Author: daisydog

This is the follow-up to Tuesday, part one. If you’d like to read about the day cronologically, click here.

Tuesday afternoon, and Coral was waiting contentedly for us as we returned from our lunch-hike. A light breeze from the NW was creating a steady little bounce in the harbour, and by 5 pm it was such that stacking boats was looking a bit dodgy, so we were happy that Monday’s group had wandered away and our bow was clear. As I searched the fridge for a beer, I heard yelling, and a sailboat backed in to stack on our bow. The Hydra Bumperboat Circus began. I politely took their sternline, as did my neighbour, and the friendly Polish skipper and crew proceeded to bounce, jockey, twist and fend their boat off of Coral’s menacing bowroller. No serious contact, but as the surge intensified in the harbour, it was obvious (to me) that our boat geometries were completely incompatible for these conditions. Coral’s sturdy construction threatenened to pull the Beneteau limb from cleat, and I wasn’t willing to deal with dings and scuffs. The Poles thankfully seemed resigned to try elsewhere, but just then another boat took center stage as their anchor dragged and they spent 30 minutes blown around and flailing through the harbour like a rabid baboon. Oh, I know: rarely are baboons used in the circus. But take my word for it.

The baboon boat scraped along the Poles at one point while everyone in the harbour was enthralled, horrified and thankful it wasn’t them. Eventually the harbour diver tranquilized that situation,  and then it was the Poles turn to reel in their anchor and bugger off. But of course, they tangled with my anchor,  which just means they simply needed to snake a rope under my chain, extricate their anchor, and drop my anchor back where they found… HEY! HEY! NO! NOT THERE! WHAAAAT!!

I exchanged bewildered eyerolls with everyone else who had been yelling as my friendly Polish boat sped out of the harbour, having inexplicably dropped my hook 3 aisles over. With my engine now assuredly keeping my butt off the dock, I debated: Should I risk leaving the dock to reposition my anchor? Just snug it and deal with the mess tomorrow? Was I to be the next baboon?

I chose just to snug away, but incredibly, my anchor grabbed absolutely nothing in that nest of chains, and wound right back to Coral’s bow. I wasn’t snagged, but now what? Back in again? Leave the harbour for the night? My neighbour suggested paying the diver or taxi boat guy to ferry my anchor back to a good spot, and that was a very well spent €50 for 10 minutes of important help. The anchor got enough grab to hold me off the dock while dusk fell and the harbour lept and creaked for another pensive 4 hours. Coral seemed to shrug the whole thing off.

When the cruising guide say “dangerous surge in a NW wind”, one needs to pay attention, and maybe plan an early escape.

 

Hydra Island is thought to be named for its natural springwater (Hydrea in ancient times). That said, the Lernaean Hydra of Greek mythology (a many headed serpent that lived about 60 km away on the Pelopennesian mainland) seems to have some sway in the character of this place. This post is about the smiling, happy, cuddly serpent head. This post.

Tuesday began with my hunt for the bad crimp that was hiding somewhere in the circuit that connects the engine stop button to the actual stoppenator, aka the fuel shutoff solenoid. Not a serious issue, but an inconvenience to have to run below to maually turn the shutoff lever each time. Having proven that the button still buttoned and the solenoid still ‘noided, I proceeded to replace the various wire connections that seem the cause of most marine electrical issues. Three nice recrimps in the sidelocker, but still no luck.

Oh, wait, maybe it’s the little wire next to the engine that’s completely broken in two. The wire that’s really easy to reach. Presto. Stopifaction.

To celebrate avoiding an embarassing service call (oh, THAT broken wire?), we strolled 2 km down the coast to the Four Seasons Beach Resort for lunch.

It was all so chill we walked back rather than take the water taxi.

Gee, is it only 3 pm?

P.S. You’ve been patient with my feeble suspense. Scroll down for a spoiler if needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is fine.

It was a mere 45 minute jaunt from the rolling solitude of Soupia to the cluster-dock of tiny Hydra harbour. Wow. That’s Coral tucked in the back row, 6 from the left.

This place must be just cuckoo in high season. We’re surrounded by a pleasant armada of Ukranians, chartering these boats for a week and travelling as a pack.

So the dock was relatively calm at noon when we showed up,  which is good because my last 10 days at anchor made my parking skills pretty rusty. Three tries to get Coral lined up, snaking in reverse all over the place, but once I finally gave Kath the okay to put the anchor down it went fairly well. Both embarassed and jacked with adrenaline, I snugged lines and shrugged to Kathy and our tolerant neighbours. Cam an! Paaakin’ this thing is wicked haaad!

The rest of the day has been occupied with food, booze, and this little bumper addition to the end of our passerelle.

Yup, “passerelle”. Yachting really is that adorable. And speaking of adorable, we got cleaned up to hit the town. Kathy looked so classy, the waiter brought white wine rather than the requested red.

Note Coral lurking in the background. Does this outboard make my transom look big?

Sunday’s sights, cronologically: Tiny hilltop church, super yachts, banana-hammock sunbather, helicopter rising from the nearby villa, buck naked guy, sheep. None of that is euphemism. Thankfully there are no pictures.

Soupia is a tiny frog-shaped islet across the strait from Hydra. Near Soupia the shoreline and the forecast looked somewhat promising for my first kite session in Greece.

We anchored between the frog and the mainland on Saturday afternoon after a nice sail around the corner from Poros. The anchorage is quite exposed,  but I need exposed beach to rig and fly the kite,  and the forecast called for very little wind at night, which has worked out nicely for us. The minor hiccup with this location is the swell that gently sidles in from 100 miles SE, which made this happen all Sunday night:

While Kath snoozed on Sunday morning, I swam ashore and walked up the small hill to Moni Agiou Athanasiou. A moni is a secluded tiny chapel, and any family in Greece who has some status built such a thing to honour their favorite saint at some point in the past 1000 years. The chapel of Saint Athanasiou is in pristine condition, beautifully appointed inside, seemingly having just hosted a little service, judging by the palm fronds adorning the arched doorway.

Back to Coral to recruit Kathy to go hang at the “beach” and wait for wind. We gave a wide berth to a gentleman who arrived on his scooter and sunbathed for an hour down the beach, attired scantily. Kathy sat in the shade of a big pine tree and read while I paced.

Guess I should’a spent more money on more kites. My beautiful 10 metre Airush just wasn’t enough.

Back to Coral for mojitos, snacks, backgammon, and a steady parade of gleaming super yachts charging out of Hydra back to Athens and the boardrooms beyond.

The yacht in that pic is fairly typical, what my friend David would call standard junior-oligarch. JO. Meh.

Then the chopper lifted off from the villa that’s about 1/2 km away and flew over us for the run back to Athens. Now that is BO. Bonafide Oligarchy.

Then Coral spun on her anchor rode a few degrees and BANG! 300 ft away is a dude standing in wonder woman pose, nekked, seemingly staring at us. The safety manual says to stay calm in this situation and focus on the backgammon game, so that’s what we did. But when, 8 minutes later, he got dressed, got on his scooter, and drove over to the small herd of sheep I hadn’t noticed,  well, this was too much. As I computed the response-time of the local SPCA swat team, it dawned on me that he might actually be the shepherd, having just taken a towel-less airdry swim,  and indeed he proceeded to herd the sheep up the coastal path with a constant beeping of his scooter horn. Also not a euphemism. I still called the SPCA and left a message, just to be safe.

Yeah? You like that? Took me several attempts to get it that tidy. The point of pride is the Xantrex Pathmaker (find Waldo!), which has a glowing amber led light, and does absolutely nothing. Like many 17 year olds, Coral defies easy comprehension.

Oh a food note, while Kath is not a fan,  I’m lovin’ the Country Salad and Alpha for lunch.

Motored through Poros today to anchor off Aliki Beach, just south of  town, a whopping 30 minute move. Better view,  fewer neighbours. Some fussy.

A low-wind motor/sail (Chatele, safe to report to your dad–we turned the motor off while sailing!) from Epidavros to Poros yesterday, successfully avoiding the fast ferries humming through the narrow strait each hour.

We bumped into our old friend the pirate ship, who we saw outside the harbour in Aegina and also sailed past us in Perdika.

A very tranquil night at anchor, and then cranked the dinghy up this morning for a 4 minute high speed run to see the town, have a cappuccino, and buy some boat bits and groceries.

Saw a sign pointing up to the clock tower and figured we had better follow it.  A little cardio for Kathy.

As always, there was a tiny church in the vicinity.

Saw some spots badly in need of the services of Kathy’s Strip and Paint.  A shame I’m retired.

Mimi, you’re not retired–like I said earlier, everyone and their dog has a dog.  Pet services are in high demand if you get tired of Saint George!

A big luxury yacht full of young party girls just anchored next to us.  I tried to use the binocs to see if it’s anyone famous, but no luck.  My eyes are too bad and I think I’m getting too old to really care.  I’ve changed…

Bonus info, these are the jellyfish we’ve been running into occasionally–velella velella.  Apparently they are generally harmless, at worst will cause a mild rash.  I have yet to get in the water and so am perfectly safe.  I considered snorkeling at the sunken ruins, which for me is a modest victory.

 

Since our original plans from last week got interrupted by our neglected and grumpy windlass, we resumed our touring by heading back to Epidavros to snorkel the sunken ruins.

Also got to inspect the baby amphitheatre on the hill overlooking our anchorage.

And then wandered through lushly irrigated orange groves, heavy with fruit, into town for groceries. May 1, Mayday, with lots of folks out for a stroll adorned with impromptu wildflower wreaths. We weren’t quite so crafty, but Ms. Eagan looked festive and charming anyhow.

Light breeze in the afternoon, so a mere month after arriving in Greece, we finally hoisted the mailsail, unfurled the genoa, turned off the engine and dawdled silently out and back for a few hours of delightful slow motion sailing. Back to drop anchor for 5 pm mojitos. Meh…. not a bad day.

First off, some tidying up–here is a nice photo Mike took at the amphitheater in Epidavros.

And here are the two photos the lady took as we were entering the harbour in Aegina Town the other day.  You can see me fighting with the anchor in the first shot.

So Mike is now intimately acquainted with the windlass and it is purring like a Greek kitten with a bellyfull of pistachios, or whatever the hell it is they feed all these cats.  (Did I mention they grow pistachios on Aegina island? also lemons and olives)  I secretly hope they eat wharf rats too so that I don’t have to worry about one finding its way onto the boat.

With the windlass working again, we headed south to Perdika (on the same island).  We anchored in a small bay just north of town and had a delightful pork stir-fry for dinner.  Thanks Mike!  I married well, that guy can cook.

This morning Mike worked on the generator battery while I spent two hours waking up and doing nothing productive.  Then we headed into Perdika to check things out.  I was pretty excited to see the Camera Obscura, a giant 360 degree pinhole camera out on a point, south of town.  Sadly, it has fallen into disrepair and is no longer functional, but it totally made me want to build one back home, wherever home turns out to be, upon our return.

After that we just wandered around a bit and had some lunch in town.  It’s a very small fishing village with the requisite tavernas on the coast.

Check out this warning about this being a forbidden navy area.  Does it LOOK like there is a lot of navy activity going on?

Mike took more photos of flowers, and I took more photos of Mike taking photos of flowers.

And now I sit once again in the wee hours typing a blog post, listening to music, but this time–surprise surprise–it is jazz that is floating across the water from the amazing taverna we visited yesterday (thank for the WiFi, folks!).  Best calamari so far.  Feels a little surreal to hear Take Five, All of Me, The More I See You, All the Things You Are and lots of other classics.  Recorded, of course, but hey, maybe there is room for me and the new ukulele to entertain some Greek folks someday.

 

 

Yes, you read that right–we are back in Aegina Town.  That damn windlass is our nemesis.

First of all, we enjoyed our time in Palaia Epidavros a lot.  We had two incredibly calm nights at anchor.  Here is Coral bobbing happily in the bay.

Coral at anchor in Palaia Epidavros

This is the church just off our stern that woke us up at 7am each morning with bells, and kept waking me up every half hour thereafter.  Mike just got up at 7. He tells me that when I’m old like him I will wake up and not want to go back to sleep, but I still have an amazing capacity to go back to sleep multiple times in the morning, as all my past employers will attest.

This morning we got up and started puttering and Mike tried to start the generator.  No go.  He started the engine to jump start the generator, and then we decided to just move at that time since we were only planning to go around the corner into another bay where Mike could snorkel and see the remains of the old city under water.  (I’m not interested in snorkeling yet–too cold still for this fair weather swimmer.  My wetsuit is in Canada, and I doubt I could squeeze into it regardless).  We started the routine: I removed the snub on the anchor and started to bring it up with the windlass.  Halfway up it stopped.  I could feel it trying, so we thought maybe it was just caught on something, but we soon discerned that no, it was another windlass problem.  Mike used brute force to get the anchor the rest of the way up, winching by hand, and then we left the harbour to think about our options.   It didn’t take long to decide to head back to Aegina Town where we had some support.  

As a little treat, we let out the jib for part of our crossing.  Not quite full sailing since the motor was still on, but a taste of things to come.

The concern upon arrival was that we only had one chance to set the anchor, so I was nervous about the Med mooring and voted to just anchor south of the harbour.   I was overruled, because of course it is much more convenient to be a step away from shore when you’re dealing with crap.

We arrived just before 3pm and knew that the high-speed ferry was leaving at 3, so we hung back to let it leave.  In the meantime, three boats entered the harbour to moor!  I was getting a little panicky about availability of spots, but Mike assured me there was lots of room.  Indeed, our old spot was still open next to the big charter boat, so once the ferry departed we lined up to back in.

I started to drop the anchor and about 30 seconds in I realized that if it jammed I was screwed!  It had jammed almost every other time I had dropped it, but generally that just means pulling it up a smidge  and continuing down (using buttons, not muscle).  Since UP didn’t work,  a jam would have completely screwed up our momentum backing into the spot, and then it would have been a mild shit show.   It is not the same as backing up your car.  Through some miracle, for once it did not jam!  Afterward I told Mike about my revelation mid-anchor drop, and he said “look at the email I sent David before we left Palaia Epidavros”.  In that email  he expressed his concern about our one chance to drop the anchor and said “hope it doesn’t jam”.  I realized that he had been thinking about that problem all along and had avoided bringing it up since it would only make me panic.  Of course I then had one of those weird after-the-fact emotional rushes and started to cry.

It was kind of him to try and spare me the worrying, though we did agree after that it would not have been a bad thing for me to have a winch handy to try and raise the anchor by a couple of links to get things moving again, had a jam happened.  Hindsight is 20/20.   In the end, Mike’s magic horseshoe remains firmly lodged in his butt, and I am a happy beneficiary.

Shortly after we arrived in our berth, a lady showed up with two photos mounted that she had taken while we were entering the port.  They were pretty good, so I told Mike I wanted them and he kindly acquiesced.  16 Euros later we had our first personal things to hang on the cabin walls.  I will take photos of the photos tomorrow and post them.

We’ve only been gone from Aegina Town for 2 days, but in that time summer seems to have arrived–hot weather and lots of noise and people.  After the solitude of Palaia Epidavros it was quite jarring, but still comforting to know I could visit all my regular haunts.  Case in point, I headed to Tenekedakia pronto for pita gyros, this time the chicken ones.  The chicken was great, but they serve them with a mustard sauce instead of the tzatziki that is served on the pork ones.  Tomorrow I live right:  pita chicken gyro with tzatziki!  I predict they will herald me a genius!

Mike spent the rest of the afternoon working on the windlass after an email consult with David and a phone consult with Lucas.  He didn’t have the heart to try things out today, but I have a good feeling.  I’ll leave it to him if he wants to share details.

Dinner at Panta Rei (where we reconnected with our adorable regular waitress, Liberty), and now Mike is conked out while I sit here “borrowing” WiFi and listening to a bunch of drunk Greeks 3 boats down singing songs and playing guitar. It is a strange thing when a huge number of people know all the words to a song you have never heard in your life.

Ah, guitar has now stopped and I am treated to the sound of 80s pop music drifting out from the waterfront tavernas.  We are surprised at all the American (and Canadian–I heard some Moist!)  music that is played here.  Adele is ubiquitous.   In France twelve years ago I got pretty plugged into the French music scene, but I don’t see that happening here.  I guess they are catering to tourists? Ah, now I hear Dancing Queen, one of the first songs I ever truly loved (after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road).  No complaints! On to Staying Alive, and now the somewhat more contemporary Flo Rida’s Low.  Hit the floor and party on, Aegina Town!

Having read Mike’s last post, I now see that I’ve been spelling windless wrong, and it should be windlass.  Colour me embarrassed!   That said, all the names here in Greece seem to be spelled at least four different ways, so let’s just say it’s part of the acclimation process, along with eating dinner at 9pm and falling asleep to the sound of pistol shrimp (not to be confused with the basketball team, The Pistol Shrimps).

So back in Aegina, Mike accidentally knocked over a display at the grocery store with his bubble butt.  The owner of the store claimed responsibility for putting the display in an awkward spot too close to the cash, but Mike felt bad and bought a bottle of alcohol to assuage his guilt.  We decided to use it to try and make our own Greek mojitos.

To further facilitate this, we bought a mint plant for the boat.  After the first snip it seemed to get sad fast.  We have black thumbs and couldn’t decide if it was overwatered or underwatered. Touching the soil we found it hard as a rock and decided underwatered was more likely, and after a healthy douse and some sunlight it sprang back to life!  I had been on the verge of calling in to CBC to talk to Ed Lawrence, which in hindsight might have been a tad excessive.

This morning we took down the extra jib that we had mistakenly installed and put the correct one up.  Some productive boat work accomplished, we rewarded ourselves with an afternoon trip out to the UNESCO site, the Sanctuary of Asklepios, which includes the amphitheater at Epidavros (or Epidauros or Epidaurus or… you get the picture).

I enjoyed seeing the amphitheater immensely, the acoustics are insane, but I was thoroughly annoyed at the behaviour of other tourists.  There were relatively few people visiting, so there is no reason why every single person couldn’t have had a minute to stand on the button centre stage and do whatever: drop a coin, clap, sing, orate.  The smallest sound carries to the topmost seats.  But nooooo, obnoxious people have to stand there for five, ten, fifteen minutes, while polite, passive aggressive, Canadian tourists resist asking them to freaking move and give us a moment in the spotlight.  Mike said he envies their obliviousness? lack of giving a shit?  but I don’t.  I’d prefer to be silent and have no one realize that I’m secretly a jerk who hates them, rather than an oblivious dolt who others KNOW is a jerk, even if they themselves don’t.  Is that not part of what being Canadian is all about?

After the theater we wandered around the rest of the grounds, a healing sanctuary with multiple buildings and a sports field.  They are doing some interesting restoration, starting to recreate the buildings using the real pieces they have and filling in the blanks with new stuff.

At the museum they had some amazing things recovered at the site, lots of statues and medical instruments.

I’ll keep my Tweezerman tweezers, thanks very much.

We returned to town and got drinks and apps at the restaurant whose WiFi we can see from the boat, Posidon (sic). Password obtained!

On a side note, this is the picture on the toilet paper we bought.

Is this not crazy?  Who puts humans (albeit cartoon ones) on toilet paper packaging?!?!  Where are the bears?