14th April 2006 - Aegina to Andros
Posted at 1:18 PM, Saturday, April 15, 2006
Heres the motley crew looking back over Swagman to Aegina's public quay and town.
Sue and I had a pretty relaxed day off in Aegina whilst the lads took a hydrofoil to visit Athens and the Acropolis. They both came back after being converted by their lady tour guide into Greco experts. These hydrofoils look like as stick insect when underway - and Marcus says his PDA in GPS mide verified they were travelling at 40 knots! You can see them both waving here as they board at Aegina.
We simple settled for a local food shop and on our return to the boat, found a port police officer waiting for us. She appeared to be all of 17 year old and her uniform was 3 sizes too big, but she shopwed no lack of authority.
'Move - right now away from this place - and bring your papers to the port police officers immediately'.
The wind had dies so it was on issue for us to drop our anchor mid harbour, and back up to the town quay walls. On visiting the police office, it seemed they believed we were trying to avoid the multilple charges made upon yachts using the town quay. So I had to draft up a formal crew list (in triplicate), fill in port entry documents, and allow them to check ships papers, before they then stamped up our cruiser / transit document.
As she did all this, her fingers flashed many times over her calculator and with a final flourish, she added the IVA and swung it round to show how much we owed. Total of 8.27 euro.
We had a great meal out in a BBQ restaurant in the back alleys -
and woke early today for the crossing to Andros.
Leaving the harbour at 0630 we saw no wind until we cleared the south of Aegina Island, when a piping 20 / 25 knot north easterly wind came up and off we romped.
Along with the wind came dark clouds and lots of rain, so we had to tuck down two reefs in our mainsail and still stormed to windward at 7 / 7.5 knots. Driving this boat feels like one is driving not so much a sports car, but rather a glossy big Mac truck. Lots of water shoved aside - but she's beautifully balanced even in the confused seas and strongish winds.
As we passed the southern approaches to Athens and Piraeous it required a constant watch as lots of ships use this port, but we all sat up and took a long look as we closely crossed direction with a surfaced (we think Greek) submarine - about half way twix the mainland and Andros. Less than 30 minutes later we were also closely passed to windward by a column of three destroyers - you could hear their turbo fan engines roaring as they sped past aiming after the sub.
So maybe the sub was not Greek after all?
We are now 10 miles off Andros and the wind has died completely. We're rocking along under engine, making water to top up the tanks, and cooking some late lunch - overall have made good time. Will update this with some pictures once we've moored up.
I've updated the pictures but need to update yesterdays journey also. As I closed down the computer after typing the blog we were hit with a 'meltemi' - the strong northerly winds often experienced in the Aegean. We shot off with this wind - sometimes topping 35 knots - on our beam - and surfed along the last 10 miles at 8 knots or more.
Parking up in the small harbour at Gavrion on Adros was hard. Due to the meltemi three other yachts were moored alongside the ketty as opposed to hanging out which would allow room for ten spaces. The three took up all available space, so we had no option but to go alongside the biggest one there, a Bavaria 44. With the winds still gusting 35 knots on our nose and bursting down into the harbour area from the high hills around, all we could do was crab in sideways v.slowly and then throw the bow rope to a French chaps who stoood on the other boat. Stunningly - he refused to take it - saying something to the effect the winds were too strong! Anyway, despite that setback making us slide backwards before the pressure of the wind, the guys all did a great job in halting the boat and we finally tied up for the night. Asshole.
Cheers
JOHN
PS Thanks Ange for the birthday greetings. Despite what Marcus says, I don't think you are really fat, you know.