Messolonghi to Skiathos and back (via Evia Channel)

Route from Messolonghi to Skiathos - 25th May to 10th June 2014

Did we make it, I hear you ask. Well if you look at the map above, you will see, not only our route, but the date we arrived in Skiathos...but to say that the Weather Gods were not on our side would be an understatement.
 

Korfos Bay

Having gone through the most expensive stretch of water in the world (mile for mile), the Corinth Canal, we rested for two days in the calm bay of Korfos, waiting of course for a weather window to go across to the island of Aegina. We finally made the 16-mile crossing on 2^nd June (Monday), giving us a week to reach Skiathos, a few days after our friends Brad and Marion’s arrival. 

 

As with most places in Greece, Aegina’s past is steeped in the mysteries of Greek myths and Gods. My research tells me that...

 

the island was originally called Inoni (or Inona or Inopia). It is said that one of the fifty daughters of the river god Asopus, was called Aegina, and she was loved by Zeus. The king of Olympus, in order to avoid, Hera, transformed himself into an eagle and carried Aegina to uninhabited island of Inoni. The fruit of Aegina's and Zeus' passion was Aeakos the first king of the island.

 

Aeakos asked Zeus to give him subjects, and so he transformed the ants of the island into humans. The first inhabitants of the island were called Myrmidones, from the Greek word "myrmigi" which means ant.

 

...this all sounds a bit like ‘Minions’ and interestingly, sometimes, when sitting in a bar, listening to the local population, they all sound like Minions too! (Despicable Me films)

 

Aegina is a triangular island, with a summit of 532m/1,745ft, resembling a ‘pimple’ on the southern end. Its position, roughly in the middle of the Saronic Golf, meant that it was of strategic importance throughout history. After it had been occupied by the usual Neolithic people, the Bronze Age people and the usual Mycenaean occupation, it was then abandoned for a few centuries. Then, after a few wars, it had another succession of usual occupiers, the Romans, Byzantines, Saracens, Venetians and Turks. From 1826-1828 the city was the capital of the newly liberated Greece and the first new modern Greek coins were minted here...

 

...our invasion only lasted three days, while we waited for a weather window to Souinon on the mainland! However, we had a nice time, bumped into the owners of a large catamaran, Pallaran, who also winter in Messolonghi, who asked us to help them bring their boat into the harbour...which was interesting.

Poseiden's Temple - Souinon

 

The thirty-mile trip over to Souinon took about four and half hours, and we had been told, was a very nice anchorage. The bay and cape are easy to spot as the well-preserved Temple of Poseidon sits atop the hill, overlooking and protecting the sea all around. The temple, built around 444bc, is where Byron is supposed to have carved his name and a few poetic lines one of the columns. Have you ever noticed how Byron gets everywhere! Unfortunately we could only stay one night has we had to move on...and how glad were we to get out of that bay. It was one of the rolliest nights we’ve had in long time. I’m not sure we’ll take a return visit to hike up to the temple.

 

After stopping at a large marina to refuel, we entered ‘The Evia Channel’. Evia is the second largest island in Greece. It looks like a mountainous spine, running north-south and has two distinctive halves split in the middle at Chalkis (Khalkis, Chalkdi...or any number of different spellings). There are numerous anchorages and towns in which to stop on both the mainland side and Evia side. As we were trying to get north as quickly as possible, we decided to aim for an almost landlocked bay called Voufalo (Boufalo, Bouphalo), or as we called it Gruffalo, for ease of reference. The forty-three miles took just under six hours and nothing eventful happened. I say nothing eventful, we were actually sailing. There is almost nothing in this beautiful bay, apart from a couple of tavernas, and some holiday homes. The bay is protected by a sand-spit with a few trees strategically placed and provides protection from all directions. Although we only stayed one night, we have promised ourselves a long stay on our return down the channel. Next stop Khalkis.

 

Khalkis Bridge opening

The thirty miles to Khalkis were uneventful. You have to take a slightly complicated route through a marked channel, under the new modern bridge (almost a replica of the Rion Bridge back in the Gulf of Patras). Then you enter a large bay where you can either anchor or go into the Yacht Club Marina and wait for the phenomenon that is the changing of the current through the bridge. It is said that Aristotle flung himself into the channel because of his inability to understand the currents. A quick ‘google’ search and you will see many references to this ‘phenomenon’. The waters under the bridge can flow up to 9 knots (it has been reported) and every six hours, no more, no less, the waters run still for about ten minutes and then change direction. Some people in the past, with a mystical tendency, believed it was linked to the phases of the moon... those of us who live further north or south of the Mediterranean will already be fully aware of such phenomenon. However, the road bridge is something to behold, in that rather than lifting or swinging, it drops down and then slides back underneath the road – with all the lights still on.

 

Khalkis Bridge underneath the road

However, once you have visited the Port Police, paid your €19, you are told to standby from 9pm and they will give you a 10-15 minute warning that the bridge will open. They only open the bridge at night-time (disrupting the day time traffic into the Capital of Evia is not an option), better to have a bunch of boats wallowing around, trying to avoid commercial traffic, dozens of little fishing boats, until we are called, is a much safer option.

 

We were finally called to go through at 11:30pm. We followed two freighters, one mega yacht and a sailboat like ours. However he decided it would be fun to slow down and look at all the people standing on the bridge, rather than go through at speed in order to not get caught up in the eddies that are swirling around the entrance to the bridge and cause you to have no steerage over your boat! Next you have to negotiate a place on the town quay on the north side of the bridge.

 

North side of the bridge, town quay

When we arrived during the day, we took a stroll to investigate. Lots of spaces to be had, nice bars, pleasant promenade, we were looking forward to coming through.

 

Having transited the bridge we looked for a space – none to be had! However, there is a very nice Greek man who is controlling the quay. Those going southbound were waiting for permission to transit, after another two commercial freighters went through. Once they were given the ‘all clear’, the nice man on quay took our lines and we were secured for the night. Time to get to bed for an early start – wrong. It was a festival weekend and the bars were booming til 3am. We decided to sit in the cockpit, open a bottle of wine and watch the world go round til we fell asleep.

 

The next morning the weather was awful – we weren’t going anywhere. We texted Brad & Marion, and said we would probably be delayed another day. Fortunately, the weather let up and we managed to make the next stop, thirty miles north to Theologos Town. A nice, large bay on the mainland side, deep and protected from everything but the west – no weather forecasted from there. We had a lovely evening, first dinner up on deck, watched the Grand Prix and went to bed.

 

3am – we were woken by the howling wind, the dinghy wavering side to side on deck and suddenly the boat lurching, pitching and bouncing. Ah yes, nothing forecast from the west, apart from the thunderstorm that decided to brew up over the mainland. We knew there was nothing we could do but anchor watch until daybreak. We had seen safe anchorages around the corner, but they were edged with rocks and with 2m waves, it would have been foolish to attempt moving in the dark. We motored round at 6am, dropped the hook in a vague, uninteresting bay, surrounded by a disused fish farm and tried to sleep. What sleep we got was interrupted by the howling wind and the gusts over the island, swinging the boat in every direction. Even with all this wind, it was the first time in a long while that I didn’t want to go anywhere, I did not trust the weather.

 

David however, being David, managed to persuade me to ‘put our nose outside the bay and see what it’s really like outside’. He, of course knew that the wind was being accelerated over the hill and sounded much worse that it was – we continued.

 

The next leg of the journey was disheartening, we headed northwest for ten miles, then west for ten miles, went through a narrow pass at the tip of Evia, turned 180° and headed east for another ten miles. From our starting point, in what shall now be known as ‘Storm Bay’, Skiathos was approximately 30 miles due north, but Evia lies in its path, as you will see on the map above. However, we made for a bay called Vathikelon, which shall now be known as ‘Calm Bay’. Although it is very deep (anchor in 10-15m), it is completely landlocked and so calm and peaceful that I didn’t want to leave the safety of it. There is nothing there, apart from a few villas in among the olive trees – perfect. Next stop Skiathos.

 

Skiathos town quay – our guidebook tells us that the local charter operations protect their spots on the town quay with aggression – and we saw it first-hand. We have never been so aggrieved as we were on Skiathos town quay.

 

The quay had a few spaces free, so we dropped the hook, ran back and someone took our line – the normal thing now is for him to hang around, help us out and make sure we are tied on securely. No, he threw the line back, the boat swung around wildly under the gusting wind and we struggled to control the situation. Finally, a tourist who was sat on a nearby bench offered to help, for which we thanked him.

 

Marion, Brad, Dave, Michele - drinks!

We called Brad & Marion, they arrived and beer and wine was duly opened to celebrate our epic trip and final arrival. The boat moored next to us was advertising day trips. He neither helped us with our lines or spoke to us. At five o’clock he asked how long we would be staying,

‘four or five days’ we replied.

‘You have to leave, tripper boat coming back, you in its spot’.

‘Is this not the town quay?’ we questioned.

‘You leave or I get the Port Police.’

 

This happened three or four times with different people, but now they were British, more aggressive and accused me of being rude! I asked where their reserved signs were for the boats, and how were we meant to know we shouldn’t moor here. More shouting and arm waving and finally the Port Police arrived. The young officer looked very embarrassed when we asked him if this was not the town quay, shyly, and without making eye contact, he said no, you must leave. To cut a long story short, these tripper boats are obviously ‘paying’ to keep their spot and in the process are making visiting yachts feel very unwelcome. We asked B&M to leave while we sorted the situation out and for them to come back at 7pm for drinks on board.

 

We motored up and down the town quay, every time we tried to dock we were shouted at to leave, that it was a reserved spot. Finally we found what we thought was a free spot and tried to dock. A man on the quay was shouting profusely at us, waving his hands wildly. We were beginning to give up. I started to bring the anchor back up, but it was stuck, and it was stuck fast. We believed we had caught the ‘Mama Mia’ Daytripper boat’s mooring line. More shouting and waving of arms. Finally, we could do no more than take the boat back to the quay, and explain that David would have to dive down and see what the problem was.

 

To our amazement, the man waving his arms was trying to help us, not hinder. He was trying to point out that there is a danger under the water, just where we were dropping our anchor. He very kindly said that we could tie up to his tripper boat, he manoeuvred his two other tripper boats to help us. He told us to wait til the morning to dive, have a drink and relax. We could not have been more grateful for his kindness. One of his staff, Leanne, an English girl was very embarrassed when I told her how we had been treated further down the quay. They told us we could stay in their spot for a long as we wanted. When B&M returned at 7pm, we had not even showered, we were exhausted.

 

Alhambra next to Labmos boats - empty quay!

The next morning, Brad arrived at the boat at 08:30 (having been out partying to the early hours). He and David donned the diving gear we have on board and spent the next hour sorting the anchor and chain out. I cannot thank Brad enough for helping David with the diving, otherwise David would have had to do this on his own, while I let the anchor up and down, in among all the huge ferries coming and going.

 

It appears we had managed to tangle the anchor chain 360°around a block. Our newfound friends Labmos told us to use his lazy line when they went out for the day and ‘not to worry’. However, when everything was sorted, we moved down the quay a few spots and bought some wine and beer for his crew to say thank you for their kindness. They were the nicest people we met on Skiathos.

 

We had a wonderful three days with Brad and Marion, and the holiday was over all too quickly. Too much food and wine, but lots of good company. I only hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

How much rain?

 

We decided to stay a few more days, there was some more weather coming. We hired a car on Saturday and sped(?) off round the island. As Skiathos is not that big, we were done by 3pm, and returned to the boat – for once the gods were on our side. Within ten minutes of getting back on the boat, the most violent storm we’ve seen for a very long time moved from Skopelos over to Skiathos. For nearly two hours we watched the rainwater flood down the main street and into the quay. The reverberation from the crack of thunder went through every bone in our bodies. We had to have the engine running for over an hour to keep the boat from bashing into the dock. We went through two lots of wet weather gear before it finally let up. At least it washed the boat, I suppose! However, watching Labmos and Leanne return with two boats full of holiday-makers arrive back, I realised how scared they must have all been, as they cheered the captains when they arrived safely back. To her credit, when I spoke to Leanne, she said she was really worried for us! 



Enjoy drinks over the bridge, waiting from friends to transit

And so, now we are on our return journey back down the Evia Channel. We have just come back through the Khalkis bridge (1am this time) and are spending a few restful days in the yacht club marina.




Tobin Bronze transitting

We've met up with friends from 2011 (Judy taught me to make jewellery) and we watched them transit the bridge northbound at 12:30am. It seemed funny watching them going through, as tourists waved at them as they passed by.



Fishermen surfing the current

Khalkis has a cosmopolitan feel, and strolling along the town quay, watching the fisherman 'surfing the current' is fascinating.

View over Greece from Khalkis Castle

Today we walked up to the castle, which is wonderfully preserved, and the views over Evia and Greece were breathtaking, especially as the air was so clear today.

Alhambra's new neighbours

Back in the Yacht Club Marina, we have got chatting to our new neighbours, who are also heading up to the Ionian, maybe a beer or two before we leave tomorrow to catch up with even more old friends.

A couple we met in 2011 on Ibiza are on their way northbound through the Channel, and we plan to meet half way on Tuesday. We will then explore the Saronic Gulf before going back through the Corinth Canal and heading for the Ionian for more visitors.

 

 

 

Until then, take care, and stay in touch.

Michele and Dave

More photos on https://www.flickr.com/photos/md_sailing/