12 August 2013, Poros next!

We slept with one eye open all the night and morning until 06:30 when we went up, before the sunrise. During the night there had been breezes from all kind of directions and the boat had turned 360 degrees more than one time. And when we went there was of course a breeze from the most unfavorable direction blowing us and anchor quite close to one of the permanently buoyed boats.

We skipped the breakfast and headed away with Poros as target. I needed to participate at a phone conference at work at 11:00 and I wanted to have moored in Poros before the conference was starting. We had two hours of wonderful sailing with beam reach winds, 7-9 m/s and we made good speed 7-8,5 knots. Then the wind dropped and we rolled in the genua and started the engine and kept good speed with some support from the main sail.

We moored at Poros town, which lies on the Poros island, 10:30 and I had my phone conference on board as planned. However I was not pleased with the scope and the anchor chain angle when stretched was too steep to ensure a good grip. So after the phone conference we re-anchored, now with all chain out. This time the anchor got a really good grip, but too far out – we could not come close enough to the quay, some 5 meters missing. But with almost full speed reverse and help from neighbor boat crew on the quay and my genoa winch we managed to stretch the anchor chain enough much to reach the quay with one and a half meters gap. Which is perfect actually, since there is swell coming in from the ferries. Only worries left now are that the anchor got a too good grip, due to it might be stuck in something horrifying at the sea bottom. We’ll see when we leave…

We also decided to stay another day here, since we have such a good anchor grip, and rent a car on the nearby, 200m, mainland to visit that amphitheatre by tomorrow instead.

Poros is a real tourist hot spot with probably twenty water front restaurants. We chose another one, a so called garden restaurant, up the hill which had really nice food and atmosphere.

Poros is also known for having one of the most beautiful entrances from water. Since there is only 100 m between the island and mainland at its most narrow passage and the town on the island is climbing up the island hillside it feels like you could almost touch the houses when sailing in from south. We came from north, though. We plan to leave it through the south entrance.