Return to Athens

After spending a day exploring the ancient city of Delos, we made our way to Mykonos to drop anchor next to the ship where Hauke was working. This brought us to the busy and extravagant Ornos Bay, which was definitely not a typical place for the Goden Wind with mega yachts and jet skis whizzing by.  

In the morning a thunderstorm came early and we waited out the heavy rain inside before we saw the anchor slip.  With a quick reaction from the crew, we were able to get the engine on and the anchor up and decided that this wasn't the place for us so we raised the sails and headed over to the south side of Rineia as the storm moved away.  

The unpredictable weather brought some relaxing days for Hauke and his crew so we stayed on Rineia to allow him to visit when he could.  The following morning we were even able to arrange a day trip to Tinos with him after seeing Janis off at the Mykonos ferry harbour.

A fresh breeze carried us to the island in just a couple of hours and we explored the town before heading back to Mykonos with time to make it before dark.  We then continued back to the bay south of Rineia after dropping off Hauke to spend another peaceful night at anchor.  

The following day started with wind to bring us around to the west of Rineia before a lull set in which allowed us to play with some interesting current for most of the day as we slowly approached Syros.  As night fell, we were still drifting but a gentle breeze picked up allowing us to sail smoothly for the last hour into a bay on Didmi, a small island at the entrance of the port city on Syros.  

In the morning, we took some time to explore the island and its tall lighthouse before setting off for the infamous island, Gyaros.  Coming around Syros we had a lovely fresh breeze which reduced greatly after getting north of the island.  This made our journey much slower and to our surprise, we even set the spinnaker to make it to the island before dark.  

This gave us time to explore the harrowing ruins of a penitentiary that was on the island for many decades and used most recently to hold political prisoners in the time of the Greek Civil War of the 1970s.  

The next day we hoped to cover the 25nm to Andros easily but were met with far less wind than forecast and current that didn't allow us to head directly for our target to head between the islands of Andros and Tinos to make it to the town on the main town on the island's northeast. So, by sunset, we had managed to cover only about 12nm. For this reason, we decided to anchor on the southern end of Andros in the dark and make our way to the town the next day.  Arriving in the afternoon, we had plenty of time to visit the village and its picturesque lighthouse on the rocks.

The next day we had a welcome return of the Meltemi, and we enjoyed sailing into the wind to round the northern point of Andros before heading west. Once we were in the shelter of Evia the waves and wind decreased greatly but there was enough for us to continue comfortably to a beautiful anchorage between the small, tree-covered islands of Megalonisos and Chersonisi.  

With a relaxed start the next day, we headed due south to Kea and once again had only gentle wind.  However, we were pleased to have a very peaceful night, taking a mooring buoy in the mirror-smooth bay on the north of the island.

Having wind that increased to force 3-4 and turned from northeast to southwest around us the next day, we made a steady pace toward the southern end of the Attica Peninsula.  After passing our first idea for an anchorage at Sounioun and seeing it very full we decided to continue to a small bay near the town of Charakas where we were entertained by a small and busy little slip with a tractor that regularly put boats in and out of the water.  

The next day the forecast showed the wind changing 180 degrees in the night so we needed a well-sheltered bay and were pleased to find one on the northeast of Poros. The wind slowly increased with the afternoon thermals as we made our way into this long finger bay where we brought lines ashore and were delighted by the wonderful natural beauty and wildlife including many cats, rabbits, and goats on the shore.  

Our last day of sailing came as a lovely moderate breeze on our way into Athens. It was a pleasure to see the busy channel occupied by many sailboats and not only freight heading into the city.  We took a spot in the harbour at Delta Kallithea for two nights and were happy to see another side of the city before making our way back to our favorite harbour on Pireaus, Microlimano.