SAILING WITH NORMANFrom Preveza to Rhodes – Sep 2011

Preveza to Rhodes, via Santorini

Preveza

Rhodes

Novae wet again after 10 months on the hardstand.

Preveza - 38° 45′N 20° 45.8′E

Very nice town on the Greek West coast,

2 marinas one of which can hold 1000 boats on the hardstand and a municipal harbour .

Lefkada - 038° 50′N 020° 43′E

The crossing from Preveza to Lefkada is about 7.5NM and about 180˚.

A revolving bridge swings every hour to let boats through the narrow channel.

The main halyard had a few twists and could not be lowered to attach the sail, so I had to go up the mast to free it.

LefkadaFrom the top of the mast:

The town with restaurants, shops and nice marina.

The long channel and Norman guarding the winch that pulled me up…

POLIS COVE - 38° 26′N 20° 38′E

This is a small protected bay on the island of ITHAKI (Ithaca)

Very deep cove with limited anchoring in shallow water. The ground is limestone on steep incline, with a little weeds and sand in some spots, caution, if the anchor drags it can end up in deep water.

METHONI - 36°49′N 21°42′E

This is a very nice little town full of legends going back to Ulysses and before. The Venetians and the Turks shared the millennia of its history.

Shops and restaurants everywhere and a great anchorage.

Elefonisos 36° 30′N 25° 59′E

Did not take pics here….

The approach from the North is very shallow and care must be taken.

There is no anchorage or mooring in the harbour for cruisers, so we had to anchor and sleep outside.

It could be very rough with any wind from East and South.

No other cruising yachts here.

Methoni

SantoriniElefonisos

Milos

We left Elefonisos intending to go to Milos, but a 25kn NNE ly made us quickly change our course and wew went to Santorini.

Santorini - 36° 24′N 25° 24′E

This very famous and touristy place has two main villages, Fira and Oia, and some more smaller ones.

Only one marina on the south side and water up to 380m deep in the middle of the ancient volcano.

White walls, blue doors, windows and churches’ roofs.

Everything here is organized for tourists with whom you have to share the island shoulder to shoulder.

Several cruise ships anchor, or better said, ‘Dynamically position’ themselves in the very deep natural harbour created in ~1500BC by the explosion of the volcano that in a few hours all but wiped out the Minoans, a thriving civilization of sailors and merchants.

Every second shop is a restaurant on the clifftop.

When we arrived in the middle of the night, we picked up an empty mooring in the centre of the Caldera, but we had to leave it early in the morning for the charter boats.

We motored around and arrived at the marina, where we had lunch and hired a car (half a car….).

Santorini is also famous for its sunsets, but more because city dwellers never actually make the time to see a sunset and they think it only happens in remote islands.

We watched great sunsets and sunrises everywhere.

Sunset from Oia, NW end of island. Sunrise from the Caldera.

Sunrise from Vlikadha Marina.

Astypalaya- 36° 33′N 26° 21′E

This was the great surprise of the trip: a magical island with anchorages, coves, history and great people.

The Byzantine castle of Chora on top of the hill is a must see.

The views from the castle are spectacular, we left early and watched the sunrise.

From the top of the walls we could see the harbour with Novae in the middle and the bay on the other side of the hill as well as other islands in the distance.

It is easy to understand why, overpowered by such

awesome grandeur, man had to invent a creator.

Like most Greek island towns, Astypalaia’s walls are all white, with blue windows and doors.

Here we learned that windmill roofs are red.

You would not make much money trying to sell green or brown paint in Greece……

Tilos - 36° 26′N 27° 21′E

We anchored in Eristos Cove, a very well protected summer bay, but exposed to winter southerlies.

Very wide sandy bottom and pebble beach.

A resort hotel and two more taverns on the shore.

Santorini

Astypalaia Tilos

We caught the bus to town to find restaurants, resort hotels and pebbled beaches with umbrellas and loungers, hired two scooters and scooted around the the rest of the island….

The monastery on the west coast occupied the only water spring on the island, we also found a nudist beach even though we were the only two skinny dipping in the midday sun.

Rhodes - 36° 26′N 27° 21′E

A plane every 10 minutes and several cruise ships arrive at Rhodes every day during the summer.

The ‘Old City’, with its three walls and moats and pebbled roads, is designated a Unesco ‘World Heritage Site’.

The only marina on the NE side is choka with charter boats and we could not moore in it so we anchored close to shore in the ships harbour; we went to the port police to check in, then for a bite to eat. At about 9pm we went back to the boat and found that the wind shifted and was coming straight into the harbour and waves were crashing on the beach!!

Novae was raiding up and down the waves on anchor, but another sailing boat was washed on the beach, no sign of the occupants.

Norman put his backpack in the dinghy, jumped in the water fully dressed and held the dinghy steady in the crushing waves while I started the motor. He was the hero of the day!

The coast guard was there with a search light shining and advised us to move to a more sheltered anchorage which we did. We spent the night in an unfinished commercial harbour facility and went back to the port the day after and, with our new friend Lefteris, helped salvage the boat from the beach.

The day after, rescuing the beached boat.

Our new friend Lefteris, a real old fashionedSea-dog.

The day after (Sun 2/10) I took Norman to the airport and prepared myself to wait 3h for Helen’s arrival when I got an sms from Helen that her flight was delayed 2.5h.

I thought that one should expect something like this when on a cheap Ryan Air flight, but I learned afterwards that many planes were delayed up to 3.5h because Rhodes airport did not have space for all the planes !!??!! Believe it or not…

Helen and I then had to go to the Southern end of the port to get the passports stamped for the departure, then go to the Port Police on the Northern end to get the cruising permit stamped, then go back to the Southern end to Customs to leave the cruising permit…. 2h… only in Greece…

Monday 3rd we left for Marmaris, Turkey, but that’s another story…..