Day 5 – All of a sudden in Folegandros

Usually sailing is a pretty relaxed pastime, but every now and again, unexpectedly, things happen all of a sudden. But that’s not how day 6 began.

We left the beautiful anchorage of Prasonisi about mid morning heading for Karavostasi, the main port on Folegandros. There wasn’t a fantastic amount of wind but we managed to sail most of the way doing between 3 and 5 knots. We had no idea of what the bay and harbour was like other than from the pilot guide, which didn’t really say how many boats could moor up. As always we had a plan B which was to anchor in the bay. The harbour quay was pretty small, only big enough for about 10 boats, with a fair bit of it being taken up by the ferry mooring. Our friends on Orion nabbed the last spot and radioed to tell us we would need to anchor off in the bay. No problem.

We motored around to find a spot, which wasn’t difficult, and dropped anchor between two boats already there. All was well, there was enough swinging room either side of us so we wouldn’t clatter either of our neighbours if the wind dropped. Then all of a sudden things changed. Firstly a French boat arrived and unbelievably anchored between us and one of our neighbours where there definitely wasn’t enough space. Then the ferry was about to leave and unbeknown to us needed us and our neighbour to move (this is normally shown in the pilot guide but wasn’t in this case). So we had to up anchor and after milling around for a bit rafted up along side Bill and Christine who were side too on the end of the quay. So as sailing chums will know you always need to be be ready for the unexpected! Also worth noting, sailing chums, that the harbour is small so if you don’t want to anchor off get there at lunch time. Otherwise the bay is pretty big so plenty of options to anchor. Not long after mooring up, about 3:30, we discovered the bus was leaving for the main village so we got on it. We ended up spending 5 hours there using a taverna in one of the squares as a base, lunch, dinner, a few drinks and a wander round.

The village is spectacular, almost like a mini Santorini, perched on the edge of a cliff as the piccies below show. The views are incredible especially up the winding path to the church perched on the top of the hill. Folegandros is a couple of ferry rides from Athens so whether you sail or not add this place to your list.

The next morning we had our third ‘all of a sudden’ when a fishing boat came back and demanded we left at 8:30, not our plan and given we were being blown onto the quay, not a completely simple departure, to be honest to hasten our departure I did what I consider cheating and used Baby’s bow thruster (a propeller in the bow which pushes the bow side wards, useful in a cross wind). Anyhow all OK and onto IOS, there in time for lunch!

Yammas!