Herzliya to Kos again. The 2015 version

After several years I decided to revive the blog and write a little about the sailing trip from Herzliya to Kos.

This time was special because it was the first time I sailed with Naama who’s already a skipper, Michael and his daughter Naomi, a 16 year old sea scout guide, also David, who’s an X navy, and my old sea scouts friend Shay, who’s sailing Princess Nayeli for the first time from Israel.

The forecast was for West winds, at part of the time relatively strong. It meant going close-hauled to the wind most of the time.

I used some new planning software that calculates the best route given the forecast and the boat specs (PredictWind). It also shows you the wind strength and direction throughout the route.

The plan was to leave on Thursday morning, motor part of the way a little more West than usual and when the wind picks up, start sailing close-hauled for two full days.

We left Herzliya at 7:30AM with a nice side wind, so we hoisted the spinnaker.

A couple of hours later, 15 miles from the shore, while sailing with the spinnaker, we caught this Tuna fish:

The bate Pavel gave me worked nicely this time.

We rolled in fishing rods because we had enough fish for the whole trip.

While hoisting the spinnaker again, the first incident happened. We had to go down wind for that. We needed to turn 40 degrees away from the wind. Doing it with the auto pilot caused a big overshoot that flipped the sail which in turn went all the way through the sun awning. The zippers were heavily damaged. The team used some extra ropes to tie it back to its place. Not perfect, but it worked as long as the wind was not too strong.

As we got closer to Cyprus the wind picked up (as planned). We started sailing close hauled, with a significant list, night and day. If you add to it the 2-3m waves, that the boat was hitting with loud bangs, it made the experience a lot more challenging.

Living on the boat for a couple of days with a steady list, banging waves, and sprays of water, was not easy.

Naomi couldn’t go in, so she slept all night on the cockpit floor, wrapped with cushions, so we always had an extra crew member in the cockpit if needed.

David got it really bad this time. As our main cook, he sat in the cockpit and gave us cooking instructions. With the help of Shay and Michael we had good food even if the boat’s list was a little aggressive. We still had a hot meal once a day and sandwiches otherwise. We made sure everyone eats and drinks.

Michael felt relatively well, given the circumstances. He was able to go in and even do some cooking. Making tea and coffee in those conditions was challenging.

The rest of us (Naama, Shay and myself), shared the best bed in this situation. The stern starboard side bed. This is because the stern doesn’t jump that much on the waves, and because we could put some cushions on the topping (bedroom’s wall) and just sleep on it…

The boat was not happy with the sea either and at some point the living room table broke and fell aside, missing Shay by just a few centimeters. Don’t worry, we fixed it as soon as the weather calmed down.

This is Naomi, in the 2^nd sunrise at sea:

After 48 hours at sea, the wind calmed down and so did the waves. We furled the jib, dropped the mainsail and started motoring our last 70 miles to Kastellorizo.

We arrived at around 6PM.

The weather for the next day was not any better. Head wind of up to 23 knots was expected in Rhodes channel. We checked PredictWind’s suggestion. It suggested we motor up along the Turkish coast, then when the wind picks up start tacking, starting with a long leg south towards the coast of Rhodes and then tack straight to channel. It looked smart, so we decided to follow it. Just before the wind picked up again, we got a short dolphin show

This was a long day. We started at 5AM, tacked against the wind the whole day, raised and reefed the sails many times, tacked many times, but crossed the channel very nicely.

We used the opportunity to practice manual steering while beating against the wind, so everyone had hours on the helm, trying to make the best out of the wind.

At sunset, we were about to enter the channel between the Turkish coast and Symi

Once in the channel, the sea dropped, the wind calmed down and turned to out back. At this point, David went down to the kitchen to prepare a “royal” dinner.

We entered Symi in full darkness at around 9PM. With Naama doing a great job on the anchor, we moored in Symi town, and sat down for a late dinner. This was a nice ending for a very long, adventurous and tiring day.

Symi to Kos was a piece of cake. Only 40 miles, some on engine with not much wind and some on sails, till we made the final approach to Kos marina.

So finally, I’d like to thank the great team for doing with passage with me. It was a great experience.

Korinthos-to-Galaxidi/Trizonia

As we departed the Korinthos canal we were welcomed by strong gusts of
~30kts uninviting sea. We decided to spend the night in the old Korinthos port
and reevaluate the situation in the morning. Unfortunately, the weather did not
smile at us the following morning so we opted not to make a hasty decision to
head out. While we were considering our options the harbormaster approached
us and announced that we have to leave the harbor as a cargo ship is about to
enter. We throttled westwards reluctantly with some help of the storm jib. After
about five miles it turned out that this was not such a bad decision as the wind
weakened and even rotated to a favorable direction until we reached Galaxidi.

Galaxidi, as seen from Delphi

In previous years, Galaxidi marina has been a home to the Princess Nayeli
for about three months (on and off) and Eyal had close ties with Angelo, the
local ‘waterman’ (a person in charge of checking-in new vessels). However,
as we approached the marina an unfamiliar (not Angelo) skinny ‘waterman’
directed us onto a vacant space on the quay. As Eyal was preparing for docking
it was hard to overlook another bulky chap who was rushing us onto a different
space using vigorous hand gestures; another ‘waterman’? Soon enough, the
two ‘official’ waterman pretenders were engaged in a loud discussion and while
they were settling their dispute, we dropped anchor and invited ourselves into
an empty space in the quay. The bulky guy was the first to catch our ropes and
politely explained that we are allowed to use water and electricity for a flat fee of
10 euros to be paid until the morning. Although the skinny ‘waterman’ lost the
race to the ropes, he was very quick to grab our water hose and electricity cable.
“I am the waterman”, said the guy, and insisted that he should collect the 10
euros the very same evening “Give me a piece of paper and I will write my name”.
Roded decided to pay the guy (of course, no receipt) so that we could have a
quiet evening.

When Angelo finally arrived to greet us he explained to Eyal that the unofficial
Galxidi rule of thumb, which is the first person to collect the fee gets the 10
euros.

The next morning, Eyal, Gili and Mosh headed to Delphi, the famous site of the
Oracle, which was also considered as ‘the center of the world’. Roy and Roded
stayed in Galaxidi to visit the local museum.














We got back from Delphi to see that the boat is ready to go. 5 minutes later, we
were already on our way to Trizonia, a small island, 15 miles West of Galaxidi.

The marina in Trizonia was full of boats, one of them was under the water.
We anchored outside the marina, giving us a good opportunity to swim, row the
kayak and dive to the sunken boat. Lovely place, great view from our porch on
the water.

And as usual, you can click here to see the whole picture album.

Poros to Korinthos

Around 16:00 Vangellis arrived with our Jib back from Athens . We were happy to hear the good news . His sails maker agreed to fix the jib although it was Saturday and a day before the long weekend election day in Greece.... He also told us that the previous fix done in Cyprus was a bad job , done with a normal thread used for clothes and not with a UV protected one that should be used for sails !!!

Around 17:00 we left Poros on our way to spend the night in one of the bays around Angistri. We motored out the Poros canal and started our preparation for a nice short  15 miles of sailing in 20-25 Knots of wind. The moment the mainsail went up we noticed that there's a problem! One of the mainsail batten pocket stitches had at least a 1M long opening!
We had to take the mainsail down immediately.
We motored around 4 Knots of speed against the 25 Kn wind and just 10 min before sunset we anchored in a beautiful bay on the south side of Angistri.

This morning, we started the day by patching the batten pocket. We put a 1m sticker over the batten, hoping it will hold. We haven't tried it yet. No doubt, the windy hell under Amorgos did not spare our sails.

after a short swim, we started our way towards the Korinthos canal.
The sea was calm and the Meletemi started slowly to pick up . we decided to do some fishing again.
And this time we got a quiet big one! Another 10Kg tuna!!

Just when we finished to clean the fish , the Meltemi was already picking up and we motored the last 4 miles into the Korinthos canal.

The waiting time was just 15 min. after arranging all the papers and we crossed the canal around 14:00.

Just outside the canal , we felt the force 8 , and turned into the Korinthos port . the port is a deserted port , used rarely by small cargo ships and we were the only yacht there .

The port is completely open to the North , and the feeling is a bit choppy inside . Anchoring took us about 30 min. until we fixed all the ropes but the anchor has a good holding and it's quiet a safe anchoring inside.

Getting ready for an exciting dinner with tons of fish in our rocky shelter.

More soon...

As usual, you can see all the pictures from the past two weeks (including new ones from today) in our web album

Rhodes to Poros

We're now in Poros, having a day off, while waiting for the jib to come back from Athens. Wind is picking up from NW.
The main challenge we had was to be able to cross the Aegean sea before a heavy Meltem storm spreads all over the Aegean sea. There was a 7-8 bft N wind expected and we wanted to cross before is picks up.
Our plan was to motor North as far as we can before she picks up, and when she starts blowing, we would turn West and sail at 60 degrees to the wind so that we'll run fast and more comfortably. We would go west till we hit the Peloponnese and then go along the shore against the wind to the Corinth canal.
The minute Roy and Roded arrived from the airport on Wednesday night, in an unexpected flood of rain (that lasted 20 minutes), we left Rhodes.
We motored West to Kos and then up towards Patmos.
The night went smoothly, and then at about 10AM on Thursday, we realized we won't be able to pass beyond Amorgos so we decided to turn West and start sailing. We already had a fresh fish from the morning's catch, so we were ready to start sailing...


Click Here to see a video of what it looked like when we were still far from Amorgos.

At this point Gili was not feeling so well. The washing machine effect we had the whole day, sent him to bed and we didn't see him till after sunset.

Then, moving towards the South tip of Amorgos, there was suddenly and silent moment where the wind dropped completely. But it was only 10 minutes later that we could see ahead what's expected.
I think I've never sailed (with sails on) in such a strong wind. We had 40+ kts gusts coming down from the high cliffs of South Amorgos. When a gust hit us, it would "swivel" the boat into the wind even with ALL the helm going down wind. Steering was impossible. Every time the boat went into the wind, the jib flapped in bangs that were as loud as gun shots.
After two or three such bangs, we went all the way down wind to furl the jib (there was only a small napkin out there anyway). Then the boat went all the way upwind again and we used the opportunity to drop the sail.
There were only wind waves there but the wind was so strong that we got soaked with salty spray.

Once out of the island's shade, we got clear sea with calm wind and sea.
We then decided, to change the plan and motor up all night to Kithnos so we're high enough to sail west. The wind was supposed to start only around 9am so we should have had enough time to motor up the 50 miles we had till Kithnos.

It was a calm night, we had a great night sleep except Roy who took a long night shift.
When I woke up on Friday morning, I knew we won. We cross the Aegean right before the storm.
The only problem was that we had a long stitch on the Jib's leach that split open the day before. We had to fold it and hoist the 6 m2 storm jib instead. It was good enough, together with the mainsail to run at 6-7kts.  As the crew regained their sense of appetite, Roy and his suchef, Roded, prepared a Mediterranean-Dutch style fish cakes from the Bonito we cached the day before, which was a nice relaxing end to this leg of our trip.

With Yael's help, we called "Greek Sails" in Poros who said they may be able to help us.

So we sailed to Poros, anchored and went to look for the guy. It turned out that we had two options to fix our jib: either try our luck with a 95 year-old and almost blind and deaf local tailor, who has a little shop on the island, or wait until the owner of the local yacht shop, Vangelis, will take the jib to another tailor in Athens. We opted for the 2nd choice as Vangelis 'promised' to do his best to return the repaired sail by Saturday afternoon.

The rest of pictures can be found at the trip's album

הרצליה - קסטלו

השעה כעת 19:15, יום ראשון, אנחנו מפליגים בקדמית חדה של 15-17 קשר (רוח שטח של 10-12 קשר), לכיוון החוף הטורקי.

מיכאל עובד על הכנת הקרפצ'ו מהדג שכרגע תפסנו. זה התחיל בוויכוח קצר אם לזרוק את החכה. אני אמרתי שכיוון שכולנו מפוצצים אחרי ארוחה ענקית על טהרת הדגים, אולי כדאי לחכות למחר. החברה' פחדו שאולי מחר לא נתפוס דג, אז כדאי לנסות היום. מוש חשב שאולי הדג הקודם היה מקרי וחייבים לבדוק אם הפתיון עובד.

אז זרקנו חכה, ולא הספקנו אפילו להשלים את התרגולת על יבש עד שהחכה התחילה לרוץ... עוד דג! התרגולת עבדה מצויין: ירדנו לגבית, קיפלנו את החלוץ והתחלנו להביא אותו לסירה. לאט לאט ראינו אותו מגיע מלווה בעוד דג. 10 דקות אח"כ הדג היה אצלנו בסירה, הפעם גודל יותר סביר – רק 5-6 ק"ג.

יצאנו ביום שישי, ב 7 בבוקר ממרינה הרצליה. בלי רוח, הלכנו על מנוע (דורו-דורו כמו שמוש אומר). העניין הראשון התחיל כשהגענו לאסדת הקידוח שמסתבר שהיא ממש על הנתיב לפפוס. עוד לא הספקנו להבין מה זה בדיוק המבנה הזה בים עד שהתחילה להתקרב אלינו גוררת ענקית שסימנה לנו להתרחק וליוותה אותנו מערבה. לא הצלחנו להבין למה הם לא עונים לנו בקשר אלא מדברים איתנו בתנועות ידיים עצבניות. אחרי שעה או יותר של ליווי מערבה הם עזבו אותנו וחזרו לחכות לפולש הבא.

בהמשך זרקנו את החכה למים, תוך כדי שיעורי ימאות והיסטוריה מעורבבים, וחיכינו לשקיעה. קצת לפני השקיעה, החכה התחילה לרוץ והביאה לנו את הדג הכי גדול שנתפס בסירה הזו אי פעם. פלמידה אדומה במשקל כ 10 ק"ג. זה היה ניסיון ראשון, ומוצלח של מיכאל להשחיל דג על הצלצל, וזה הצליח לו מצויין. העלנו את הדג לסיפון, ורק אז התחלנו להבין את המשמעות – איזה דג זה! צריך לפנות לו חצי מקרר, צריך לחשוב על כל מיני מתכונים, וכו'. בסופו של דבר אכלנו הרבה ארוחות דגים ועוד לא גמרנו את הכריימה שעשינו אתמול.

אז חוץ מדגים, הפלגנו גם קצת על מפרשים, נגד הצפונית מערבית הקלה שנשבה. התקדמנו לאט ולא בכיוון, אבל היה שקט ונעים.

משמרות הלילה עברו בנעימים. הארוע המעניין היחיד שהיה זה אונייה ענקית שמערך האורות שלה הטריד אותנו במשך שעות רבות. היו לה כנראה 2 אורות אדומים, ירוק, לבן בחרטום ועוד הילת אורות בירכתיים. אנחנו עדיין לא בטוחים מה היא התכוונה להגיד בזה.

אחה"צ הגענו לפפוס. הסתובבנו לא מעט זמן במעגן, מחפשים מקום. אף אחד לא ענה לנו בקשר. בסופו של דבר, ניגשה אלינו סירת משטרה והרשתה לנו לעגון ברציף המשטרה. מחשש לעומק רדוד מדי, עגנו עם חרטום למזח. נעמה ויובל אירגנו את עוגן הירכתיים מהר מאוד ותוך כמה דקות היינו עגונים.

את פנינו קיבלה תזמורת צבאית בריטית שהופיעה בנמל באותו ערב. באופן מקרי לחלוטין, תוך כדי שאני מעלה את דגל קפריסין – התזמורת ניגנה את: God save the queen

בהמשך עשינו בדיקות למכשיר הקשר והבנו שיש לנו בעיות עם המקלט. שומעים אותנו, אבל אנחנו לא שומעים אף אחד. משהו שאנחנו צריכים לפתור ברודוס, כנראה.

הבוקר, אנחנו מתכוננים לצאת לדרך, ואז מתברר לנו שאנחנו יושבים על הקיל. מזל שעמדנו עם החרטום למזח. קצת כוח עם המנוע, והרבה סבלנות, וירדנו מהשרטון הקטן.

ומילה בשבחם של קולטי השמש החדשים. אנחנו היום מפליגים כל היום על מפרשים, שני המקררים עובדים, ובכל זאת המצבר מלא. ממש מדהים.

חוץ מזה האווירה פה מדהימה. הרבה ארוחות, הרבה צחוקים, וים נפלא.

קישור למסלול ההפלגה שלנו עד כה:
 

הצג את Herzliya-Messolonghi במפה גדולה יותר

קישור לתמונות מההפלגה


מחר: מערה כחולה בזריחה וממשיכים לרודוס.
 

Crete, Chania and Rethimno

We arrived at the port of Chania at about 6:30pm after a 3 hour flight delay due to the strike in Greece and a 2 hour taxi ride from Iraklion airport.
We had a lovely welcome from Ofer and all the French community in Chania. I'm referring to Benoit, Florence and their kids as well as other French families that winter on boat in Crete.
Thanks to Ofer and Benoit, Princess Nayeli survived the storm that hit the Mediterranean last week, flawlessly.
We enjoyed Chania very much. The beautiful surrrounding of the old town, the nice neighbors and Nikos who runs the local Synagogue, made our stay very pleasant.
It was very interesting to join the Friday night prayers at the Synagogue that was recently rennovated. We may come back for Passover.

Today we sailed out of Chania. There was an annoying swell, so the girls had a little bit of a hard time, but once we were past the cape (that is more difficult to cross than cape Carmel in a strong SW), we started running at 8-9kts to Rethimno.
Once we had the sails down, a heavy rain started, that made our entrance a lot more interesting.
Our main concern now is the general strike that's expected in Greece on the 19th and 20th. Yael and the girls have a flight back on the 19th that will probably be cancelled with this strike.

Zakynthos to Pilos

We're now anchored on a beach at the North of end of Navarino bay: Map of where we are
 It is very peaceful here, not so many boats and the weather is calm. It's just the four of us on the boat (Yael, Noga, Yasmin and myself), so we have plenty of room and plenty of water to stay in bays for a few more days.
We're planning to stay here another day and just relax before we start our last couple of legs into Kalamata.

We had great sailing getting here. The first leg, was 45NM. We sailed most of it with the Gennaker. The wind was right behind us, about 18Kts, and we had some waves. The only event we had on the way was that out of a sudden, while I was at the helm (trying to make the Gennaker happy), the sail disappeared! We lost sight of it, and only when going out of the cockpit, we saw it fluttering way above us! The tack snap shackle unlocked for some reason and the sail was only holding on two lines. Fortunately, the sleeve was still working and we could sleeve it back rather easily. At that point we just opened up the jib (which we just talked about doing anyway cause the wind was increasing), and pointed the bow at Kiparissia.

Kiparissia: So first, the port of Kiparissia has been extended and it is well protected now, with water and electricity on the quay. Rod Heikell warns boats from going in here because the port is not protected and suggests to drop an anchor in the middle of the port. I waned to update him, but then I saw that he has a blog post from this summer with an update along those lines.
The town is really strange. Many brand new house, next to ruins and empty roads. No tourists at all. The castle and old town are lovely, with great view over the South Ionian sea. At the main square, we found a lovely Cafe where the highlight was that they had a 1 month old puppy. He was beautiful and we had to go back there the next day to see him.
Noga keeps saying that she likes Kiparissia and that we have to go back there. It's a great stop over between Methoni and Zakynthos.

From Kiparissia, we did a short, 30NM leg, to the famous bay of Navarino where we are now.

Some more pictures were added to this summer's sailing album.
BTW- I added a picture of our message in a bottle that was found in Italy and the picture was sent to us.
Eyal

Princess Nayeli Adriatic summer 2011