8 August 2013, Blown in

Woke up early 6:30 by the 52 feet South African neighbor sail boat casting off. But they were unable to get up their anchor. They tried different ways by motoring forward and backward from different direction. In the end they discovered their anchor was hang up by some old thick rope laying on the bottom, attached to something. After a while they somehow managed to get up the whole thing and released their anchor. I’ll bet they were really relieved. We have experienced the same thing a couple of times. And now we got a bit anxious that there are more junk down there making trouble as well for us when we will leave. The other neighboring boat who moored yesterday did it to our surprise without dropping anchor. Perhaps the skipper knew the bottom situation. Well, we’ll better be prepared for the worst to happen.

But not today. The forecast showed exactly the same winds as yesterday, so we decided to stay here and leave very early Friday morning instead.  

The forecast was correct, the wind blew with 18 m/s and the sea was furious. We spend the day reading, sipping a juice and an ice-coffee on one of the cafés. We also had a swim and made some more provisioning.

We talked to an hotel receptionist who informed us that this town really does not have anything special to offer tourists. It did not even has a car rental agency. So we were really stuck. What to do?

Sally finished reading her romantic drama novel. I re-read a very informative book about maneuvering a boat by motor. Sounds easy, right? Just like driving a car. Nope. A car is not exactly acting as a piece of soap on ice like a boat. And when you reverse straight, you don’t have to consider that the boat at first at slow speed turns the aft quite significantly towards starboard. Learned, among other things, how to use ropes to maneuver the boat in difficult situations and how to turn the boat around when there is not much space.

 Did you for instance know that a boat turns much sharper if you put the gear in neutral? I.e. without influence from the propeller.
Lunch on-board and we’ll be having dinner at some of the waterfront restaurant. But their menus don’t promise anything extra, all dishes are very basic. No tourists, but standard tourist menus as in every place in Greece and after a couple of weeks you get bored of souvlaki, stuffed peppar and grilled vegetables. We will get up early tomorrow and leave this place, if we’ll get up our anchor that is…