It’s Sunday and Nick and Norman had flights today so they left us last night to travel to Athens by ferry.
I was getting jumpy. ‘We just have to get to Skiathos. I don’t care what the weather is like. Not being there on Wednesday is not an option. We still have 160 miles to go so let’s just get out there and do it.’
If we averaged 4 knots we would be there by early Tuesday morning. Not much of a margin for error.
Khios harbour was rough. It’s always a bad sign when the harbour is rough, you wonder how bad it must be outside. We were nervous as we started to lift the anchor. As she came up the windlass started to slow and labour. When the anchor came into view through the murky water we saw what was causing the problem: we had fouled a big fat mooring chain. Were the God’s testing our nerve? Was it a test which if passed would guarantee a safe journey? Or were they warning us? Don’t leave it’s worse out there.
Partly from necessity and partly optimism I favoured the former.
An hour later in the straight on the West of Khios heading North I was inclined to believe I was right. In the way that only Greek Island wind can do it was 2or 3 force less outside the harbour and we were making 5 knots against it. Our spirits lifted. At this rate it would only take 30 hours and we’d be in Skiathos in time for a late lunch tomorrow.
As we turned West at the top of Khios we hoisted the mizzen and genoa and set a close reach for a waypoint 2 miles North of the light off the top of Skiros. We had a short visit from a dolphin and there was not a cloud in the sky.
| 