When we woke on Monday morning, I was reminded of one of those winter mornings when something feels different - there is a strange quietness - and then when you look out of the window you see it has snowed. There was no snow on Monday, but it was utterly still. I realised that the wind had stopped. Oh happy day! With a respite from the wind we started the month very cheerfully with the greeting “Kalo mina!” – have a good month.
This being a new month, our good friends and marina neighbours, the Kaimiloans, at the end of their winter mooring, set off to start their sailing season. We, the Opuans, waved them off with a promise to meet up with them soon in local waters. It ended up being sooner than we expected as the work pending on the aft steps to seal a leak in the teak was fixed quickly. The next day we sailed out to join them in a gorgeous bay on the Northwest side of Pláti, a tiny island just a hop and a skip West from Kos and East of Kalymnos.
It finally felt like holiday at this place. The sun was shining. The sandy bed of the bay made the sea glow so vividly turquoise. The water was refreshing and warm enough to stay in for a while. Later we went for a bit of a walk on the uninhabited island. (I say uninhabited but it was home to a colony of gulls fiercely vociferous in guarding their broods. And there were goats too.) We followed the goat tracks across the scrubland and enjoyed views over several bays, and we visited a tiny charming church on the other side of the island. I swam back to the boat. What a perfect day! The only thing that marred it slightly was that we could not have a cup of tea, as something was wrong with the AC power. Oh, and one of the engines had been making a funny noise on the way over. We would need to investigate.
It was quite windy that night. The alarm anchor went off and Ralph was up for an hour monitoring the wind’s behaviour and its impact on our anchor. But the anchor held well! Nevertheless the weather was due to worsen so after some research into a safe berth in the forecasted conditions, we decided our best bet was to set out in the morning and secure a spot in the harbour at the Port of Váthy, on Kalymnos, where we should be sheltered. The Kaimiloans decided to stay put. Again it was only a very short trip. Captain Manolis (he of the natural sponges stand along the harbour, and looking like Captain Birdseye’s Greek nephew) gave us directions as to where to place the anchor, and helped us secure the moorings. We were not longside, but as is typical in Greece, anchored at the front and moored at the rear, right bang up in front of the little blue restaurant tables along the harbour. It was our first mooring of this kind and the weather conditions (windy again, and with a huge surge), along with the crew’s incompetence at rope throwing (note to self – practice needed), further complicated matters. I am sure it was not the first or last slapstick mooring manouevre Captain Manolis had ever seen, but wit was extremely stressful.
The stress continued. The anchor held well but the swell was so strong that Opua was rocking like crazy and it looked as though we were in imminent danger of bashing into the harbour wall. The passarelle hovered in midair so it became a circus act and knee-bashing leap to get on land.
Inside the boat, not only was the AC power mysteriously out but worse! One of our freshwater tanks was completely empty after only one day. There was no way we had actually consumed so much water; there must be a leak in the system – but where? We set about tracking the source. Ralph’s long years of troubleshooting at work led him to find significant amounts of residual water in the engine compartment, the rest having been pumped out by the bilge pump which at some point must have fallen over with exhaustion and given up the ghost. As we removed the water, scoop by scoop, from the depths of the boat, Ralph also managed to identify the source of the leak: the connection of two water pipes had been jostled out of place. Relief! If you can identify the problem you have a chance of fixing it. Sure enough, an hour or so later, the water had been removed, the pipes had been reunited. Things were not quite as black as they had seemed!
Meantime two pirate boats had emptied their tourist cargos into Váthy. It was slightly surreal to be battling a leak on a catamaran in a big swell, our bums up and our heads down inside the engine compartment under the bed while people strolled by in their holiday clothes, only a section of their legs visible to us through the small cabin window.
Tackling the electrical problem was still outstanding but shore power was available. We decided to have lunch at the restaurant whose blue tables Opua was nearly nudging with every bob. The food was good but somehow we did not have much of an appetite as we envisaged the rest of the day and especially the night ahead with these weather conditions. In the end we took a snap decision to leave the port and return to the bay at Pláti where our friends reported the conditions to still be good. We extricated ourselves successfully despite the high surge and strong winds, and back we went. We resisted the temptation to feel a little bit "tail between our legs". It had been a good learning experience in many ways.
Claudia and Thomas welcomed us back with a coffee and listened to our tales of leaks and outages. And then Thomas, who is a genius electrician, not only lent us a new inverter but also installed it for us. This seemed to fix the AC issue. And so, with many of the problems mostly solved, but still with an eye on the wind, we turned in for the night very early, shattered after the ups and downs of the day.
It was not a peaceful night. The wind was very strong – up to 30 knots – and we were concerned about the anchor slipping. We did not get much sleep. But the anchor held well again and the ferocious howling winds eventually subsided at 3am and gave us some peace and quiet.
We took it really easy that day, still somewhat stressed after the events of the previous day and night. Repeated attempts to work out if we would be better off somewhere else and where, were largely inconclusive. It seemed nowhere was going to provide much shelter! But we were reluctant to repeat another Váthy port experience so, since the wind was not forecast to be as strong as the previous night and we decided to re-set the anchor and sit it out in the same bay that night.
Big mistake! True, the wind was not so bad but the surge was enormous and we were square on to the waves. Gang after gang of violent waves repeatedly beat Opua up. Wide awake, we wondered how she was coping. At one point the wind and waves suddenly stopped and thunderstorm and lightening took over the horror show for half an hour before the boat-bashing restarted. There was nothing we could do but grit our teeth and sit it out. We snatched some minutes of sleep in between huge bangs and crashes as the waves slammed against our hulls, and as the boat tipped and rolled as if we were sailing the North sea in the winter.
At about 8am we saw a tiny lull in the weather, just enough for us to haul up the anchor and get the hell out of there. We were so relieved. 2 hours later we were back in Kos marina, looking very familiar and safe, if a little damp. “Welcome back!” The marineros greeted us. Had we really just had those terrible experiences or had it all just been a nightmare? Dazed and exhausted we ate a comforting plate of scrambled eggs and slept the rest of the day.
In this my new life, (at least when I am not tossing and turning in the saloon unable to sleep because of the loud pummelling of our poor vessel), I have time to get philosophical. It seems that a sailing life provides the potential for great highs and great lows. Mooring in a perfect bay, alone except for friends on another boat, lulled on a sleepy afternoon by the gentle rocking motion, warmed by the sunshine and cooled by a light breeze, and looking out onto sparkling waters of deep blue and turquoise – does it get any better than this? But when you are not sheltered from the wind and the waves, you realise your vulnerability and you wish you were anywhere else. A long time ago a friend once told me to push my envelope. Believe me, I am on the case.
This has been a week of extreme highs and some rather deep lows thanks to so many technical things going wrong on top of the tricky meteorological conditions. But we have now been able to fix many of the issues, which has made us feel more in control. We were grateful to Thomas and Claudia for their help and for sharing their perfect bay with us! We have learned a lot, although since it seems that sometimes following your gut does not work out well and sometimes not following your gut also does not work out well, I am not sure what lesson I have learned about following my gut! I guess follow your gut and hope for the best!
In the next few weeks we will be garnering as much experience as possible to be able to respond to the weather conditions better, and hope that most of the learning is not achieved by such a hard lesson as we had this week.
May your week this week be the dream and not the nightmare version.
Translated in German by www.DeepL.com/translator (free version), with some tweaks.
English 
German