Saronic Gulf, Greece, October 2014

No Lesley on this trip, just Bob, Ian and me.

Our 35 foot Jeanneau “Thiaki” was a little more basic than we have become used to recently. It had a simple GPS at the chart table rather than a chart plotter and the only instrument in the cockpit gave just the depth and speed. No wind measurement and no auto-pilot. The throttle was difficult to move between neutral and ahead and astern, which gave us some manoeuvring problems.

The pattern for this fortnight was classic for the Mediterranean. The first week was calm and we did a lot of motoring around the northern part of the route, centred on the Methana peninsula. The second week was much more exciting with winds and boisterous sea state.

The winds started while we were anchored just north of the base at Poros to avoid yet another night on the quay. The bay was sheltered and had been recommended to us and we let out an adequate length of chain. We saw a large sailing catamaran anchor a bit further out in the bay, in slightly deeper water. In the early hours Bob got up and had a look round and saw this catamaran looming over us and immediately thought that it had dragged its anchor near us. Seconds later the two yachts bumped and the collision brought Ian and me, in sleeping gear, onto the deck.

We soon saw that we were the ones that had dragged. The skipper of the catamaran also was on deck and helped to fend the boats apart. Although he urged us to do nothing, presumably to avoid personal injury. We decided that the only way to prevent damage was to let out more of our abundant chain. That way the wind blew us astern of the catamaran. But because both yachts were yawing about on their respective anchor chains we sometimes came near to collision, so we kept our engine running to prevent this and had at least two people in the cockpit for the rest of the night.

In the morning when it was light enough to see what was happening we were able to motor back past the catamaran, dragging our chain behind us. With the shouted help of the catamaran skipper we were able to drag our anchor out from under his chain and motor free without further collisions, despite the wind still being brisk.

Google Earth "KMZ" multi-coloured path files first week (29Kb); second week (48Kb). Alternatively use these links to display via Google Maps: first week; second week. The colours go brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple for the first week and then brown, red, orange, yellow, green and blue for the second week. I'm afraid due to the excitement of the night I described above the track for the first day of the second week (in brown) starts just outside the bay we had been anchored in, but you can only see that by zooming in.

Below is a collage of some of the few photos I took on the two weeks. Click to view them in Picasa web/Google+.

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