Camilla Ransom
The next island up is called Koufonisi and we’d heard good things about it so we wanted to go. We left the anchorage at 09:00 and motored up and around the top of Schinousa. With the wind being what it is around here there was zero chance of us ever being able to sail this passage so we picked what we thought would be an OK day to motor the 10 mile distance. We were also getting twitchy and fancied a chance of scenery. We were expecting a headwind, which we got, but we didn’t anticipate the very lumpy sea. Instead of continuing along the north side of the islands we ducked down in between Schinousa and Koufonisi with the hope of finding calmer waters. We were lucky on that count but the bloody wind blew even stronger as it funnelled between the islands. With about a mile to go we were battling into 30 knots of wind doing 1.5 knots of boat speed and when we saw white horses piling out of the anchorage through the binoculars we decided to cut our losses and turn around. We’d be miserable there, we’d have to try another day.
We unfurled a tiny bit of foresail, switched off the engine and had a lovely – and fast – downwind sail back to a very calm Schinousa. Determined to get our change of scenery we anchored in the bay next door and went ashore for lunch, and I got my first taster of white grouper which was delicious!
Late in the afternoon boat after boat came into the small anchorage. Most of them managed to keep a safe distance, but some ended up a little too close for comfort. With strong winds forecast for tomorrow we weren’t altogether confortable being so packed in so we took the dinghy around the corner to see how many boats were in our original anchorage. Finding it much less crowded we moved. Just as we were coming in we saw one of the three anchored boats suddenly become a flurry of activity. The guy was at the helm and his lady friend was running to the bow to pick up the anchor. Just as we passed them they raced ahead of us directly into the spot we’d eyed for ourselves. Bit unnecessary. We let them pass and hovered around until they got settled. Unfortuantely for them however their anchor (which was way too small for their boat) wouldn’t hold and after 3 failed attempts they moved so we sidled in, dropped first time, settled in and proceeded to watch them try every space in the bay until at last they seemed hoppy.
