Rinea is a small, flattish island directly to the west of Mykonos. It provides a nice contrast to the constant dumpster fire that is the Mykonos summer scene. We anchored in a small bay on the west coast, tucked in as far from the open reach of the sea as we could get. We were expecting north winds of up to 50 knots, and wanted to be well settled and ready. We thought we might have to stay here for 10 days to avoid the worst of the weather, but knew we needed to be in Mykonos by the 13th of August to pick up Todd and Lori.
As the wind built we enjoyed foiling and swimming around in the picturesque bay. We went ashore one day to check things out. Most days we had multiple foiling sessions, and progressed rapidly. I completed my first tacks, a way of turning upwind without losing ground. As the days progressed, the wind gained in strength and we moved to smaller and smaller wings, until eventually it was just too windy to go out. We had a 24 hour period that was mostly over 40 knots. Luckily the anchorage was well sheltered, and there were no waves. Our Ultra anchor held tight, not dragging an inch, and eventually we relaxed, confident in all aspects of our ground tackle.
The day before Todd and Lori were due to fly in, we pulled up anchor and made the sail across the channel to Mykonos. It was windy, and we lost a block for the staysail overboard, but were able to cobble together a solution to get us to the anchorage. What a change. After a couple weeks of being alone in our little bay, we were suddenly surrounded by boats and people, tearing in and out of the bays and beaches. The clubs played their music till early in the morning, and everything was a minimum of twice as expensive as it is in the outlying islands. Once we got Todd and Lori on board we ate dinner ashore, spent the night, and then raised sail early in the morning.
We sailed back to Donousa, anchoring in the same little bay on the east side. Giovanni and his son came out to visit in their kayak, and we hung out. He invited us for a glass of wine at his hotel, which is an amazing stone structure built into the hill overlooking the bay. We invited him and his son, who loves sailboats, to join us on our next passage, back over to Koufonisi. We left at midday on the following day, and had a fast sail over. We ate watermelon with our guests, and then they took the ferry back home. We spent one night in Koufonisi, then headed out again, on a longer passage, all the way to Antiparos.
The wind died during the evening at anchor, so we spent two nights in the wide, shallow bay on the south end of Antiparos. Todd and Lori took the bus into town, and we walked around the archeological site of Despotiko. It turned out we weren’t supposed to do that, but we got away with it, and it was spectacular to see the ancient structures up close, with no one else around. We also took the dinghy to the edge of the bay and explored some super cool caves, carved into a variety of volcanic stones. I could have spent longer over there, but the tourist boats began to arrive, and it was time to go.
Our next stop was Sifnos for another night. We had a great sail, and I learned that overpowering the code zero sail can actually slow the boat. When I relented and switched to the genoa we picked up another knot and a half, which was interesting. I won’t hesitate to switch from now on.
From Sifnos we went back to Milos, which has the coolest anchorage of any we have seen in the Mediterranean. It is busy as can be during the day, but in the evening we moved close to the towering cliffs and anchored in a tiny inlet, surrounded by walls of a strange, soft, consolidated volcanic ash. It was a spectacular place to spend the night, and we enjoyed the uniqueness of our surroundings. We also enjoyed a nice IPA we had found on Sifnos, which was appreciated by me, as anchoring in that little spot was a lot of work.
Our last two wild islands were Folegandros and Sikinos. They were spectacular, steep and precipitous, with perfect anchorages protected from the sea. On Sikinos we rented a car (our first of the year) and drove up to the Manalis Winery perched on the ridge line with a vantage off to the north west. That grapes can even grow there was amazing to me, and the food and wine were both very good. We had an enjoyable dinner, followed by an exciting nocturnal dingy ride back to the boat, which we had left firmly anchored and lashed to shore in a small bay.
Finally we arrived in Santorini, where we took a mooring buoy, as anchorages are few, poor, and far between. Todd and Lori were to leave us here, but we had two nights before their flight out. We did the necessary walking around in the tourist zone, but also enjoyed a great dinner on Thirasia, a less busy islet in the Santorini caldera.
On the morning of the 25th, Todd and Lori took a water taxi to the main island, and we untied from our last landfall in Greece. The wind was strong, and we quickly raised our sails and powered out of the protection of the cliffs of Santorini. With two reefs and the full genoa we started to make our way west, out of the Aegean Sea. We were moving. The leeward hull had a constant plume of spray arching up over it before being caught by the wind and flung backwards against the boat. We had a few hours when our speed over ground did not dip below 13 knots. It wasn’t until late afternoon when the Meltemi began to lose its grip on us, and we shook out the reefs in the main. As the sun began to go down we switched to the gennaker, and pushed it pretty high up into a beam reach. In the middle of the night we switched to the code zero, and maintained forward progress. Our first 24 hours out we covered 220 nautical miles with an average speed of 9.1 knots. This is a record for us.
Our first morning found us in some light wind, heading for the center of a high pressure system we knew we would have to cope with. As the wind died we furled sail, did laundry and made water while we motored for five hours through the flat spot. In the early afternoon the wind began again, this time from the south, and we were able to sail again. We had around five knots to start with, which enabled us to sail at four knots, on a beam. The wind built and built, until it became rather uncomfortable off the coast of Malta. The next two days were just dealing with an awkward sea state, and quite a lot of wind. We mostly hand steered, as the autopilot did not cope well with the short seas coming in on the rear quarter. This led to some rather miserable night watches. Approaching the coast of Sicily, the wind became lighter and more favorable, and we made good time towards the Egadi islands, anchoring on the north side of Favignana in the early afternoon of our fifth day at sea.
