Not so good in Nikiana
Aug. 1st, 2007 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylAfter heading into Vasiliki in the dingy for supplies, mater, the nephew and I walked up to the castle while pater went to an internet cafe to pick up his mail. After some initial teething problems — the nephew had confidently led us off up the wrong road (well, I supposed that's what happens if you trust the navigating to a six year-old) — we climbed the steps to the castle, only to find it closed for repairs, forcing us to console ourselves with the spectacular view.
After picking up pater, we slogged back to the boat with our shopping. On arrival, the nephew demanded that I take him for a ride, so we off-loaded the parents and the baggage, and went out on our own. Freed of all that extra weight, the dingy jumped on to the plane as soon as I opened the throttle and we spent a happy 10 minutes roaring around the bay like a couple of crazed speed fiends.
We left Vasiliki at around 11:30 and headed back the way we came, through Preveza and back out towards the Levkas canal. The wind got up to around 20–25kn, so we carefully trimmed the sails and reduced speed to try and ensure that we arrived at the canal bridge at exactly 14:00, so that we wouldn't have to hang around in the channel waiting for the bridge to open. Despite our second perfect timing, our plans were confounded: the bridge — actually a roll-on, roll-off ferry placed across the canal while the roads were being repaired — remained closed, the opening delayed by an hour.
We considered our options. Should we anchor in the channel or should we go out and sail around for an hour? Wanting an easy life, we opted for the former. Hah. Getting the anchor in turned out to be slightly tricky — the channel was narrow, the wind was strong and there were a number of other boats to avoid — but we managed to get the plough in and holding. Or so we thought. I was looking at the British boat astern of us, thinking, "Hmm, they're awfully close", and while part of me was wondering at this, another part was turning the ignition key, jamming the engine into gear and shouting to pater that the anchor was dragging. In the end, we only came within a couple metres of them, but it was not a pleasant experience. After carefully an painfully hauling the plough back up, we reset it and managed to stay in the same place until the bridge opened.
Once through the bridge, we chugged down the canal, observing the 4kn speed limit. As we did so, a charter boat full of Brits, came bearing down on us under full sail and forced us out into the middle of the channel. Not content with this, they then proceeded to sail underneath the guy in front(who was also under sail), forcing him to the edge of the dredged channel. I remarked on the obnoxiousness of this behaviour and said that the only thing they could possibly do to compound it was to try and luff the guy and, sure enough, that's exactly what they did: they dropped into his wind shadow and then tried to force him to point up!
On clearing the channel we set course for Nikiana and arrived in time to find a spot on the quay. I fluffed the first attempt to get the boat positioned — my excuse? the wind was gusting — but the second went awry when I called to mater to drop the anchor but she hadn't loosened the windlass and she managed to miss the drop. At this point, I got fed up with the whole business and handed over the helm to pater, who managed to get us into place without too many problems. It was at this point that everything started to go horribly wrong.
Having it made it in, I threw the lines to a couple of guys on the quay. As they passed the first line back, there was the sound of chain running out of control from the windlass so pater went forward to sort out the problem, whilst at the same time, the boat to starboard of suddenly started leaning very heavily on us as their anchor dragged. It was at this point that the guys on the quay threw back the line they'd failed to make fast and told me to untie the other one — stupid advice which I, rather credulously followed.
Having gone back out again, we then discovered that we couldn't get our anchor back up because it had snagged on one of the concrete blocks used to secure a set of lazy lines. I then spent a nervous half hour trying to keep the boat in position without mowing down my pater, who was in the diving to clear the snag. As we were doing this, we saw someone from the boat that had been to starboard of us reseting his anchor in his dingy. It turned out that his plough was completely covered in weed, suggesting that he hadn't bothered to snub it properly, so it would have dragged with the slightest provocation and that it hadn't been disturbed anything that we'd done.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, we abandoned our attempts to moor on the quay and anchored off round the corner. We called P and K, who'd just arrived back from England, and we all went out to dinner at Pane & Vino. We had a good gossip about some of the parents sailing mishaps, including the time when they pulled up the anchor in Levkada only to find that they'd also snagged the grapple of a nearby floating restaurant (as P said, "Well, that's alright. It's not like you'd want to eat there..."), and by the time we got back to the boat, the wind had dropped off, the sea was calm as a millpond and there was a wonderfully clear view of milky way. A great end to a crap day.
After picking up pater, we slogged back to the boat with our shopping. On arrival, the nephew demanded that I take him for a ride, so we off-loaded the parents and the baggage, and went out on our own. Freed of all that extra weight, the dingy jumped on to the plane as soon as I opened the throttle and we spent a happy 10 minutes roaring around the bay like a couple of crazed speed fiends.
We left Vasiliki at around 11:30 and headed back the way we came, through Preveza and back out towards the Levkas canal. The wind got up to around 20–25kn, so we carefully trimmed the sails and reduced speed to try and ensure that we arrived at the canal bridge at exactly 14:00, so that we wouldn't have to hang around in the channel waiting for the bridge to open. Despite our second perfect timing, our plans were confounded: the bridge — actually a roll-on, roll-off ferry placed across the canal while the roads were being repaired — remained closed, the opening delayed by an hour.
We considered our options. Should we anchor in the channel or should we go out and sail around for an hour? Wanting an easy life, we opted for the former. Hah. Getting the anchor in turned out to be slightly tricky — the channel was narrow, the wind was strong and there were a number of other boats to avoid — but we managed to get the plough in and holding. Or so we thought. I was looking at the British boat astern of us, thinking, "Hmm, they're awfully close", and while part of me was wondering at this, another part was turning the ignition key, jamming the engine into gear and shouting to pater that the anchor was dragging. In the end, we only came within a couple metres of them, but it was not a pleasant experience. After carefully an painfully hauling the plough back up, we reset it and managed to stay in the same place until the bridge opened.
Once through the bridge, we chugged down the canal, observing the 4kn speed limit. As we did so, a charter boat full of Brits, came bearing down on us under full sail and forced us out into the middle of the channel. Not content with this, they then proceeded to sail underneath the guy in front(who was also under sail), forcing him to the edge of the dredged channel. I remarked on the obnoxiousness of this behaviour and said that the only thing they could possibly do to compound it was to try and luff the guy and, sure enough, that's exactly what they did: they dropped into his wind shadow and then tried to force him to point up!
On clearing the channel we set course for Nikiana and arrived in time to find a spot on the quay. I fluffed the first attempt to get the boat positioned — my excuse? the wind was gusting — but the second went awry when I called to mater to drop the anchor but she hadn't loosened the windlass and she managed to miss the drop. At this point, I got fed up with the whole business and handed over the helm to pater, who managed to get us into place without too many problems. It was at this point that everything started to go horribly wrong.
Having it made it in, I threw the lines to a couple of guys on the quay. As they passed the first line back, there was the sound of chain running out of control from the windlass so pater went forward to sort out the problem, whilst at the same time, the boat to starboard of suddenly started leaning very heavily on us as their anchor dragged. It was at this point that the guys on the quay threw back the line they'd failed to make fast and told me to untie the other one — stupid advice which I, rather credulously followed.
Having gone back out again, we then discovered that we couldn't get our anchor back up because it had snagged on one of the concrete blocks used to secure a set of lazy lines. I then spent a nervous half hour trying to keep the boat in position without mowing down my pater, who was in the diving to clear the snag. As we were doing this, we saw someone from the boat that had been to starboard of us reseting his anchor in his dingy. It turned out that his plough was completely covered in weed, suggesting that he hadn't bothered to snub it properly, so it would have dragged with the slightest provocation and that it hadn't been disturbed anything that we'd done.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, we abandoned our attempts to moor on the quay and anchored off round the corner. We called P and K, who'd just arrived back from England, and we all went out to dinner at Pane & Vino. We had a good gossip about some of the parents sailing mishaps, including the time when they pulled up the anchor in Levkada only to find that they'd also snagged the grapple of a nearby floating restaurant (as P said, "Well, that's alright. It's not like you'd want to eat there..."), and by the time we got back to the boat, the wind had dropped off, the sea was calm as a millpond and there was a wonderfully clear view of milky way. A great end to a crap day.
