It was still dead calm when we woke up and the boat had not drifted at
all. We took up the anchor and went by engine and had breakfast in the saloon
with the some speed wind ventilating the boat meanwhile. It was a really hot
day.
Suddenly we discovered dolphins at some distance! They were in two
groups with 3-4 individuals in each. We turned and came slowly quite close to
them. It is a magnificent view seeing these big animals (3-4 m long) swimming
close to the boat, especially when it is clear water. You see their white-gray
body some 5-6 meters below in contrast to the really blue water. We got
hundreds (puh) of photos and spent some 10 minutes with them. It will be a hell
later sorting out the best shots, all looking about the same…
Some 2-3 hours later we passed under the big impressing Korinth bridge
between Rion and Anrrion. We had to call the Bridge Control center to get
permission to pass under the bridge. The bridge was build and ready for use in 2004
and according the sailing pilot (guide) it has the longest cable lifted bridge
span in the world. 
Just another hour eastwards we dropped anchor outside a medieval city,
Navpaktos, with a quite big fortress with walls facing the sea. We had lunch
under a big tree with a view to the very small marina inside the fortress
walls. We could not see our boat since we anchored outside the walls. But with
the excellent app BoatMon R (for Remote) and two local Greek phone prepaid SIM
cards we could leave the iPad onboard functioning as a GPS sending positions
every second minute to my Iphone which could display the position on a Google
maps picture. So if the boat would have started to drift I could have seen this
on my iPhone. This is a really great help when leaving the boat on anchor.
Heading out from Navpaktos an Easterly wind had developed - against us.
A bit surprising since the sail pilot says that Westerly winds prevails in
these waters. The wind increased to some 10-12 m/s and we sailed with one reef
against it. After a while we got tired of zig-zaging and started the engine. We
arrived to the island Trizonia and some kind of marina there around 7 pm.
Still 12 m/s wind from East, so the mooring became a bit difficult. There
was no space left in the marina, and when asking an Italian boat if we could
moor along their boat (this is the way we always do in Scandinavia, often 5-7
boats outside each other) he refused. We were lucky, suddenly one of the boats
left and with an empty space with the size of our boat along the concrete quay.
But with the wind blowing off the quay at that force it is difficult to come
close enough with the boat to the quay. The wind puts out the boat. After a
couple of attempts and with help from people on the quay we managed to get one
line in the front attached both to the quay and the boat. And then we could
throw over a really long line to them which I could use to winch in the aft of
the boat and reach the quay. Some stressy moments, but no damage and now we are
lying comfortably alongside the quay. Looking for food later, we managed to
miss a number of nice restaurants close by and walked instead up to the only
restaurant we thought was present on this island some 30m up the hill. We had
an ok meal there, but the best advantage with this restaurant was the
spectacular view over the nature of the island and the marina.
We went to bed at 23:00 but it was still very hot, and the wind had
disappeared completely. It is difficult to sleep in +30 C so I went up for some
blogging instead J.
No comments:
Post a Comment