Journey today is towards a quiet bay called Levitha Ormos, 28 nautical miles away. time 5.5 hours. Our plan was to leave around 10.00 am. however that was not going to happen. A huge beautiful Turkish Gulet had pulled into the space next to us overnight, which would normally be no problem. Unfortunately he was sitting on top of our anchor (he was three times longer than us!) This slightly restricting our exit, we asked the captain roughly what time he expected to leave and were told at 10.00am. By 11.30 we were just setting off. Today the wind was good to us, around 17 knots, with reefed sails we glided through a gently swelling sea at around 6.5 knots. The sea was deserted, should be a quiet anchorage. On rounding the corner into the bay, we were catching sight of one, then two then six........ 10 other yacht's in the bay! Not at all how we envisaged our quiet evening. The wind was still pretty gusty in the bay however there were mooring buoys dotted around. Excellent this means a hopefully, safer mooring. With usually very heavy concrete bases, these buoys are better placed to prevent your boat drifting, the issue arises when trying to get hold of one! I took the helm while Kevin with a hook. He disappeared towards the bow ready for the challenge and it was, we turned towards said buoy, wind on our port side ( first mistake!) Should be in front of you if possible. As I bring 'Kejstral' to a gentle halt near the buoy, wind takes us away from it. Kevin managed to grab it however, we are drifting away too quickly. Eventually the boat hook he was grasping so tightly snapped in two. One end still attached to the buoy! Another boat hook required, fortunately we had just replaced our old slightly bent one yet had not trashed it. So bent hook was used for the second more successful attempt. The wind does cause problems whenever you try to 'park'. This time was no exception, I should however have made sure we were directly into the wind path. A few adjustments saw us tied firmly, then time for a cuppa. Our neighbours were in a variety of old and new vessels, flags from France, New Zealand Germany and Italy could be seen fluttering their patriotic colours high above each boat. There were three British flags too, it is hard to imagine all of these people making their separate plans to travel their separate route of choice to then come together in such a remote bay. As we arrived at teatime Kevin was questioning his menu choices, I had decided on spaghetti bolognese so on with the gas, out with the mince and veg. Kevin messed around, cleaning and tidying when a motor boat appears alongside. The guy on board was the local inhabitant, the only family on the island it turns out. He helped ensure the ropes where secure and informed us of the €7 per night charge. Did we want to pay him now or go to his taverna this evening! He has a taverna, where?? We can see nothing more than a small concrete jetty two blue containers and a little fishing boat! So we ate up, showered and changed, during this time taverna owner was zipping round each yacht checking ropes and passing on his taverna invite. Soon there were tenders everywhere bobbing on the still swelling waves, each tender heading for a jetty space. As we approached to squeeze into the reducing space, a New Zealand couple took our ropes and we chattered excitedly about the mysterious taverna. It wasn't an obvious path, stony and winding through bracken and shrubs. Soon we were facing a bright white and stone cottage with an outside patio area covered loosely with bamboo to reduce that offending sunshine, still hammering us at 7.30 in the evening. As we seated ourselves, next to Lee and Larry from N.Z. other boatees took their wicker seated chairs around old wooden tables. Lanterns swayed above our heads in the now settling breeze. It was almost surreal, from our expectation of uninhabited island with a lonely nights anchorage, the evening had become a laughter filled, story exchanging gathering of lovely people. Some ate the local offerings of lamb with rice and potatoes, or meatballs. All of this and drinks were served enthusiastically by our taverna man and his children aged around 10 or 12 years old. We chattered away to L & L all evening and found out Lee had retired early from accountancy and Larry had handed over his electrical business, to fly to Greece and buy a boat then hopefully sail it back to N.Z. The evening came to a close with exchanges of email addresses and Facebook details before we stumbled our way back towards what we assumed was the concrete jetty. Fortunately we were all together, all of the 10 boat occupants, together we giggled our way using torchlights and handheld gadgets to illuminate our path, still managing to lose our way! On reaching our various tenders we took leave of our new found friends onwards towards our individual boats. Then settled to sleep ready for the day ahead.
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Sailing Kejstral AdventuresRetired and following our dream of sailing around the world Archives
April 2019
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