Kurukulla

Kurukulla
Kurukulla, anchored at James Bond Island, Thailand

Saturday 4 June 2011

Northwards from Spetses (with a stowaway!)

Spetses inner old harbour

Simon, my nephew, joined as planned on the evening of the 1st of June. We decided to eat ashore that night and enjoyed “Pesche alla Speziaola” in the Old Olive Press bordering on the edge of the old harbour, and very good it was too. White Tuna fillet cooked in a wine, tomato and vegetable sauce with the addition of some feta cheese. Next morning we set off at 1000 to do battle with the port police, to get Simon officially put on the crew list, and to do some victualling. The former took nearly an hour of bureaucracy and the latter ten minutes in the supermarket. I know which was better use of our time!
Simon on passsage
That done we set off for the inner reach of the inner harbour to refuel and fill up with water. Refuelling in Greece needs to be managed with care. Fuelling stations on the waterfront are few and far between and not to be ignored when available. !40litres embarked via a gravity feed from the fuel station up the hill and water replete, we set off in the direction of Hydra. Initially a good sail but as so often happens ending under motor in a flat calm. On arrival in the vicinity of Nisos Dhokos we decided to opt for the peace of the anchorage at Ornos Skindos and not to go to the always overcrowded harbour at Hydra. The American crew of the yacht berthed next to us in Spetses had already warned us that even at this time of year berthing was three deep on the outer mole in Hydra (that is three one in front of the other med-moor fashion, not alongside each other!).

The NE anchorage in Ornos Skindos was blissful. Clear blue sky and water, and not a soul, That is until a Swedish charter group turned up two hours later for a beach BBQ! Three boats but they were no problem. After a pork steak supper it was off to bed and a reasonably early night. That was until at 0130 Simon woke me to tell me we had a visitor, (according to Manuel of Fawlty Towers “a Siberian Hamster”) otherwise known as a rat. Simon had been woken to the sound of him scrabbling in the veg basket and on turning on the light had come face to face. Needless to say he woke me in no time at all!
Entering Poros
There followed a 90 minute farce, worthy of the Whitehall Theatre, chasing the rat into all corners of the boat, the final act of which was me holding the wriggling rat in a folded towel and dispatching him overboard for an unexpected swim. That done we returned to bed! The assumption was that he had come onboard in Spetses via the gangplank which had been left down overnight for the benefit of our neighbours, whose gangplank could not reach the jetty and who therefore had used Kurukulla to access their boat.
Arriving alongside

From Ornos Skindos we sailed north to Poros but again the wind defeated us and so we diverted to an anchorage just west of Nisos Spathi, four miles short of Poros, where we sat out the ensuing thunder storm and settled for the night. Next morning, in brilliant sunshine again, we finished the four miles into Poros and at the moment I am sitting on the boat waiting for the water man to arrive to allow us to top up before spending the day ashore.
Med-moored in Poros

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