Fashionably late

The landscapes of Cepheloniia and Ithica float like monochrome ghosts on  flat calm Mediterranean seas receding in graduated tones towards the distant horizons. Towering like Herculean giants above our scattered fleet of minuscule sailboats as we scatter in search of the slightest zephyr to waft us on to our next port of call. This is the scene that is to be repeated every afternoon on our weeks flotilla holiday in the Ionian seas. It's the end of September when the winds are more than predicable, according to our lead skipper, Dan, at this time of year, but for some inexplicable reason, this week the forecasters are stumped as to these freak conditions. It's always calm in the mornings, blows up through noon till late afternoon and then dies at night. This week it's   fickle winds in Fiskardo, and all around these splendid sailing grounds. Back in England they've had balmy Indian summer weather with highs of 30 degrees, unheard of in October.

Global warming brings strange bits of unlikely weather to all parts of the globe, and it looks like we got our funny bit in Greece this week.

There's ten yachts in the flotilla, and ours is called Pirgos, named after the Minoan settlement of 1450 BC.  Shes a 32ft Beneteau with in mast furling mainsail, which is a first for us and we're eager to see if we like this new fangled idea. We've only done old fashioned sails so far so this will be our chance to see if we get on with it or not.

Lots of little things annoy us about our boat, like the position of the mirror in the heads,-too low, the silly cupboard door above the stove, how the only place to prepare food in the galley is on top of the fridge which you always want to get into, and can't because that's where your preparing stuff. There's no holders in the cockpit for a bottle or can, and no cubby holes for your bits and bobs. And most annoying of all, the wheel squeaks, this is most annoying when searching for the wind at one or two knots. Apart from that shes an adequate boat and certainly a step up from our 27ft Jag that we sailed last year. In fact when we do catch the wind she's quite fun to sail.

All in all the week was without incident for us, and we found stepping up to this larger yacht was, to say the least, a piece of piss. We handled the changes in points of sail effortlessly on 99.9% of our voyages, and when we did get into a two and eight we simply started up Mr engine Sir and promptly brought us back to where we should have been, cut the engine and sailed on like we'ld been doing this for years.

Mind you the winds were never very strong and the seas were more than kind. Only one morning were we out in anything that resembled a blow, most of the sailing was in light airs. But that meant we had to trim the sails and search out the winds. We would seek out the on shore breezes by hugging the coast, or search for dark water where there maybe a bit more wind in our sails.

In previous sails we have inadvertently found ourselves hove too, this time we deliberately tried the manoeuvre, which was successful, and we stopped for lunch miles out at sea. When we had very light winds behind us one day we set the sails goose winged, with a preventer on the mainsail to stop the boom swinging across the boat. We sailed very long tacks to catch the best of the light winds, anything to avoid turning on the engine. Often this meant that we were out much longer than most of our fleet who were often home 2 hours ahead of us, but we were there for the sailing. Perhaps many of the others were looking for a nice bay to stop for a swim, or investigate the tavernas of the next port.

One of the days saw us attempt a gallant rescue of one of our flotilla companions who had the misfortune of getting their anchor stuck whilst stopping for lunch in a small bay at the southern tip of Ithaca. We were the only boat still in the bay, except for Nericos who had tried to leave but were stuck fast unable to raise their anchor. We tried attaching a line to their anchor chain. They had moored very close to a rocky shore and try as we may we only succeeded in dragging our boat close to the perilous shore. we gave up and promised to radio our lead boat when we exited the bay and could make radio contact. This had to be done via a relay with other boats further up the coast, as the VHF only works in line of sight and Kalypso, our lead boat was already home and out of radio contact. Eventually they made contact via mobile phone, Jackie was able to find the number as they,Nericos, couldn't find it. The message came back for them to cut their anchor and we motored slowly out at sea maintaining radio contact until they finally rounded the point out of the bay and we all sailed safely to Kioni.

We were confined to port in Kioni as the winds were up the next morning and it was impossible for us to sail directly into the gale that was blowing to reach Savota. I would have loved to have gone out to test our skills in the wind but prudence kept us in port and anyway it gave us a chance to swim and paint, and chill for a day.

We not only had a squeaky wheel, we had a very reluctant furling mainsail that refused all attempts to reel, or furl in easily. When we wanted to practise our reefing skills the sail refused to slip back into the mast easily. No amount of tugging and heaving would budge it. In fact we had to use the winch to extend the sail to its full capacity and this caused the sail to pop out at the bottom of the leach which fouled the sail on the way back in. we eventually found out how to deal with this but it meant going to the mast and cajoling the bloody thing to move from there. It sort of put me off the whole idea of roller reefing mainsails.

At the end of term party at the Captains cabin in Fiskardo the lead crew handed out awards to various crews for our endeavours of the week. First up was a rambling speech about some crew that had made the best of the fickle winds of the week, a boat that was almost always last into port, and a crew that had teased the best of a week of light airs, a boat that was fashionably late into every port. And the award goes to........PIRGOS.
We were a bit pissed by the time these awards were handed out and I hadn't exactly paid attention to what was being said but when all the other awards seemed to be for calamities that had befallen various boats I felt quite proud of our plywood cutout, that now stands on our mantelshelf a testimony to our progress from novices to navigators.    

Any port in a storm

Over the VHF we hear that lots of our flotilla have had difficulty making Paxos and a change of plan has sent them all to Sivota which is about six miles from where we're heading. We make a quick calculation that we could also make this port putting an extra hour onto our proposed plan. By the time we're approaching Sivota it's getting dark and before we enter the calmer waters on the approach to Sivota we are night sailing. Now we've done this on the Clyde and down the Menia straights but with a qualified yachtmaster aboard, but here we are in foreign waters with just me and Jackie aboard. We check the chart which tells us there's a light house right on the point ahead. This is easy to spot, but the chart also has a red flashing light every five seconds near the harbour. So far we can't see that so we motor on towards the lighthouse until the lights of Sivota are away to our port side. Well is it Sivota as we still can't see a red flash every 5 seconds. Our lead skipper is on the VHF asking if we can see the red light in the port, but amongst all the street lights it's impossible to tell. Never the less we head towards the twinkling lights straining our eyes to pick out this illusive light. In the gloom we can barely see the shape of land, we check the pilot book and discover that there's a sea wall around the harbour and we're aimed straight for it, we turn quickly starboard and there in the distance is this red light. It's not flashing at all and there was nothing on the end of the sea wall to indicate that this also may be a hazard. Now within sight of the masts of our flotilla we cut the engine revs and glide slowly in the dark towards the red light that's next to where our leader wants me to dock. Just turn around now and come in stern first. WHAT! This is going to be rather tricky as I've never done this manoeuvre ever. He wants me to squeeze between two other yachts. Just point the tiller the way you want the boat to go, oh right and do the throttle at the same time, why not. Actually at this point some inappropriate air of confidence sprang out of nowhere and before you could say bobs your uncle, or some more appropriate nautical term we were throwing our lines to the crew on the dockside. After two hours of night sailing we were safely tied up and ready for a well earned G&T.
We didn't expect to be using our night sailing training here but so glad to have done it as we felt on top of the situation all of the time.


Ten yards from our boat is a bar and we order a series of G&Ts whilst we recant our adventure to Pat and Dave whilst we get nicely drunk before falling into our berths aboard Othina for a good nights sleep.

Not exactly sinking

Tuesday we were told at the 9.30 briefing we were to sail to Laka in Paxos, a distance of some 20 miles south, the wind was forecast force 4 to 5 from the south east. We had a slight delay getting away as we had to wait for the lead crew captain to change one of our main sheet jammers that had been slipping yesterday, this meant that by the time we got away it was almost 11am. It later transpired that this replacement was almost as bad as the old one, but that was to be the least of our problems today.

We had been warned about lazy lines, they're ropes that lie in the water to tie your boat onto and can foul your prop, so you have to be extra careful as you leave the quay. I'm on the helm as we drift away from the quay, Jackie insists I should wait a little longer before putting her into gear but I'm keen to show off my getting underway skills and ignore her advice.

I push the tiller hard to starboard, engage the engine, and line her up with the port exit when the engine suddenly dies. I try starting her again but she instantly stops. We've snagged a line, we've got prop wrap. Sciroco, Sciroco,(thats our lead boat) this is Othoni, I think we've got a lazy line around our propeller.

This requires Hannah, one of the lead crew, to come over in their dingy who has to dive down and free the offending line from round our prop. This is not the best of starts and it's another half an hour before we're underway again. Luckily most of the flotilla have left by now so miss our embarrassing start to todays' voyage, Hannah wants Tom, the engineer to come and check that all is OK for us to go but Tom, , doesn't think it necessary to check it. We're drifting perilously close to a menacing looking rusty metal jetty when he radios to say that all should be fine. If the engine fires up we'll be OK to get on our way. When I press the start button the engine coughs into life and we sheepishly putter out into the open water beyond the harbour.

Once we're clear of the harbour and headland the seas are considerably bigger and choppier than yesterday and the wind is coming directly from the way we want to go. From our training we know that we can't sail into the wind and will have to tack our way south. Jackie has marked a waypoint on the chart which is about three miles off the coast where we will head before turning south. On reflection, the next day we realise that this was perhaps a mistake, but at the time it gave us a point to aim at. We turn into the wind and hoist the sails, main sail first, then the jib. With the wind blowing on our beam, that's the side of the boat, Othoni takes off at a pace, heals over and scampers off at a steady four knots, sometimes touching five.

About half an hour into our exhilarating sail I notice that we have a trickle of water seeping from the engine cowling which seems to becoming more of a flow with every passing minute. The floor of our cabin is very wet, not that we're actually sinking but we decide it's serious enough to call up Sirocco on the VHF. Scirroco Scirroco this is Othoni, over, Go ahead Othoni, Erm, not sure if this is serious but we've sprung a leak, over.

They are a few miles ahead of us and ask us to heave to. this is a way you can stop a sailboat, and as Jackie has accidently learned how to do this once or twice since we started this morning,we do, and they turn back to come check us out. This takes them about half an hour to find us and Tom leaps aboard to see what the problem is. He removes the bits around the engine and scrabbles around the back of it to check on our leak. After about ten minutes he declares all is well and that the prop wrap may have allowed some water into the boat. However there's none coming in now and this water is just old stuff sloshing about once we started sailing, and healed over.

He gives us the OK to carry on but suggests we keep an eye on it and pump the bilges occasionally. The only thing is we can't find the bilge pump handle. He gives us a spare off Sciroco, but it doesn't fit. "Have you got a wooden spoon on board?" Yes we've got one of them, OK he say's that should do as a makeshift pump handle, and we'll sort out a proper one when you get to Laka in Paxos. Great well that's reassuring, at least we'll be able to use the pump if things take a turn for the worse. We don't have cause to use the wooden spoon on the rest of this voyage but when we do try it the next day whilst in port it makes two or three pumps before snapping.

Grab a Jag

Grab a Jag, the advert said and sail the Greek islands, so last Monday we set sail with the flotilla of 16 yachts from Plataria on the west coast of Greece bound for Corfu town. The day was bright and sunny with light winds and although we were a little apprehensive being all on our own on a yacht for the very first time, the training we'ld had from our day skipper courses kicked in and we soon felt at home on our little caravan on the water. I had thought that being in a flotilla meant we would all stick together but we were soon separated by a good few miles and to all intents and purpose we were out there on our own. Othoni, was our boat, she was 27ft long and about 35 years old and in many ways it showed. But she floated, and when we hoisted the sails she managed to bob along at a sedate 2 to 3 knots in what I suppose they call slight seas. The voyage of about 15 nautical miles took about six hours with the last hour and a half with the engine purring away as the winds had completely died. We docked without incident, broke out a beer, and congratulated ourselves at completing our first solo sail without incident, tomorrow would be a different day.

Flotilla in Paxos, Greece.

It's really getting into autumnal weather here, today we had high winds and driving rain, so just the right time to get on a plane and fly to a Greek island. A few weeks ago we had one of those Fxxk it moments and booked ourselves a 7 day flotilla holiday in Paxos, which is a little island on the west coast of Greece.

This will be the next step in our learning curve, and we hope a way to ease us into handling a yacht all by ourselves, albeit with an expert on hand if we go wrong. We did think about going back to Scotland and doing a solo sail back up in Largs but then we spotted this end of season bargain on the net and now it's almost time to pack our grab bags and go do it.

We'll be sailing in a Jaguar 25 footer, which is a lot smaller than we have been training on, but funnily enough the same sort of boat that we almost bought a few weeks back on Windermere.

We're both excited at the prospect of casting off all by ourselves into the blue Med although the forecast is for rain at the start of the week. But Hey, who cares, it can't be anything like when we did our Day skipper up in Largs. The one thing we don't want is no wind, perhaps about force 4 or 5 would be great.

It's just over a year now since we started this adventure and I think we have a grasp of the basics, hopefully by the time next week is over we will have gained the confidence we need to take it to the next level. Day Skipper Coastal is the next one after this and then it's back to the Dominican Republic in January. Whoa, can't wait.