Bareboat Charter Athens Day 4
Tuesday – Day 4 of 7 days sailing with The Moorings in Greece: Spetses – Poros
We woke in the morning to find that the wind had swung as predicted by Pocket GRiB. We’d made a good choice on which side of the key to Med moor.
Sam On-The-Rocks went back to town to buy his beloved girlfriend a Mermaid he saw in a shop window the previous evening. Spetses definitely had some cute shops.
Next, a 30 mile sail back to the bay of Saronikos Kolpos to the island of Poros.
From Spetses to Poros
I elected to do some office work while the crew did a stellar job of sailing. Office work meaning writing this. This is work – serious!
Dreaded Office Work
Here is a slide show of sailing from Spetses to Poros
Coming through a cut a small ferry went past creating a huge wake. I didn’t think too much about it but its wake managed to do a crescendo right into Dave and Bev’s cabin through a side hatch while they were snoozing. They claim it was a full 55 gallon drum of seawater. Wet sheets, mattress, clothes, and pillows, they came upstairs looking desperately for the jokester to beat up, only to find it was their fault for leaving hatches open while underway.
Boats like these make huge wakes. Close hatches!!!!!
Many of the hills surrounding were topped with giant wind turbines. A fitting display of technology for such a sailing history nation.
Poros is a must see and visit. It’s a busy little town on an island about 500 yards from the mainland. The channel between Poros and the mainland is about 2 miles long and the quay to dock up to is gorgeous and loaded with great Restaurants.
Here is a slide show of pics entering the cut between the Mainland and Poros.
Our Med Mooring up to the quay at Poros was less than perfect. In fact, it was down right awful and embarrassing. What we did wrong was we did not drop the anchor out far enough in the channel. So that when we backed up to the wall and tried to tighten up the anchor to pull us out from the wall the anchor drug across the bottom and met us back at the boat. This meant we had to release all the lines and go back out and reset. This was all complicated by a strong cross wind. Essentially we pulled off the whole thing like a bunch of amateurs. On the reset, we rigged a forward spring line to go to the wall. Then by using power and rudder we were able to lever the boat upwind to position perfectly in the right spot. Then we set all the shore lines and tightened up on our now dug in and properly set anchor. Our Maneuvering Under Power course describes the use of a forward spring line – either amidships or bow.
An amidships spring line
This is a video debrief.
The quay at Poros is a great place to hang out with shops and restaurants and great quay side tables which we hung out on and had a few glasses of chilled wine with cheese. Here’s a fun embedded video from facebook.
Poros is the site of Poseidon’s Temple. Poseidon is the Greek God of the Sea and so it was fitting that we visit the site and ask for safe travels on our voyage. The ruins of the temple are pretty much just a bunch of rocks these days but just to stand there and imagine the architects and builders from 400 BC was amazing. It’s about a 20-minute taxi ride from the marina.
Another awesome visit was a walk up several hundred steps to the top of the hill to visit the clock tower.
Poros Clock Tower
The view down the channel from the clock tower with all the boating was breathtaking.
View From Poros Clock Tower
Back down on the quay, we got an upfront look at the Bristolian, a 40 meter luxury yacht. Our crew complained that we did not have handrails on our walkboard like they did. Ohhh the shame!!
Bristolian
This was the 4th time we’d seen the Bristolian on our trip. Other times, they were under sail – stunning.
The Bristolian Under Sail
Our dinner selection was courtesy of Trip Advisor whereby we found the most awesome family run restaurant Apagio Taverna. The fish and the lamb was amazing. When you visit Poros you must go visit Apagio Taverna. Directly opposite our berth was a thumping night club called Malibu so we ended the night dancing and sipping more Ouzos. [Trip Advisor Link for Apagio]
