Views from the helm

[hmason]

Yesterday evening in Stuart FL.

 

[Airstream345]

Just left Ketchikan headed south for Foggy Bay to anchor/wait for a southbound Dixon Entrance crossing.

 

[ScottC]

Our neighbor in Santa Maria di Leuca.
3 x 600hp V12. Hmmm...
I guess this is in keeping with Italian tradition and vehicles. Whatever you're driving, it must go FAST.
Seriously - this is an amazing craft. Very sturdy looking and with refined detail. https://www.novamarine.com/eng/

 

[North Baltic sea]

Hi,

today from Stockholm's central archipelago,

 

[ScottC]

Approaching the island of Erikoussa -- our very first stop in Greece after crossing the Adriatic.

 

[ScottC]

At the harbor in Erikoussa.

 

[ScottC]

View from our marina of some of the wildfires in Corfu a couple of nights ago. Thankfully, now mostly under control. Many people had to be evacuated. Lots of ash to clean off the decks.

 

[ScottC]

Hmmm....

 

[wkearney99]

Hmmm....

Needs an Arthur Brown soundtrack:

 

[Mambo42]

View from our marina of some of the wildfires in Corfu a couple of nights ago. Thankfully, now mostly under control. Many people had to be evacuated. Lots of ash to clean off the decks.

That was in Marina Mandraki I see. Nice place. Good thing the fires were put out in Corfu.
Saw you made the passage from Italy to Greece, which weather forecast did you use ? So far have not been able to find one reliable forecast.

 

[ScottC]

That was in Marina Mandraki I see. Nice place. Good thing the fires were put out in Corfu.
Saw you made the passage from Italy to Greece, which weather forecast did you use ? So far have not been able to find one reliable forecast.

Yes, you are indeed correct!

We were just on the inside of the seawall. While it was calm enough inside, the harbor, one could get very wet leaving the boat. See photo below, taken from our aft deck. It wasn't even close to a stormy day. I think it could be dangerous to leave one's boat during a storm here.

As for the crossing, we crossed from Otranto to Erikoussa. Had a SamMy Yacht marina booking at Erikoussa so we were sure to have a spot when arriving late in the day. The crossing could not have been better. The sea was absolutely placid.

We use WindyPro and Meteo3B, the local Italian weather app, as a cross-check. Also, the Greek Poseidon. We find that 80% of the time WindyPro & Meteo 3B agree. I have been using WindyPro for a few years now and have generally been quite impressed with the accuracy of it.

We planned ~10 days travel part way up the Adriatic to San Foca (Lecce) and Brindisi. During the whole time, we watched the long-range forecast in Windy Pro. We would be willing do abandon any/all of these lower Adriatic stops to rush to Otranto to cross on the most favorable day. In the end, we did not have to do this. We were lucky enough to have perfect crossing weather on the day I had planned in the draft itinerary I created in March of this year!!!

 

[Mambo42]

Yes, you are indeed correct!

We were just on the inside of the seawall. While it was calm enough inside, the harbor, one could get very wet leaving the boat. See photo below, taken from our aft deck. It wasn't even close to a stormy day. I think it could be dangerous to leave one's boat during a storm here.

Looks like you were lying at roughly the same spot as where we were. Had it one evening that I went to take the dogs for a walk, came back and a sudden storm had arrived from the east, could not get back to the boat anymore. Waves were crashing over the connection between the break water and the shore.

Are you planning to go further to the east or going back up North into Croatia ? If you plan to go further East, wait until the Meltemi winds are over, they are definitely not fun to encounter. Should last until end of September.

 

[ScottC]

Looks like you were lying at roughly the same spot as where we were. Had it one evening that I went to take the dogs for a walk, came back and a sudden storm had arrived from the east, could not get back to the boat anymore. Waves were crashing over the connection between the break water and the shore.

Are you planning to go further to the east or going back up North into Croatia ? If you plan to go further East, wait until the Meltemi winds are over, they are definitely not fun to encounter. Should last until end of September.

Corinth Canal, Saronic Gulf, Piraeus and then in October, leave the boat for the winter (on land) in Lavrion. Next year, we will not go any further east. and will probably start working our way back to Sweden.

 

[Mambo42]

Corinth Canal, Saronic Gulf, Piraeus and then in October, leave the boat for the winter (on land) in Lavrion. Next year, we will not go any further east. and will probably start working our way back to Sweden.

You probably already know, but just in case. Last day of operation this year for the Channel of Corinth is 30 September. We passed through it just after they opened, it is quite an experience, we shot a lot of video.
Can recommend to arrive the night before just at the entrance of the channel. There is a port where you can stay for the night, we did not go into the smaller marina, too many shallows there, bit risky. So we stayed in the commercial port, was free and nobody bothered us.
We had the first passage of the morning, so that gave us enough time to get to Athens (where you will not find any spot for anchoring and most marinas are always full). Only by 7 PM did we find an anchorage that was suitable with the prevailing winds.
Other point of interest is the Bay of Patras. Quite often the weather is dreadful with high winds and substantial waves. We stayed the night before at Oxia, then made it into the Bay, but were met by waves of 2 - 3 mtrs, not fun. Went for shelter in Messolonghi for 2 days, then set out when they predicted 2 Bft and 0.1 mtr waves. 2 hours in the passage we were suddenly in 8 Bft (literally in 2 min time) with 2 - 3 mtr waves again and no place to hide. So hope you have a better passage.

Don't know where you are now, but if you are already around Ithaca we can recommend the West side of Kastos. There are a couple of bays next to Vathia Valis beach that are perfectly protected from the wind and waves, which you can have completely to yourself, especially on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (all the charter boats are back in port ). We stayed there for 4 days, did not want to leave, but we had to get to Turkey, so had to leave.

Interesting to hear about putting the boat on the dry in Lavrion. Did not know that one. We are aiming for marina Cleopatra near Preveza, but won't make it there until mid to end of November.
Guess with your boat you can get through the canals of France to get North again or are you planning the Donube and Rhine river ? Both routes must be beautiful to do, if you post anything about it we will be following the progress.

 

[ScottC]

Thank you for the tips, Mambo42! We will certainly hope for better weather conditions!
We are booked in Athens/Piraeus for 17 days at D-Marin Zea. Made the booking back in January
For the winter dry storage, we chose Olympic Marine, which from my research appeared to be the largest, modern, most capable and professionally run operation in the area. Not cheap, but it appears it will offer me great peace-of-mind while we are away "enjoying" the Swedish winter.


For the return, it's not fully planned yet. Could be:
1) Run up the Adriatic and have the boat trucked to Genova and continue on to Toulon for the winter.

2) Reverse our Italy coastal run of last year back to Toulon for the winter


After that, it could be:
1) Canals through central France, which is how we first came to the Med in 2019.
2) Canal du Midi to Atlantic and then short coastal hops to Rotterdam and then back into the canal system. We want to do Canal du Midi, but I am not optimistic that the Atlantic to Rotterdam is realistic. No my preference with weather and whales and tides, etc. But, we are not looking forward 370 locks through France again, with the constant threat of being stuck a year in the middle due to lack of water and canal closures!
3) Put it on a ship from Greece to Rotterdam. This is only a remote option, but I know it's possible.


We are leaving Zakynthos this morning for Katakolon. Then Messalonghi after 3 nights in Katakolon.


Where are you - and what are your travel plans? The "Curacao" location on your avatar is a bit misleading ;-)

 

[Mambo42]

Thank you for the tips, Mambo42! We will certainly hope for better weather conditions!
We are booked in Athens/Piraeus for 17 days at D-Marin Zea. Made the booking back in January

That certainly helps, we passed by Athens back in the beginning of June, did not have a reservation since we did not know when we would be there exactly and the result was that all the marinas were full. They don't have a registration system where they keep track of who leaves the marina, so even if 50 boats leave, they will still report that they are full for the day. Was a pity, we had some technical problems with the engines and could not get them repaired. We were able to make an appointment with a mechanic, but without place to put the boat we had to just skip it.

For the winter dry storage, we chose Olympic Marine, which from my research appeared to be the largest, modern, most capable and professionally run operation in the area. Not cheap, but it appears it will offer me great peace-of-mind while we are away "enjoying" the Swedish winter.

I hope you will have a better experience with the mechanics and companies that work on boats. So far what we have encountered in Greece and Turkey is mostly companies that can talk very well, but have little to no formal training. They just make it up as they go, make mistake after mistake and we basically have to babysit them all the time. In the mean time of course they have the standard rip off fees, getting a bit tired of that. So we now have a firm approach with them. If they want Western fees then we expect Western quality and Western service, which means they have to clean the boat after they are finished and if something does not work or is not done correct they not only pay the repair, but also the extra stay in the marina and all the cost that come with it.
We went into the water on Monday afternoon, already 10 days late, then we found out the work on the depth meter had been done incorrectly, so had to be hauled out again and we will now spend 2 weeks on the dry again. Total cost excluding works around 2000 euro, I am not paying that. So my tip to you is be very strict with whoever is going to work on your boat and include penalties for being late. In marina Gouvia they were 2 months late and still did not finish the work they were hired to do. So I simply did not pay the last part of the bill, that compensated for the extra marina fees. But it did turn our trip to Turkey into some sort of a race and that was a pity.

For the return, it's not fully planned yet. Could be:
1) Run up the Adriatic and have the boat trucked to Genova and continue on to Toulon for the winter.

2) Reverse our Italy coastal run of last year back to Toulon for the winter


After that, it could be:
1) Canals through central France, which is how we first came to the Med in 2019.
2) Canal du Midi to Atlantic and then short coastal hops to Rotterdam and then back into the canal system. We want to do Canal du Midi, but I am not optimistic that the Atlantic to Rotterdam is realistic. No my preference with weather and whales and tides, etc. But, we are not looking forward 370 locks through France again, with the constant threat of being stuck a year in the middle due to lack of water and canal closures!
3) Put it on a ship from Greece to Rotterdam. This is only a remote option, but I know it's possible.

370 locks ?? I knew there were quite a few, but not that many ! Wow, that is an enormous amount and ending up in a river or canal where there is no water would not be my idea of fun either.

We are leaving Zakynthos this morning for Katakolon. Then Messalonghi after 3 nights in Katakolon.

The marina in Messalonghi is a bit run down, but it is a safe place and opposite the marina is a large bar / restaurant / beach club area. When we were there they were just opening up, but luckily no music until 4 AM. Don't know how it will be now. Right in front of the marina there is an anchorage, is also well protected so if you feel like anchoring out it is absolutely possible. We came in unexpectedly and had no idea how long we would stay (were hiding from the bad weather in the Gulf of Patras), so renting a car was not an option unfortunately. The rental car had to come from Patras and that would simply take too long. But in town there are a couple of taxi's, very friendly driver we had and we called him a couple of times to take us to the supermarket and back, show us around town, can recommend him. His number is +30 6977 229 833, name is Dimitris. If you want to rent a car you can try Avance at 00 30 26340 26250.

Where are you - and what are your travel plans? The "Curacao" location on your avatar is a bit misleading ;-)

Curacao is our home base, it is where we officially live. But this year is the first year that we are on the boat from end of March until mid to end November. Not sure yet if we will go back to Curacao for the winter, are thinking about going to Spain for the winter. Have some work on the deck that needs to be done in January or February and this time I am really going to be there when they do the job. Don't want nasty surprises anymore. So that would making back to Curacao a bit useless, it is a long travel and with 4 dogs it is a hassle.

At the moment we are in Didim, Turkey. Just finished the installation of stabilizers on the boat. Had some other work planned, but the prices here in Turkey are even more ridiculous than in Greece. Turkey used to be OK for boat works, that is no longer the case and quality is mediocre at best. Stabilizers were done by the official representative of the producer, so that was done in an acceptable manner.
Hopefully next week the leakage is repaired, then back in the water, have to do the sea trials for the stabilizers and after that off to Bodrum and Marmaris. There I will hopefully find an electrician who can finish the installation of our Lithium batteries. And only then can we basically start our summer. Spent almost 6 weeks on the dry now, really annoying, a completely wasted summer. Was supposed to last 14 days, turned into 6 weeks, but by the time we are finished it will be 8 to 9 weeks.
As you may know the Meltemi winds are raging at the moment in the Aegean (always between end of May and end of September) and trust me, you don't want to be caught in that. The forecasts are 90 % of the time completely off, it is more like: 'your guess is as good as mine' and a few times too many calm weather was forecasted, but we found ourselves in severe storms. Basically the whole passage from Athens to Kalymnos was hoping and praying the weather forecast would be correct, but that was not the case.
We had some very scary experiences where it was calm and as if someone flipped a switch the wind picked up to gale force in a matter of minutes. The sea is calm and all of a sudden you see a windfield in front of you arising out of nowhere, then the white caps show up and the fun begins.
The wind itself is not so much the problem, but the seas that go with it are. And as a result you may end up with a triple swell, which means whatever course you are trying to steer, you will always be beam on. The sea more or less starts boiling when that happens and that is when you need to find shelter. Not a problem if you can do 20 to 25 kts, but we do 6 to 7 kts maximum, we are in it for the ride.
When we were in Sifnos some super yachts came into the port, also trying to save themselves from the Meltemi. They told us some harrowing stories of their encounters and that makes you wonder why anyone would want to sail in the Aegean. It looks nice when the sea is calm, but now we understand the story of Odysseus where the crew opened the bag of wind and all of a sudden a storm arose. That was not based on imagination, that was simply bases on real life experiences of Homer.

So after experiencing that we have decided we will not go through the Aegean ever again, we will take the long way home, via the coast of Turkey to Thessaloniki and then South again. Since the channel of Corinth closes at the end of September we will have to cross the South point of Sparta, which also has a very bad reputation, but we have time, so can wait it out. If that still turns out to be impossible we will leave the boat somewhere along the route, just don't know where yet.

So until the end of September we will hang around in Turkey and the eastern Greek islands (Kos, Kalymnos, Rhodes). Everyone tells us it is beautiful there, so we are curious. Basically have no schedule, nor plans.

Next year we will move up to Croatia, spend the summer there, go to Venice for festa die Redentore. That is on our bucket list, so an absolute must go. Have seen it a few times from the shore side, now we will do it with our boat for the first time. Already made the reservation in the marina for next year.

And basically every year after we will hang around the Adriatic, we will do Spain, France and Italy by road in the winter.

 

[slowgoesit]

Thread Drift!

Although the latest subject tangent has interest to some, can we not get back to the original thread subject? Or at least post pics of . . . say . . . . "Views from the helm?" Pretty please?

 

[ScottC]

Although the latest subject tangent has interest to some, can we not get back to the original thread subject? Or at least post pics of . . . say . . . . "Views from the helm?" Pretty please?

Yes. Please remove the extraneous discussion.

 

[ofer]

Seldovia entrance

 

[rslifkin]

Took this one a couple of hours ago. Windy and iffy weather this weekend, so we just took a scenic tour up the Genesee River to get the boat a little exercise.

 

[Mambo42]

Leaving the island of Paxos.
Taken 2 months ago, but it is still one of the most beautiful ports we were in.

 

[hmason]

At Sunset Bay, Stuart FL

 

[RickyD]

Whites Cove Catalina Island California

The buffalo (bison) were left here by a movie studio western shoot back in the 1920’s. You might not want to be sleeping on this beach

 

[Datenight]

Leaving the island of Paxos.
Taken 2 months ago, but it is still one of the most beautiful ports we were in.

Was on of our favorite stops on our trip from St. Raphael, France to Preveza, Greece.

Rob

 

[PJHoffnet]

Trip a little earlier in the year before they turned the blast furnace on here in FL. Cape Canaveral to Key West and back

Heading west on the Canaveral Barge Canal to the AICW

Jensen Beach Mooring Field. Stayed a few days to see some NY Mets Spring Training games.

Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse

Miami Skyline from Miami Marine Stadium Anchorage

Miami's Stiltsville and the Cape Florida Lighthouse from the Biscayne Channel

Sunset, Rodriguez Key Anchorage

Bahia Honda State Park from Hawk Channel

Entering Key West

Almost home, SR 520 Bridge, Cocoa FL

Every afternoon, after the anchor was set, or the boat secured docked/moored

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Our visit to Ocean Falls this August. A damp 66F.

 

[rslifkin]

Took this one the other day heading west from Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario. Beautifully calm day, largest seas we saw were 3-4 inches.

The second photo was a nice sunset in Sodus Bay a couple of days earlier.

 

[ScottC]

Mid-way between Porus (Greece) and Porto Cheli in Storm Daniel.

We really did not want to travel this day, but after enough of the strong surge in Porus (Poor-us?), we decided to attempt a 4 hour run to a different port during what was supposed to be a window of less-bad weather. Luckily, it was a good window, with the exception of one 30 minute thunderstorm. Fortunately, we did not see any water spouts. Daniel dumped 20-30cm of rain that day in just a few hours. We were fortunate, as there were areas in Greece that received nearly TWO FEET of rain in one day. Towns flooded, bridges wiped out, landslides, etc. They are still counting the souls that lost their lives in this storm.

Our new marina in Porto Cheli was -- and still is -- without power and water since our arrival. The marina is covered in a sea of mud from the runoff. Nevertheless, we consider ourselves fortunate when seeing what much of central Greece endured.

 

[JDCAVE]

Rounding Nootka Island, approximately mid-west coast of Vancouver Island.

 

[ScottC]

Navigator, Raffaello, confirming the course.