Four.
The start of an accidental Odyssey…
It had been 4 years in the making. Four years of the keenest of keen skippers saying…
“Let’s go, let’s get ourselves to Milos”.
And four years of badgering crew various with tempting images of crystal clear waters speared with limestone stacks, safe harbours, white sand beaches and dreams of a week in paradise.
It had also been four years of the crew coming up with all manner of reasons not to do it. She’s too small a boat, the liferaft is out of date, the windlass isn’t working properly, we need an onboard shower. Apart from lengthening the boat, one by one we’d knocked each excuse off of the job list and finally our trip was booked for late September 2014.
RyanAir flights were completed on time and announced over the cabin’s PA to ludicrous fanfare, a hire car was collected — a huge VW Touran and we hit the Attiki Odos to Korinthos where we peeled off onto the twisty, hilly and mountainous leg to Porto Heli. We crash landed into the Kranidi LIDL and a massive collection of staples, beer, wine and sugarsome concoctions were bought. Anyone would have thought we were crossing the Med to Africa.
The goods were finally loaded and stored into Gamecock our trusty little ship, and hungry and thirsty we collected our welcome from Panayotis at Alexanders where the usual first night over indulgence in gyros, Greek salad and olive fried chips washed down with icy mugs of draft Amstel had us groaning, overheated in the hot cabins and finally to slumber.
The skipper was anxious to get going and strict timetable was set with no allowances for partaking of the attractions of our home port of Porto Heli. No shopping for trinkets, no malingering in our favourite eatery and drinkery, just a final shopping list for fresh goods — milk, bread and bags of ice for the cooler. The crew were dispatched to collect whilst the skipper completed a couple of minor works, engine fluids were checked, fuel was bunkered, washing water was taken on, and we cast off the sunbaked quay.
“We’ll have an easy first day”, said the skipper.
And we did. In light breezes we tacked up the Spetses channel in 12 knots of breeze and reached down to towards the Dhokos island Gap. With the happy splashing sound of Gamecock’s hull sliding through the clear waters we looked down to see a huge leatherback turtle showing us his belly as he used his 4 flippers to swim out of the way.
Usually a whirlygig of 180 degree wind shifts, even the Gap was agreeable and we just reached through it into the lee of Dhokos where we motored up and into Skindos bay to drop the hook just as light was fading into the blue and clear waters of Derrick cove. Alone.
One of the ship’s famous Pasta Boat Modges was produced, cheap but delicious red wine was drunk and all was well in the cove. We had an early start scheduled
“How early?”, asked the crew. “Daybreak” replied the skipper.
Knowing looks were exchanged between the crew, “Bastard! he’ll never have us up for daybreak”, and more red wine was poured.
Daybreak came and before the skipper’s alarm clock could start it’s insistent 4 beeps and a rest, he was seen (but not by the crew) performing the final checks. A course was plotted (55 Nm), the sail cover was removed, the tiller unhanded and the engine started and throttled back to tickover. The engine is Gamecock’s Master Alarm and soon there was the unmistakeable sound of a groggy crew shaking themselves out of their red wine induced slumber.
“What time is it?”, “07:00 — Time to go”.
And with that, the anchor was raised as bedding was being stowed and Gamecock’s bow pointed towards the mouth of the bay and east towards the watery yellow of a sun just about to crest over the mountains of Hydra.
Zero wind saw us motoring down the other side of Dhokos past Petassi and around the southwestern foot of Hydra and out into the deep, deep Mirtoo Pelagos for our crossing. With 4 knots of wind we were not going to make a sail of it, so the mainsail was sheeted in, and our fourth, still slumbering crew member was rudely pulled from his locker, plugged in, hooked to the tiller and programmed with a course to take us onwards under engine.
Making a steady 4 and a half knots in the sunshine with nothing to do but drink tea, breakfast and listen to our electrified friend George steering the boat was all very well, but this speed wasn’t going to get us to a paradise new before the early hours of the next day, so concensus was saught to make a course adjustment for an anchorage on Serifos, a Cyclades island 25 Nm short of our intended destination Milos.
Getting on towards the end of the day more breeze was found and the mainsheet freed to give us a lift to 5.2 knots. Almost as if they’d been waiting with us for a little more speed (perhaps 4 knots is just not fun) a pod of young dolphins closed in and swam with us for a few minutes. It seemed as if we were being circled at a distance as we spotted many others around us for a few hours.
20:00 hours saw us making the coast of Serifos in fading light and by the time we’d closed we were motor sailing in utter darkness relying on the occasional shore light as a landmark to head for and even more reliance on our chartplotter to get us into the head of the bay. Dark, inky black and 300 foot deep the bay finally shelved and we tucked ourselves into a corner and dropped the hook in 15 feet with a confusing array of streetlights on the shore providing a blinding backdrop to the typically Greek canine concerto of howls and barks.
Not hungry from passage consumption of convenient snackery, a plate of salami, cheese, olives and tomato and a beer or four was produced and saw us ready for our bunks, and the onward sail to Milos.
