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POSITION: 37°38’51″N 21°19’19″E
People are leaving Greece faster than greased lightning. Summer tourism is the heartbeat of the islands and summer ends in October. On the 15th to be precise. By then the hotels have shuttered, the diving centers decompressed, and low-cost flights grounded in their home countries until spring.
The pressure is off and holidays not far away. Even in the busiest restaurants the staff smile, and appear relaxed. All at once the machinery of capitalism has shifted into idle until next April. During the winter older business owners visit their children, long since emigrated to exotic places like Stanstead or Genoa. Younger employees make their way to the ski slopes. The seasons change, but people still dine out wherever they holiday. All this emptiness makes for great sailing, as long as you’re catering for yourself.
Ionian Meet Up
Mother Nature tweaked our itinerary long enough that we could meet up with my daughters, Katie and Emma. Emma had visited us over summer in Portland, but I hadn’t seen Katie in two years. And she’d never met Aleta.
My grrls were taking an end of season vacay on Zante (1 – on the map below) to scuba dive and get out from under the UK’s haphazard Covid restrictions. Had it not been for the storm on Ithaka, we would have missed them altogether. We motored out to Aleta, and Katie immediately felt at home. She fired up a playlist, grabbed a brew, and was soon diving off the boat.
Sadly, with the Corinth Canal closed thanks to a landslide, we had to take the long way around the Peloponnese and that meant cutting our visit short. Time and tides and all that. We will plan something less sailing weather dependent for our next reunion.
KataKolon
The last time Carol and I stopped in Katakolon (2) was 11 years ago during a Kemble family reunion cruise sponsored by her dad. Arriving early in the morning, we disembarked and headed to Olympia, basking in the 105(F) temperatures that is August in the Med. We touristed our feet off. At least until the ship’s gong rang at about 18:00hrs and beckoned us all back aboard. The Nieuw Amsterdam pushed off the long dock, spun around and started north toward Dubrovnik.
This time we backed Aleta smartly onto the nearly empty town quay. We dropped anchor, secured lines and discovered that this late in the year not only is the dockage fee waived, but the town supplies free water and electricity. A bargain at twice the price! Having run out of propane, we stayed a day longer than we intended getting a refill. Meanwhile, Aleta received many admiring comments from late season charter boat relocation crew. At least those with enough nous to appreciate her beautiful lines.
To Methoni
Our passage south was a bit like Anne Elk’s theory of the brontosaurus: the wind was thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle, and thin again at the other end. Things started gently enough that we deployed our whisker pole and threw the main hard over to port for some proper wing-on-winging. But by mid-afternoon in the Gulf of Kyparissia we were in the thick of a lively downwind sail. Nothing much over 25 knots, but nothing much less either. Dropping the whisker pole at around 18 knots and tucking a reef in the main helped keep things from getting too busy as the wind built.
Nell Quickly, our dinghy, followed along secured by her extended double bowline. Weighing almost nothing she dances with the waves. Popping up on the crests, she gets blown sideways, pivots, then begins to surf down the front of the swell, sometimes overtaking Aleta. Looking, every second, like she’ll flip over, fill with water and be a most effective brake. Truth is, I hate towing her in any kind of weather. The forecast called for12-15 knots. I should have known better.
Once the imposing Byzantine tower at the end of Methoni’s breakwater (3) hove into view, the wind started dropping. By the time we entered the bight a couple of miles later we fully appreciated the ancients’ hard work turning this now long forgotten corner into a capable harbour. We slept soundly, bobbing gently on our anchor.
The End of Greece
The next day was a direct repeat of the previous one, only this time with gusts up to 30 knots. We made great time and reached our go, no-go decision point early enough to make the wrong choice. Instead of tucking into a cove in the lee of the westerlies at Cape Tainaron, the southernmost point on mainland Greece (and the entrance to the gates of Hades), we decided to carry on across the Gulf of Laconia (4) to Cape Maleas, the last bit of land before you enter the Aegean Sea.
As the sun set, the wind continued building pushing two crossing and lumpy wave trains ahead of it. Nell would fetch up one crest, only to be kicked 45 degrees sideways down the next one. When the waves grew to six feet, I forced myself to stop watching her erratic progress. It was too stressful. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of losing her. Rather, it was what would happen if her painter didn’t break immediately on her filling up. In that case she’d force us to round up in the high winds and mardy seas and Stygian darkness. Theory and imagination are always richer than reality. She bounced around nonchalantly until we eventually came into the lee of Elafonisos Island and the flat calm a short fetch ensures. After 12 hours of sailing, we again slept soundly.
