Arrival / Day 0
After a little pause from sailing last year, I participated in this years trip around the islands in the Aegean Sea. Just as in years before, we arrived Thursday night in Lavrion (Λαύριο) via Athens. This time the boats were located in the Olympic Marina about a mile and a half south of the town Lavrion. (It turned out, that picking up and dropping the boats in the marina next to the harbor in Lavrion is a better place, because the Olympic Marina does not provide a decent grocery store to get the necessary provisions for the trip). It was great to see all those sailors again after a long time. This year we were 21 souls evenly distributed on 3 boats. Here’s an overview of the whole trip:
Day 1
Friday morning we ordered a cab and went to Lavrion to buy the provisions and bring them back to the boat. While skipper and co-skipper checked the boat the rest of the crew loaded and stored the supplies. After the usual safety instructions we started the trip. Unfortunately, we did not get very far. After 15 meters we touched another yacht, which caused damage to both boats. We first had to settle the claim, which involved some bureaucracy and cost us valuable time. Once ready, we followed the other crews to our destination on the island of Kea (Κέα). We arrived in the harbor of Korissia (Κορησσία) and had dinner in a local tavern.
Day 2
Winds were rather strong so the skippers decided to stay in the safe harbor of Korissia. Some of us walked around town, watched the ferries arriving and leaving while others hiked to visit the Lion of Kea which is located a little outside of the capitol of the island Ioulis (Ιουλίς).
The distance was to a bit too much to walk back, so the group ordered a cab for a ride back to the harbor. For dinner we prepared sausages on the boats BBQ.
Day 3
Winds calmed down so we decided to continue our journey to Batsi on the island of Andros (Άνδρος). On that leg, we suddenly lost a shackle which connected the jib sheet to the jib. Due to the winds we were not able to take in the jib. Once arriving in the harbor of Batsi we were able to furl the sail with the help of fellow sailors from our other boats. It was a bit of a fight due to the ever increasing wind speeds. We had dinner in a near by restaurant in the harbor and watched the waves becoming stronger and stronger.
Day 4
As winds calmed down towards the morning, we were able to fix the the shackle. It turned out, that the screw was not tightened enough which also was the case for the second shackle of the connection. Once a replacement was found and the sail was brought back into its position we made sure that the shackles were in the right condition by really tightening all screws. Once the repair session was over, we continued our journey to the island of Kythnos (Κύθνος). We arrived in Loutra (Λουτρά) in the afternoon and had dinner on board of our yacht.
Day 5
The day started early, because we had a long leg ahead. The plan was to sail to Hydra (Ύδρα) or Poros (Πόρος). I have been to both places during our trip in 2019. The day started with calm winds and the final decision was to sail to Poros. In the early afternoon, they picked up and we gained speeds of up to 10kn. Meanwhile, we learned that the 20th East Med Multihull Yacht Charter Show takes place in the harbor of Poros which meant that it might be crowded and harder to find a place to dock. Arriving in the area of Poros the sky turned red due to a sand traveling a long way from the Sahara desert. This resulted in a somewhat strange ambiance. Looking out for a spot to tie up we were lucky and found a nice spot along the quay.
Day 6
Again, calm winds were projected for our next destination, the harbor of Perdika (Πέρδικα) on the island of Aegina (Αίγινα). Before we left Poros, we visited the local fish market which we knew from our trip in 2019. We purchased seven gilt-head seabreams for dinner. Arriving in Perdika, we landed alongside with a yacht of 10 students from the university of Munich. We had a blast when dealing with the harbor master who turned out to be the sexiest example of complete cluelessness. We wanted to buy electricity and water from him and he told us that all the meters are blocked on our supply point and that he had no clue how to unblock them. As engineer, I simply figured out that they still had a budget on them and we used it so that the meters ran down to zero. That alone unblocked them and we called him again to add more budget which we needed to grill the fish on the boat’s barbecue. Again he surprised us, as he needed to use his calculator twice to extract the tax part of the identical sum for our and the yacht of the students which took forever. What a jerk.
The fish was tasty due to the nice stuffing and the side dishes our “chefs” on board had prepared. I was in charge of the barbecue action again.
Day 7
Due to very calm winds we stayed in Perdika and walked around town. We visited a beautiful church, had some ice cream and took it easy. Later, we went out for a little tour on the boat to empty our black water tanks off shore. That was, when we were unable to loosen the anchor when returning. We tried hard, but the chain brake was too tight. So going back to the harbor, we fixed the boat alongside the two other yachts and repaired not only the anchor, but also the Bimini top. “Steinbach repariert” also operates in Greece 🙂
Since the winds became stronger again, we added a head spring to keep the boats in position.
Day 8
We started early once more because we had to return the yacht by 5 p.m. During the first part of the leg the wind was strong enough to sail. When I was on the rudder and the crew decided to open the Bimini top I did not pay attention and the fabric of the top touched my head in such a way that I lost my sailor’s cap. Well, another sacrifice for Poseidon. We returned to the harbor, filled up diesel and returned the boat to the charter company. After the check was cleared and signed off, we took a cab to Lavrion where some of us bought some chocolate pralines all crews gathered for a common dinner. We arrived back at the boat some time around mid-night.
Departure
Saturday morning we had a little breakfast on the boat, cleaned things up and packed our luggage. By 9 or 9:30 we left the boat and the team of the charter company took over to prepare the yacht for the next crew. We spent the morning with a few coffees in the cafe of the marina before our shuttle bus took us back to the airport in Athens where we had enough time to check-in, gather for a few snacks in the sun outside of the terminal and pass security control. While waiting for boarding we had another drink.
The flight was calm and arrived on time in Frankfurt. A shuttle picked us up and brought us back home.
Pictures by: Conny, Reni, Werner and me