Whooomp! (Dokos)

 

22nd June 2020 (Dokos)

Leaving Spetses we headed North towards the city of Napflion - the previous capital of Greece. On route we had favourable wind (light and on our stern) to let us try out our spinnaker sail - our first attempt at putting it up. I stood at the bow to release the sail from the bag, whilst Chez manned the winches at the stern. With a satisfying ’whooomp!’ the wind filled it and we spent a gleeful 10minutes marvelling at our new toy (new to us anyway...it came with the boat but had been left at the back of a cabin gathering dust until then). 

Why only 10 minutes you may ask... I made the mistake of not enjoying it as it was, and wanted to adjust the lines here and there. All went downhill at that point, with a few shouts, a flappy sail, lines in the water and some frantic minutes trying to snuff it back into its bag. We did try again a little later with similar levels of success...plus a badly frayed halyard. We have now decided we’ll need to read up on some of the finer points - as well as replacing the halyard, before we try again. Other than that, had a nice journey up to Napflion, and anchored at twilight just off a picture perfect umbrellaed beach...close enough for wifi - joy! The next morning we took a long hot stroll along the cliff walk into town, notable along the walk was the loud buzz each time we walked past the gum trees that dotted the path - the bees seeming to love them. The town itself was again devoid of tourists - also devoid of the ‘smell’ that had been reported from various sources. We walked the almost Parisian looking streets (wrought iron balconies and crumbling pastel coloured shuttered facades draped in pink and purple bourgainvillea) alone other than an occasional nod or kali mera from the locals. 

Returning to the boat, we were visited by the Coast Guard, an official looking bunch, who we helped to tie up alongside before they demanded our papers - these, after much scrutiny, all being in order, they advised that we’d anchored too near to the beach and would be fined. After some mild protestation (we having set anchor in wind 180 degrees to its current state) , they advised us that there was nothing they could do about it, using a classic traffic warden line: ‘the ticket is written!’ and we should go and speak to the harbour master if we had an issue. As you can imagine, this did somewhat sour the day. Too late to head back into town, we slept on it and decided to try our luck with an appeal to the harbour master in the morning. 

Heading back along the same long cliff walk we made it into town, and tried to find the harbour masters office - thinking it would be at the harbour (a fair assumption surely!). After a long frustrating sun baked stomp around a lot of town, and guided by some friendly locals, we eventually found the Port Police offices about a km out of town the other way. The guard outside asked us our business...and whether we had face masks (we did).

After consulting on his radio he allowed ‘just one’ to go inside - Captain Chez took the lead, and after a tense 15mins came out again with thumbs up :) - the official she’d seen could not have been nicer and told us not to worry about it and to to enjoy Greece - will do! 

We re-anchored slightly further down the coast, and spent a relaxing couple of days swimming, reading and ineffectually fishing. 

Leaving there we headed back down to a previous anchorage, Porto Heli, where we had a dinner out and provisioned at the local AB supermarket. We then headed for the island from where I’m writing this: Dokos - a barely populated small island (just goat herders and monks apparently). We’ll stay here for the next day or so, then make our way further North towards the Corinth Canal which will allow us to cut through to the Ionian Sea where we plan to spend the rest of the summer season. .....as with all plans: written in the sand at low tide!