Our Last Leg for 2021 – Porto Lagos & Xanthi

On the 13th September, we finally departed Thassos heading north east to the mainland and Seaclusion’s winter home, Porto Lagos.

To get there we had to sail along the coast with the shallowest depths ever for over 5 miles, normally we would never be seen dead steaming along at 5/6 knots in depths of 3.5 metres under our keel, we would slow right down to say 2/1 knots, for fear of the seabed jumping up sharply or hitting a rock which, at 5/6 knots, would knock our keel straight off, but on this occasion, if we wanted to arrive in a timely manner, we had to trust the charts, still it was a little uneasy for a bit.

The approach to the Porto Lagos was through the surrounding marshes, more akin to sailing up a river than a port entrance from the sea, but it was a haven of all types of water birds, mostly we saw seagulls, hahaha, but also herons. The area is now a protected bird reserve, and we could see why!

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After 10 minutes of closely following the markers lest we run aground, we rounded the corner and saw Porto Lagos, and whilst we could see the huge lift of Tsoukis Marine, we couldn’t see a soul, not one person to show us where to moor, worse it looked like all the moorings were permanent ones for other boats. After half an hour of floating around, and trying to make contact with our yard, we decided to drop the pick in the middle and hope someone would come either later that afternoon, or at least in the morning. But no sooner had we started to do so, a very welcome whistle reached us from a young chap frantically waving at us and directing us to one of the “permanent” moorings… one of those that meant picking up the buoy for the bow as we reversed to tie off the stern, a new thing for us… no pressure.. after all Seaclusion is easy to steer in reverse after stopping and restarting, NOT…. David really couldn’t miss with that boat hook!

Despite having the dinghy alongside the wrong side and catching the line, we did actually do it first time with no yelling either..phew! No sooner had we tied off, our lovely helpful chap disappeared and we looked around us in desperation, for any sign of power or water… with no joy, just how were we going to clean her and put her to bed for the winter???

As luck would have it, there were 2 spanish guys working on a boat 4 boats down from us, and they explained that there was power if we had a very very very long cable, which we didn’t, but thankfully they did and were happy to lend it to us, thank god. We did also, after testing a few taps a little closer to us than the power, find one that produced water, so we did finally breathe a sigh of relief!

Next job was to investigate the “town” of Porto Lagos, as we were going to be there for 5 days, which was when we realised that lack of life in the marina was just a reflection of the lack of life in the town, well the single street that had 1 restaurant, which seemed closed, 1 mini market, a number of derelict buildings and 1 coffee/bar… our pilot book had warned that Northern Mainland Greece was a bit off the beaten track for sailors and that after August things would start to wind down, even close.. they weren’t joking!

We went in search of a good meal and a drink or two, the information on the town, said there were 2/3 restaurants and a couple of cafes, but with the first restaurant being shut, never a good omen, we moved along to the next, sat down, ordered a drink and then asked for the menu, the response we got was worrying, Pizza or Sandwich, so we said what pizzas, she replied, cheese & ham, so that settled it !

So after a beer and something that really couldn’t be classed as a pizza between us, we retired to bed hoping the morning would shed a bit more light on our view, excuse the pun!

So morning arrived, followed by a chat with the owner of the yard who offered us the use of a car for a day, things were looking up, so we started to do the necessary to put Seaclusion to bed, when we soon realised we had company!

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Yep, 2 very cute and persistent kittens… at first we didn’t mind, that was until we realised that they were boys and marking/spraying on the teak deck…. after that we soon ushered them off, and lifted the passerelle up to stop them coming onboard. Very funny, no matter how high we lifted it, they were clearly adept at the high jump, until we pulled it up until it was vertical… thinking we had clearly won what was now a war of attrition….

The next few days wasn’t all going to be hard work with no play, we had left ourselves a very healthy time frame to get everything done, and we could take a break now and then and have some fun… which we did, first taking the dinghy out for its last run, further into the marshlands where Seaclusion definitely couldn’t go, to visit the church in the middle of a lagoon accessible only by a walking bridge or boat.

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We had a bit of a giggle, it was a glorious afternoon, and having been cleaned the decks in bikinis & shorts, that is what we went cruising the lagoon in.

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We got pretty close to the Church, close enough to notice the old man dressed head to toe in black, standing hand on hips, staring, well glaring at us, which perhaps made us think we should move away a little, in fact we were concentrating on him and the church so much we didn’t notice that the depths in the lagoon were reducing, not until our prop made a horrendous noise and almost brought the dinghy to a stand still, thankfully we weren’t going fast enough to damage it or catapult us into the water, but it really didn’t help things with the man glaring at us….

We then had to carefully retrace our steps before we seriously beached ourselves.

And it wasn’t until we started making notes for this blog and doing some research that we found out that it wasn’t a church at all, but rather the Monastery of Saint Nicholas, worse, a metochi, a dependency, of the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos!!! Hence the evil glare at most likely me, being a scantily dressed woman showing total disrespect, even if it was innocently done…. oops!!!

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We then had a little cruise around the harbour, before returning to our jobs!

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That evening, given we had the use of the car from the yard, we decided to check out the neighbouring fishing harbour of Fanarion, in the hope that they had more than 1 restaurant, that was open!

Fanarion

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After wandering around the tiny town, its harbour and the beach, we soon realised that when we come back next year, this is the place to come to wake Seaclusion up, rather than sticking with Porto Lagos, simply because it had so much more life!!!

After our wanderings, we found a little bar by the beach, and enjoyed a beer whilst watching the beautiful sunset and making friends with the locals!

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Then we had a choice of tavernas, yippee!.

After dinner we then made our merry way home ready for another day working on Seaclusion, the passerelle up vertical in case our little furry friends wanted some company, in the belief that this would stop them. Oh how wrong we were, 5 minutes after snuggling into bed, we heard … durr dong, and then another… the cheeky little monkeys had actually jumped the 2 metre gap from the quay onto the boat! At that point we gave up, thankfully the hatches were closed (as it was getting pretty chilly at night now), so at least they couldn’t get inside!

The following morning, Porto Lagos’s appeal still hadn’t grown on us so we decided that whilst we still had the car for a few more hours we could go and collect a hire car from Kavala Airport… to give us some freedom, besides without one we would have had to get taxis to Xanthi & back (60km return journey) for our Covid tests and an airport transfer, so it seemed to make sense, given the online prices David had found.

So having booked one, we drove to the airport, and whilst I waited in the car, David went in to pick up the car.. which BTW was a small one, something like a Fiat Panda. I soon realised something was very wrong, when he came out of the doors, frantically waving his arms in the air. Essentially the hire car only had 2 cars available, neither of which being small, one was a BMW X4, for which they wanted another €150 for, or …..

Yep, you guessed right, it was a 9 seater mini van, worse it had the words Enterprise written all over it, for no extra charge! Clearly something we were not going to be comfortable with driving around the narrow streets of Xanthi and other places we wanted to check out! Hahahahahaha, perhaps not! The comment of “you are having a laugh” didn’t go down well. After the response came back as “it is either that or your pay a further €120 for the BMW” we realised that we might be in trouble here. We even worked out that the 9 seater van and the BMW were in fact in the same class, and so ask why we had to pay extra for the BMW and not the van…. with the response “Just because….”. Even speaking with the very unhelpful manager on the phone couldn’t change the result and we were just about to walk away car less, when miraculously they found another, a Toyota which they could let us have for an additional princely sum of €40! Job done, and we both then made our way back to Porto Lagos, and dinner on board! Although I am sure some other tourist arriving on a flight that evening would be given the minivan, lets hope he had a big family with him..

The following morning, more work, followed by some exploring of the city of Xanthi to find a hairdressers for David, again, and check out where we had to go for our Covid Injections….

Xanthi

Xanthi is a beautiful city, particularly the Old town which we thoroughly enjoyed wandering through and stopping for a bite to eat… full of life and atmosphere as it is not a tourist place, I will let the pics do the talking!

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The following day saw the outboard engine back on board, the paddleboard cleaned and put away, the bimini and sprayhood cleaned, dried and put away, and not to mention the sails which also needed to be washed down, dried and put away (with just a few cross words passing between us… flaking the genoa on our deck is an impossible task and one that took considerable time and patience to accomplish so it would fit in its bag… (they say 3rd time lucky, need I say more!) So the boat was now all ready, spic & span, just needed fuel (as we can’t leave the tank half empty as condensation turns to water and we all know what water in fuel can do!)

We had ordered the fuel when we first arrived in Porto Lagos and only after chasing numerous times, were we told it was coming this evening at 8 pm…. OMG, what a disaster… So now having a spotlessly clean boat and with the sun going down, the fuel tanker finally turns up. I am in the shower, so over to David to tell this side of the story…

Christos, the engineer who works for the yard arrived with the tank to help, and together we stretch the pipe across the water and stick the nozzle in the tank… OMG What a disaster… the tanker man opened his valve fully, giving way too much pressure. We scream at the tanker guy to turn down the pressure as he is oblivious to our troubles, which he duly did, but not after a geyser of diesel goes all over the deck, the hull, me and Christos, and into the gas locker, full of bottles of engine oil, acetone etc. So after completing the task, we have another, namely to clean the boat to get rid of the diesel. I think we used nearly a whole bottle of Fairy liquid to assist us…. To add insult to injury, without any consultation, we were also given the cleaner diesel which was 20 cents a litre more x 180 litres…. Ouch..

Finally it was Saturday, everything was done, we just needed our tests and to have the boat lifted. By 11:30 we were all tested and back on board. We then spent the rest of the day waiting on Tsoukis to come and lift us, getting a little agitated to say the least, no less because Seaclusion is not the easiest boat to settle in her cradle, as we have discovered from past experiences…

2pm came and went, 3 pm came and went, no one to be seen, 4pm, Tsoukis arrives and starts to lift another boat! Finally, at 5:30pm, just as dark clouds are bubbling up in the sky, we get the nod to come now or tomorrow morning. Given we had a 10am flight back to the UK in the morning, now was the only option…. so we quickly let the lines slip and reversed up the channel, around a very sharp and nasty looking concrete corner, and onto the lift…. just as the heavens opened.

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Once out of the water, she was then transferred onto a trailer and then Tsoukis promptly tried to reverse her into a position… that she quite clearly wasn’t going to fit…..

Realising that was the case, he then maneuvered her to the other side, shut down the tractor engine and left for the day! Not a good start to our wintering season we have to say. However Christos was still there, and he helped us secure a ladder up to her, so we could get on board, get power to her, as we were staying our last night on board. Rather fed up, we completed the final jobs that we could (some had to be left as she wasn’t yet in her cradle, such as lowering the anchor and chain to the ground, putting the fenders away in the anchor locker), then headed back to Fanarion for our last supper!!! Good meal and reasonably good vino soon brightened our moods and we had a surprisingly fab last night!

So finally on the 19th September, after 67 days on board, 992 nautical miles in varied conditions from 30 +knots of wind to none, through sunshine, torrential squalls, ash and smoke, we bid our farewells to Seaclusion and to you for another year! Whilst our trip hasn’t been full of the white washed blue shuttered picturesque images you are used to from the Greek Islands, it has been interesting, with our favorite island being Thassos, and best excursion, well that just has to be Meteora!

We do hope you have enjoyed this blog as much as we have enjoyed living it…

See you next year!

PS. Since coming home we had had some photos of Seaclusion in her 2021/2022 Winter home, from the yard, thankfully!

19th September 2021