At 21h15 the crew was fed and watered and rested, the baot was ship shape so we raised the anchor and set off North for our first night passage of this journey. There was no wind and the sea was calm and apart from dodging the many tankers that were using the early part of the route we had an uneventful journey up through the south part of the Kolpos Petalion strait.
At 04h30 we approached our destination – a small protected by on the island of Evia called Voufalo. We dropped anchor and went off for some shut eye.
2nd August 2010
The next morning Svein discovered that we had anchored next to a wreck! It was marked by a small empty plastic water bottle and consisted of a small boat that had sunk from the stern and bow was sticking up about 2m below the surface. We were lucky. Anyway we decided we did not like the anchorage that much so decided to press on.
We continued up the strait and were to be able to sail for 3 hours. It was a very tight tack to start with but then the wind gradually came round so we had a long stretch up to the town of Alverion. Here, as we rounded the corner, we had the wind at 20 kn on the nose so Perkins was brought into action again. Again the trip was peaceful until we reached the town of Ereitria where we played dodgem cars with the ferries that were plying between the town on Evia and Oropos on the mainland.
We round Ak Avlis in the early afternoon and carried on under the bridge that opens into the bay where the town of Khalkis is to be found. The area is full of very heavy industry ranging from shipyards to cement factories so, at a first glance, does not seem very inviting. We approached the quay at Khalkis so that we could register to be able to go through a small bridge that spans the town. A “friendly” Greek customs officer came and told us that the bridge would not be opening before Wednesday so could we please go and anchor. This we did and we are now anchored under a fort that overlooks the bay. We decided that we deserved a dinner out in town after completing nearly 100 NM in under 24 hours. To reach our destination in time we will probably have to do another long stretch as all the advantage has been lost by the closure of the bridge.
3rd Auguat 2010
We have explored the town whilst we are waiting and Svein is in the process of filling up with diesel. A difficult process as he has to take the cans into town one by one in order to have them filled. We need to ensure that we have enough fuel to get us to Lesbos, if we are unable to sail all the way, and the prospects of finding diesel further up the strait are quite remote.
Tomorrow, between 15h00 and 17h00, we will go and register with the port police so that we can get through the bridge and we should be leaving Khalkis somewhere after midnight as they only open the bridge in the evening so as to disrupt the traffic as little as possible!! How many boats will be going through is not sure but several turned up yesterday and more today so it should be an interesting procedure.