Fry to Pigardia on Karpathos

At 10:15 on the 1st September, the Meltimi still handing it to us we cast off, weighed anchor and whilst inside the main harbour, reefed and raised the mainsail, swung east unfurled the headsail and in no time we were doing 7-8 knots.

The wind was NW and so for the cognoscente among you, that was the perfect direction for our best day's sailing yet.

On the port beam to waypoint 1. Quite rocky but fast. On the port stern quarter to waypoint 2, smooth as and faster, 7 - 9 knots with a little surfing thrown in. On the starboard beam to waypoint 4 in strong winds, but not enough fetch from the shore for the waves to get up, so smooth sailing and even faster.

At 13:40 the sails came down as we turned for the last leg straight into the wind and entered an impressive harbour we had been forewarned that space would be hard to come by, specially for a Cat.

We poked our nose into the main harbour where there seemed to be acres of space but no power or water, kept a note while we investigated the yacht harbour just around the corner.

It was full but for a small jut of quay at the very entrance next to a honking great sport fishing boat, the wind blowing straight into the entrance so mooring would be tricky but power and water right there!





Just as we'd decided it was too hard, the owner of said boat came out and waved us in. OK, so we dropped the anchor at an angle to hold our bow against the wind, there was no chance of the chain being crossed. Reversed straight back letting the wind push us slowly into place. He helped with the lines and after a lot of tying and retying we got set with our arse hanging right off the end of the quay.

No way could they charge us for two boats on this occasion!
.

Turned out they didn't charge us at all....

Pigardia is a pretty town in a classic setting, but I'd have to say that for us it was of no more interest than a brief overnighter. We had two days to get to Rhodes to rendezvous with Greg and Wendy Fraser and still had a long way to go.

We dined, slept and readied for an early start and a long run in potentially big seas up to Lindos, an anchorage about half way up the southern coast of Rhodes island.