ocean-pilgrim

As mentioned in prior posts the weather is something that informs and influences every decision we make while living aboard. It’s something we work with and around as controlling it is well outside of our remit! But, boy I wish we could sometimes. This season, so far, has been a mess of weather in no particular pattern as yet. It’s blown from south to north and back again sometimes in the same day. This makes passage planning particularly difficult for those heading off on longer adventures and for those of us staying close by to particular islands it means getting familiar with anchorages good for southerly weather. Southerlies are usually a hallmark of the winter and as we swing this way and that through this spring they’ve been much more prevalent.

We launched in Leros three weeks ago and have spent most of our time around our home base of Lakki, either on anchor or on the amazing free town quay. There are things to do and things to wait for. Lots of them. Parcels are due to arrive, a new mainsail being the biggest of them and things to repair. There’s always lots of small repairs and maintenance to do and Rick does pretty much all of it himself but the biggest is sorting out our in-mast furling motor and this is beyond his expertise. This is now with the mechanic and we have fingers crossed that it can be repaired by this week before the new sail arrives. So we have been just hanging out and restocking the boat with spares of all the things that might break or need regular replacement and while this is an exhaustive list Rick has many carefully ordered parts tucked away in various lockers. Boats are complex, with complex systems and each year Rick builds his knowledge of how to fix and repair things. Impressive really!

So with all this in the background what do we do when the weather swings from one direction to the other? Lakki is pretty good in anything from the north but not great in a southerly and last week we had a big one come through. Stocked up with fresh food to last about 4-5 days we headed north to an anchorage that is pretty bullet proof. Probably the only unattractive anchorage on the island but great holding for our anchor in mud. It’s a bit industrial and the army are known to do a bit of target practice on one hillside but who cares when safety is your first priority.

So we left a day ahead of the weather which enabled us to find a pretty good spot alongside all the other old salts who had come for its excellent holding and all round protection. The only caveat on that is that there are lots of old bit of rubbish in that mud. Fishing nets and old anchors and the remains of now unused moorings and bits of old rope so obviously we hope never to find our anchor tangled with any of that. Because it did blow. Up to 40 knots (80 kph). So while we knew we were holding pretty well it is never fully clear until the wind gets up. A friend in the same spot dragged several times despite years of experience after his anchor collected an old fishing net not once but twice! Others dragged as well but that may also have been lack of experience in anchoring. Our anchor slipped a few metres but then held firm but this kind of event can do your head in. Are we in the kind of mud that slowly allows the anchor to creep? Have we got net or some detritus on our anchor? Or are we just slowly moving backwards towards that big industrial fishing barge and the rocks beyond it? All these things go through your mind and they stick in Rick’s which is not great for his blood pressure. The majority of the wind was forecast for during the day and I spent a lot of time using our golf range finder to check how far away we were from that damn barge. It’s a great piece of equipment as it looks like a monocle but you turn it on and line it up with the object in front of you then click the button and it tells you how many metres it is away from you. Super helpful when your mind is playing tricks and saying ‘we’re getting closer’ when actually we’re not. I was worried I would flatten the battery.

There’s one other bay on this island called Blefoutis, that is also protected from the south but the holding for the anchor is known to be tricky due to lots of weed and small stones and sand that make slipping really easy. We heard that it was so bad 5 boats left and out of the remaining 16 only 4 didn’t drag anchor. And of course if a boat does start to drag and is headed your way it can suddenly become a very real problem. Either they can hit you and damage your boat or pull your anchor out too and get it tangled with theirs. Nightmare stuff! Fortunately none of this happened to us so after 36 hours of a strong southerly it was all over and we were fine part from a few shredded nerves.

However, right now we are sitting in this same bay, Blefouti to wait out a much less intense southerly after our little Tiki tour north. Last night we were joined by about 12 other boats including our friends Nick and Vanessa. We had arrived early and anchored 3 times, yet again as we didn’t feel we had secure hold with our anchor. The third time was definitely a charm as we anchored in a clean patch of sand well away from other boats. We have lots of chain out as there’s no-one nearby. We haven’t budged in the last 2 days. Not so everyone else. This bay has lived up to its name but never more so than last night. An older couple anchored nearby to us in the morning and stayed happily in the one place all afternoon. Then they went ashore to walk their dog. There’s a sense people get watching other boats and if a boat goes broadside to the wind in quite strong winds and stays that way you notice. We were at Nick and Vanessa’s boat to have a wine and Vanessa said the boat in question was dragging. Rick and Nick went into the beach to see if they could find the owners and 2 boats launched dinghies to see if they could stop this boat that was heading quickly towards a shoal of rocks a good 200 metres away. They boarded the boat and did what they could to get the anchor to hold until the owners arrived. The owners came running back to their dinghy and took a very slow trip (due to a tiny outboard motor) across the bay to their boat which those on board had managed to stop before it reached the rocks. They re-anchored, no doubt in quite a state and dragged again. Third time for them also worked and they had a quiet night. It was very alarming seeing how quickly their boat was taken by the 25 knot winds and we all breathed out once they were safe and so was their boat.

So with time on our hands and the blow heading north the best thing to do when you can afford to go where the wind takes you is to hop on the tail end of it and use it to go north for a few days. We did just this and had the most beautiful sail up to Agathonisi where we tried not just once but 6 times to anchor. The first was in a bay that Navily, the anchorage app we use (which has all the information plus reviews on how others have found it) said the ground in the bay we had chosen was mainly shallow sand covering a sandstone shelf. After 3 attempts it was clear that we were definitely not holding. That combined with the remains of the southerly swell that was rolling in and making it a bit uncomfortable helped us make the decision to move around to another lonely anchorage out of the swell. It still took another 3 attempts to get a good, safe hold overnight. But it was worth the effort as it was a truly lovely spot and there is something so comforting about being somewhere that is totally embedded in nature to help the stress flow out of your system. We commented on that peace and how it reminded us that it feels all the sweeter after a nerve wracking 36 hours of wind. Not that it’s just the wind it’s also the wearing noise of the wind combined with the noises boats make in the wind where straps and lines and rigging clank and flog and vibrate and flap, plus there’s the Saharan dust that accompanied it. Suffice to say we were glad when it was over but we totally acknowledge that is an important aspect of our sailing life and there really is no escaping it when we choose to sail the Aegean. I wouldn’t have it any other way though!