Day 2 – Vourkari

Today was definitely a lesson in how quickly things can go wrong when sailing, regardless of how much skill and experience you have.   It was also a lesson in reading the pilot book,  which in the case of Vourkari had the following helpful hint ‘mud and weed, poor holding’, which we failed to read.  More of that in a minute but first the journey over which was a very pleasant sail.  18 miles sailed all told barr the last 4 miles, initially a very relaxing broad reach (nearly downwind) before turning sharp left as it got a bit more breezy and we were close hauled the rest of the journey (tippy sailing).  Just two tacks and we were headed straight for Vourkari.

Now for the parking, which was definitely not what we needed first day.   The Quay was pretty much rammed with day trip boats from Athens, Vourkari is apparently where the well healed Atheneans go for a Sunday jaunt, something that the pilot book didn’t tell us.   So we loitered waiting for day trippers to leave. After 15 mins Bill got a spot and parked.  The other two of us then decided to drop an anchor and reverse up to Bill’s bow to wait for the Quay to clear.  Bad mistake. I reversed up,  Ellison dropped the anchor and we tied onto Bill, all looked good.  Not good at all, there was a strong cross wind which blew the bow sideways,  the anchor didn’t hold  (‘mud and weed, poor holding’) and very suddenly we were passengers in the unfolding calamity.  We ended up across the boat next to us with our anchor fouling his anchor chain.  He decided the best way to fix things would be to shout a lot, then his wife/girlfriend decided it would help more if she also shouted a lot too.  We eventually got free, untangled anchors and chains and bid the shouty couple farewell.

We then scraped the idea of temporarily parking off Bill’s bow and waited for spaces on the Quay and parked up without incident. Fortunately no boats or people were harmed. So we then did what all mariners do after a stressful park, we had the mother of all cocktail party’s, well gin party more accurately, and were drunk before dinner.  The day was a good day after all 😊.

For others going to Kea don’t bother with Vourkari at the weekend, you’ll struggle to find a parking space and the noise from the bars is intolerable.  Go to the main port, Korissia, instead.

A couple of pictures of Vourkari to finish,

Yammas!