Tom Döhler
If there is one such thing as the sailing bible for the Med, it’s gotta be Rod Heikell’s cruising pilot. Pretty much every English speaking sailor in the Med has a copy of his books, and “What does Heikell say about such and such” is a phrase we have come across many times. As preparation for our trip from Amargos to Astypalaia we had a look what Heikell had to say about this part of the Med, and were excited to find him talking about big seas and nasty gusts pretty much anywhere around the island. Oh, joy! We had seen some of the big seas on the north side of the island as we came into the anchorage, and now it was a case of waking up early and battling a few hours westward through those seas, before turning south-west and sail through those nasty gusts whipping down the south coast of the island.
We had gotten a taster of those gusts when we visited the monastery, so we were prepared for it, well kind of. The seas where indeed quite big, but once we managed to squeeze ourselves through two little islands on the north west corner that sea should flatten out. Well, what can I say, it didn’t. And to make matters even more sporty, the wind kicked in, and I mean really kicked in. We put away all the sails except for a handkerchief of jib but even with this we were absolutely flying along, sometime topping 8.5 knots so we had to furl more sail so we had less than 3 reefs in. The 40 knot wind was whistling through the rig like we both had never experienced before, and the seas were so big that for the first hour or so we didn’t dare turn west, as this would have meant we’d have needed to take the waves on the side of the boat, a prospect we both did not favour in the slightest. But, as it often happens, after an hour or so of wrestling with the wind and the waves, we finally found a rhythm and even managed to steer a course that would get us where we wanted to go. They called it “finding the groove”, and once you find the groove, sailing even becomes fun in those conditions. The wind was still blowing 25 knots with the occasional 30 knot gusts, but life in the groove was good. We made it all the way over to Astypalaia, or as it is also known, the “butterfly island” due to its unique shape. There are a load of anchorages on the south side of the island, and we were happy to find the first bay nicely protected and relatively empty. Salty but happy we dropped the hook and settled in for the night.
We woke up rather achy the next morning, but that didn’t stop us taking the dinghy ashore and having a look around. The little beach around the bay had a few tavernas serving breakfast, how could we say no?
We made use of the fact it was still quite early and not too hot yet and walked up the hill into the little town. Astypalaia sit’s on a hilltop overlooking the south side of the island, and is topped by the “Castle of Guerini”. The castle is something like an open air museum that you can climb around in. Amazing to think that people lived in these tiny houses and defended the whole island from this single hilltop.
We descended the other side of the hill down into the port where we had lunch and played a few rounds of backgammon. Back on the boat we found the anchorage getting crowded with more and more boats piling in. The wind had shifted which meant that new boats coming into the anchorage didn’t know where anyones anchor chain was, and we had to fend off a couple of boats trying to drop their chain over ours. It’s always annoying when that happens, especially for the poor crews just coming into the anchorage after a long day sailing, but eventually all boats found a spot and we settled in for the night.
I guess the excitement of a windy sail and one or two climbs up the steep hills of Astypalaia had finally caught up with us, as we both woke up super achy on Thursday. We managed to go for a run (up to a reservoir) and then literally did nothing for the rest of the day but hang out on the boat, swim in the crystal clear water and have a quick fly of the drone. Not bad for a lazy day at anchor!
