Today we're packing up Zaffina, in readiness for our flight home, and I've just realised that (again) I have lagged horribly behind with my blog, so here is the final instalment for 2014.
We did go to Sifnos, just a short hope from our anchorage of the night before, and nosed into the tiny port of Vathi. When I say tiny, the breakwater had space for four yachts..fortunately, and surprisingly, there was room for us so we quickly tied on. The bay had fabulous shelter, so even if we hadn't been able to get onto the wall, we would have been happy to be at anchor, but this was even better.
Vathi is utterly quaint. To get anywhere, you have to walk along the beach or straight through restaurants - not that there's really anywhere to get to! There's a line of buildings along the seafront and a really lovely hotel that has opened quite recently, a couple of "supermarkets" (I use inverted commas because there really wasn't much that was super about them) and a few restaurants. The beach is soft sand, and that's where we headed for the afternoon, watching with interest as a superyacht came into port and tied up alongside us, half on and half off the pier.
We'd read in the Times Travel Magazine about a restaurant in Sifnos that was reputed to be exceptionally good, so made an interesting bus trip (having to change half way and not sure whether the connecting bus was actually going to turn up or not) to find it. It was very pleasant, but not quite the culinary experience we'd been hoping for! Having seen a bit of the island by bus, we thought we'd hire a car for a day to explore further but to our surprise, all the hire car companies were sold out. We resigned ourselves to staying in Vathi, but then Frank got talking to a tourist who was in the island on his own and he lent us his hire car for a day! We called the hire company and they were quite happy with this arrangement, so thanks to Iri, we had a great day zipping around Sifnos, ending up on a tree lined beach at Faros and then visiting the little church at Christopigi, near where we'd anchored several months ago.
After three nights in Sifnos, Frank plotted a route back to Paros, but before we reached the island, we anchored off Antiparos, just to the south, and liked it so much that we didn't move for two more days! Antiparos has the prettiest little town, consisting of a waterfront and one long street of restaurants, gift shops, cafes and boutiques, but it has a lovely feel to it and we felt really at home. Even this late in the season, the bougainvillaea provided a burst of colour, and the shade of the trees was welcome. The home made ice cream shop was pretty good too (it was the ice cream that was home made, not the shop, in case you're confused.) At a taverna one evening, we got chatting to a multi-national group celebrating a birthday on the next table. It transpired that they'd all fallen in love with Antiparos some years ago and now they meet up, Dutch, English, French, Australian, every year. Obviously we weren't the only ones who felt the magnetic pull of this little island.
Our anchorage wasn't especially sheltered, but the weather was being kind to us, so the only disturbance we got was from the local tripper boat; every day it sped past us, as close as possible in order to give the guests a good view, and kicked up a wake that sent everything clattering around Zaffina. The day we departed, the same boat had just passed us and we were more than tempted to give them a taste of their own medicine, but sadly they'd gone into one of the ports on the south coast of Paros before we had a chance to catch them up and shake them about!
The forecast suggested we'd need shelter for a day or two so we moved to Paroikia, the main port on Poros and after anchoring nearby, we noticed a yacht leaving so decided to nip into the harbour and take its place. We'd been here earlier in the year and had no problems, but this time we were told in no uncertain terms that we couldn't go on the inside wall. Frank ignored the two guys yelling at us to move on out, (we've encountered similar situations before, where someone already in port simply doesn't want you alongside, so they tell you that the berth is reserved when it isn't), but when one of the port officials waved us to the outside wall we knew we had to move. It was not a bad position, but a lot more exposed than inside the little harbour. Fortunately we ended up alongside a large gulet, which gave us ample protection from the elements.
We both love Paros and we were more than happy to spend another couple of days in the town before moving to our favourite anchorage of the summer, at the north of the island. The bay at Naoussa offers fantastic shelter and the town is a delight. It didn't disappoint this time either, and we were so glad that we'd managed to get back again after our first visits earlier in the year.
With guests due into Mykonos, we upped sticks (or upped anchor) and moved again, enjoying a leisurely trip between the islands...until the wind came up! We had thought of having lunch in a pretty bay we'd been to once before, but as we approached so the sea got rougher and rougher, until we decided to forget any idea of a stop off and head straight to Mykonos port.
Amanda and Ian were due to arrive the following day, and our plan was to pick them up and head straight back down to Paros so they could enjoy this little island that we loved so much. One look at the forecast told us that we would have to move quickly, as there was a real blast in prospect, but if we made it back down to Naoussa, we should be okay. The best laid plans...
Once our guests were on board, we prepared to leave, but there was no sign of the marina guy and we needed to pay him before we could go. When eventually he appeared, we did all the relevant paperwork, dropped the ropes and moved forward. That was when we discovered that the anchor was jammed on the seabed, and worse still, the lazy line that we'd just dropped had tangled with the prop. We weren't going anywhere. By the time the diver appeared (an hour and a half later) to disentangle everything, the wind had risen to such an extent that we weren't prepared to put to sea.
Two days later, we took a ferry down to Santorini and spent two nights there, staying at the amazingly situated Suites of the Gods. The hotel is perched on the cliff above the ferry harbour, and has a view all the way up the sweep of the caldera, to Fira and Oia - it really is the most spectacular outlook, and most of our time was just spent gazing in wonder at the view.
We hired a car and took Amanda and Ian to see all the best parts of Santorini, but our favourite is still undoubtedly Oia, the picture perfect town that features in so many advertising features for Greece. I don't think I could ever get bored with it. We even managed to find an exceptionally good restaurant, a real gem in a resort crowded with tourist traps.
On our final morning, I was lying in bed and Frank was in the bathroom, when to my surprise, a Japanese tourist came down the steps onto our private terrace, (and it was clearly private) and stood there taking photos of the view! I was so shocked I just watched in amazement - I'm not sure whether he saw me when he turned around to retrace his footsteps, but my jaw was on the floor!
The ferry trip back to Mykonos was a lot more pleasant than the one we'd experienced two days earlier!
Ian and Frank flew back to Jersey for a few days, whilst Amanda and I had a lazy time on Zaffina and in Mykonos Town, which we got to know pretty well! It's a real maze of tiny streets - designed that way, apparently, to give the pirate population the edge if they were chased through their home town! Despite it being late in the season, the island was still humming, with a number of cruise ships arriving and departing every day and passengers mixing with other tourists enjoying an autumn break in the Cyclades.
Frank and I again celebrated our wedding anniversary by being in two different countries! He was at home, I was in Greece, but Amanda and I had a very pleasant anniversary dinner, and better still, the restaurant did exceptionally good cocktails (think alcoholic lemon meringue pie in a glass!)
Amanda departed, Frank arrived, Frank and I departed! The wind, which had been practically non-existent for our last two days as an all-girl boat, was due back with a vengeance when Frank returned, and had we stayed in Mykonos for another night, we would have been stuck there for at least a week, with no chance at all of putting to sea. So...as soon as Frank was back on board, we were off. I'd completed all the formalities with the harbour and the police, and got the diver back to help bring the anchor up, so we had no delays to worry about and, with the wind already rising, we headed out to sea.
Over the next few hours, we had one of our longest and roughest journeys of the season, but compared to what we'd expected, it was a breeze! The first part was a bit bumpy as we headed towards Nisos, but we were seriously worried it would get a lot worse now once were in open sea. It actually wasn't bad at all, and then, as we reached the Greek mainland where Neptune's Temple at Sounia dominates the headland, the sea smoothed out beautifully, and we enjoyed reminiscing about other trips along that stretch of coast. It wasn't until we were in sight of Athens that conditions deteriorated again and with dramatic effect, but we were almost home and dry...almost. The home bit materialised, but the dry bit went by the wayside, as the clouds gathered, the wind rose, thunder rumbled, lightning flashed across the sky and, just as we were coming into Flisvos Marina, the heavens opened!
Miraculously, Frank effortlessly brought Zaffina into her winter berth, next to the Sunseeker, Extravagance, where we were when first we came into Flisvos back in May, and with cold rain now pelting down, we tied on as quickly as possible and made her fast.
After such a dramatic finale, we decided not to go to sea again; the forecast was now variable for this area of the Aegean, and although we could possibly have made it down to Aegina or Poros for a day or two, (the weather conditions there, in the Peloponnese, can be completely different to the Mykonos, which is in the Cyclades) we felt we'd be tempting fate, so for the last week we've been using Zaffina as a base and enjoying Athens - both the coast and the city. We found an exceptionally amazing restaurant at which we belated celebrated our wedding anniversary (together this time...), and on another evening, after wandering through the Plaka (old town), ate at one with a sensational view of the floodlit Acropolis. Last night we went up to the peak that overlooks the whole of Athens and got a real sense of how large the city really is. We've lazed on the beach and enjoyed some pretty good temperatures for October, and now we've reached that point at which we know the season is at a close and we're as ready as we ever will be to go home.
Apart from a few hiccups with the generator and the thrusters, Zaffina has been amazing (again) this year, Greece has been exceptional, and we've enjoyed our best season so far on the water.
So this is where I sign off for another year....hopefully we'll chat again in the early summer 2015!
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