So begins our first trip on Seaclusion in almost 2 years – to the Eastern Sporades, Greece

Having spent a few hectic days getting Casa Del Mar ready for her rental season, we flew through the night from Malaga to Prague and then Prague to Samos arriving at 8 am on the 13th July, with not a passport officer anyway in sight, but sadly a random covid inspection, which resulted in both of us (despite David’s protestations that he had only had his PCR test less than 24hrs ago) for random testing that brought tears to our eyes!

With that done and dusted we found our little hire car for the next few days and went to see how Seaclusion had faired over the last 2 years, and clearly she needed some elbow grease but she was OK. The only down side was the yard hadn’t been able to fit :

1. The new critical part for the mast sailing system (which we had had shipped out from the UK sadly after Brexit, so spent almost as much on the import duty and agents fees as we did on the part) and it was 6mm too short so we needed to get a Teflon part made to cover the gap.
2. A critical non-return value to the engine and to do a final service because the only trustworthy engineer on the island was in Athens with his poorly grandmother!

Still it gave us time to clean!! The only problem was we had a perfect (and almost unheard of at this time of the year), weather window to go north from the weekend, so we had all our fingers and toes crossed that everything would come together!

During the few days we worked on Seaclusion whilst on the hard, Samos suffered a massive fire to the west of us, thankfully from our point of view with north easterly winds keeping it away from us. It was however amazing to watch the planes scoop up water in their bellies in the bay to the side of us, to spray over the fire…

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Launch Day!

So Friday afternoon came, and as all the engineering works had thankfully, been done, so we were ready to launch Seaclusion back into the water, not as clean and organised as we would like, but conscious of the weather window we faced it needed to be done! The pictures show the transportation process and we were in! What is more, after turning the engine on, she sounded really sweet.

We had our last dinner on Samos at a ramshackle, but very good beach restaurant, the food was fine, and the retsina a little dodgy, still it was a wonderful start to our holiday, despite realising a little later that we had been bitten by a number of sand flies, or one with a massive appetite, a week later we still have the red marks over our feet and ankles that look more like measles.

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So at about 8am on Saturday morning we set off for the Southern tip of Chios and were blessed, hopefully not for the last time this trip, by very favourable winds, that gave us a fantastic sail all the way over to Chios some 50 miles away, so a great introduction for both us and the yacht to get reacquainted. We can report that there are no issues with either during the crossing, reaching a top boat speed of 8.8 knots, happy days! So a very healthy start, apart from Seaclusion’s top sides looking like they need some TLC! We stayed on anchor in a large open bay overnight with a good nights sleep.

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Given the weather window we had to get across the Aegean westward, Chios will have to wait for a full exploration for another time…next year!

We awoke to get ourselves ready for the next stage to a stop off point on the Island of Psara, which we had calculated was 35 NM but our boat log showed 44 NM… we think perhaps it is running a little fast! As we were preparing to leave, we noticed some clouds bubbling up off the Turkish coast, and shortly after they turned into a very heavy fog, which delayed our departure somewhat. Apart from the eerie start, most of the journey was under engine, so a little dull, but it had to be done..

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The Island of Psara

We arrived in Psara at 4pm, heading into its tiny port, the only place on the island to spend the night in safety. It is a tiny barren island, and was one of the first to revolt against the Turks. In 1824 Hosref Pasha however, landed a large force and massacred the population. The island is said to have never really recovered, probably also because it is off the beaten track for tourists. Its tiny port was just that, tiny, with a couple of tavernas and a nice beach. It took us all of 10 minutes to wander around the place, with camera in hand of course.

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We set sail the following morning in a beautiful southerly force 4- 5, on a broad reach, for the Island of Skyros, again calculated at 55NM, but we did 77NM. As the winds were great until they petered out in the final hour, we sailed as the crows flies, so definitely can confirm our speedometer is running quite a bit fast… a problem for another day! We arrived at the tiny port of Linaria at 5:30 in the afternoon, just in time to grab one of the final spots on the quay, with no mishaps!

Port of Linaria, Skyros

Skyros, or Skiros, is the most easterly and the largest of the northern Sporades Islands, important because of its position on the trade routes across the northern Aegean. To this date it gets its fair proportion of tourists. We found the islanders on this little windy outpost to be very friendly and relaxed, but sadly we did not get to see the herd of wild ponies said to roam the island.

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We spent our first evening on board, which in the end we were very grateful for, as we watched in amazement a massive ferry come into, and totally dwarf this tiny port, to the sounds of 2001 Space Odyssey at full volume, if you want to witness it yourself, follow this link… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqR9NjDQXBc

Still felt a little too close for comfort as it passed our bow a few feet away!

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The following day was a work day for us, attacking our topsides with compound polish and nanotech with vigor, until she once again could reflect the teak decks in her gelcoat, Steven would be proud!

You would have thought we would have been exhausted after 6 hours of hard graft each but instead, rather pleased with our efforts we found the energy to go out for dinner with a lovely couple, Cat & Nick who we had met for all of 5 minutes in Psara and who in their beautiful 54ft Amel called Amelia had headed in the same direction as us to Skyros. Great fun was had at one of the local tavernas, where we shared a wonderful grouper, and not so hot vino, whilst we exchanged our life stories… ironically they lived in Scaynes Hill, spitting distance from our old house in the UK, but had spent most of their life sailing professionally around the world, no less than 3 times! A couple we hope to keep in touch with going forward!

The following morning, having ascertained that there was only really the Chora (Greek version of our Spanish Pueblos) to visit, we didn’t bother trying to hire a car (particularly as we had to get to the Chora to pick one up anyway), so jumped in a cab and went exploring. We will let the pics do the talking…

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On our return, the winds had finally changed to their typical northerlies and it wasn’t particularly comfortable on our quay, so after an attempt at re-provisioning, attempt being the operative word as their was little to be had in the 2 mini markets, we dropped our lines and headed to the head of the bay to drop anchor, close enough to Amelia to be able to row over for sundowners on their deck!

It was such a lovely spot, cool with the wind blowing, and comfortable, that we decided to stay another day and night on anchor, this time to watch the ferry come and go from afar! Funnily enough we didn’t try to blow up the paddle board, I don’t think we would have had the strength to use it and not be blown out to sea if we had!!!

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So finally early on the 23rd July, we waved our goodbyes to Amelia and set sail into the heart of the Sporades, next stop, the Island of Alonnisos!

23rd July 2021