouloura. It is a sort of
triple bay with a beach club and a restaurant. We came here last year in September only to find the whole
place shut up. Today is different. The restaurant is open and there are
lots of boats anchored. The pilot
book suggests there is poor holding, but there are many anchored boats so we
finally use our new windless. On
the first attempt Richard puts the boat in reverse so hard I am certain he pulled
up a perfectly set anchor. The
next time we just wait and see if it bites, which is does. So then we go for a swim and R looks at
the anchor with his face mask. He
is not happy. It is covered in
sand and on a sandy patch but only one fluke (from the side) has dug in. So we have lunch and wait and see.
The wind is fairly high, gusting 14 to 16 knots. We have set an anchor alarm and we
haven’t moved at all. We leave it
all afternoon and it seems fine.
Just before sundown R looks at the anchor again and it is in the same
position. He is concerned about it
and is not happy to leave the boat.
So we stay on board and have dinner in the cockpit.
I am sceptical about all this looking at the anchor. For 11 years we anchored this boat all
over. We never looked at how it set (well, who swims in the English
channel!) We just waited for it to
settle in one place and felt for a tug to show it had bitten. We only ever dragged once and that was
our own fault when we forgot how big the tide would get in the Tregier River
and didn’t put enough scope out.
So just because we are now in clear waters where it is warm enough to
swim and look at the anchor that we are getting so fussy. As I said, I think we are making
ourselves miserable for nothing.
The wind now seems to have settled down a bit, so we hope to have a
tranquil night.
No comments:
Post a Comment