Kalyra

Another day, another bit of motoring. We had timed leaving Ermioni to take advantage of what little wind might come up, but we got zip. Luckily it was a nice day so we charged up the batteries (not that they need it with all the work the solar panel is doing these days).

Poros is very touristy, but is a fun little town. We had been clued into the anchorage on the back side of town (Monastiriou Bay) which is much quieter, more protected, and has superior anchor holding. You can take your dinghy to town underneath a super low bridge (be sure to duck!), or tie it up and walk into town. It’s perfect for stocking up on provisions, visiting chandlerys, and especially for doing laundry – 24 euro for two big bags of laundry is a great deal, and they have it done in less than 24 hours.

Wandering through the back areas off the waterfront we found a great little take-a-book, leave-a-book library. I have a few books ready to unload – maybe I can find some new ones here. Interestingly enough, English books aren’t that common in Greece. German cruisers seem to be the most predominant judging by the number of books here.

I’m not a huge fan of public quays in Greece, as I don’t particularly enjoy looking at sweaty, drunk, sunburned tourists while I’m trying to enjoy a coffee or a meal. I snapped a picture of this poor guy who clearly had had too much of a great time the night before.

It’s been good to relax in a solid anchorage (good holding in sand with no rocks!), and just enjoy a few days with no big plans while we try to decide where we are going next.

Aside from Santorini and Mykonos, I think Hydra is one of the most popular islands in Greece. It’s certainly beautiful, but a little too chock full of tourists off the high speed ferries from Athens for us to need more than a day there to enjoy.

There’s no question that it has its charms. The main town harbor rises steeply on all sides and is filled with cute shops, tavernas, and cool buildings. We immediately started climbing up to the house where Leonard Cohen lived for seven years in the 1960’s. It’s still a private residence (owned by his son), but we could at least stand outside and pay homage.

The cats of Hydra, of course, didn’t disappoint.

Hydra is famous for being a car-free island. Historically they used donkeys for hauling gear. These days the donkeys are hauling ridiculously large suitcases for tourists. A much better form of transportation are motorized carts/wheelbarrows that we saw popping up. Give the donkeys a break, please.

It was a beautiful place to visit, but it was hot, and there were simply too many people around after a while. We enjoyed our time there, but were happy to take an early ferry back to Ermioni, where we could sit with a quiet drink and hang out with the locals.

One thing we did later was watch the 2019 documentary “Marianne and Leonard”. Marianne Ihlen was Leonard Cohen’s main muse. They met and they lived together in Hydra for several years. Their story is quite sad (then again his music is pretty melancholy), but the movie was beautifully made and we enjoyed it all the more having just visited.

We left Porto Cheli and continued on around the Peloppenese, heading for Ermioni. The harbor is small and supposedly not great holding during northerlies or easterlies, so we opted for the bigger bay on the other side of town. We had nearly the whole bay to ourselves and the only downside was a longer dinghy ride to town.

There’s not much to do in town (we were using it as a base to visit Hydra), but we did find a great little waterfront cafe that we went back to each day for coffee, breakfast, or an ouzo to wind down.

Our unexpected bonus was running into Davide and Lies from s/v Saga (friends from Monastir), who anchored right next to us. They invited us aboard for a drink, and even gifted us with four liters of olive oil (he had been paid in olive oil for some work he did in Zakinthos, and had plenty to spare).

The only downside to the anchorage was that once again, Greek rocks had managed to hook our chain and it was a little bit exciting upping anchor. We had hooked on a ledge of sorts, but luckily it was the typical porous sedimentary Greek rock that falls apart quickly when hit a few times. The anchor suffered no damage and we were on our way.

On our way back from Napflio we took a detour inland to visit Epidaurus. Here you can find the Sanctuary of Asclepius, a healing center from the 4th century, BC.

Very similar to Olympia (where we visited last summer), remnants of the temples were recovered and put into a museum for preservation.

People came from all over to be cured of all sorts of ailments. Their testimonies were chiseled into stone and left for posterity.

One in particular had me laughing, as the person had arrived complaining of indigestion, and was prescribed healthy food and lots of exercise. Very straightforward the Greeks.

Much of the site is in ruins, and a lot of imagination is required to see what it might once have been, but the views are amazing. They even had their own arena for running competitions, and it looked more imposing than the one we saw in Olympia.

Then it was on to the star of Epidaurus, the theatre. Seating up to 14,000 people, the acoustics of this particular theatre were good enough to perfectly hear from the top rows with no artificial amplification necessary. We watched other tourists test this as one stood in the middle of the performance area and others would head upward to the top row. A normal speaking voice was all that was needed.

We had really wanted to visit Napflio by boat, but it was another 30 miles up the coast, all upwind. We opted to leave the boat in the safe anchorage of Porto Cheli and rent a car to see Napflio instead. We parked the car as soon as we got into town and made our way to the waterfront where we hopped on a ferry to go out to the Bourtzi Fortress.

The Venetians built a fortress on a tiny islet just outside the Napflio harbor in 1471 (ironically the current name is from the Turkish occupation, who the Venetians were guarding against). They dropped boulders in the water to form a perimeter around the fortress, preventing deep keeled boats from approaching too closely. Cables were strung from either side of the fortress to land to completely blockade the harbor. Despite the stellar setup, the Ottomans later conquered the city, though the Greeks took it all again in the War of Independence. We learned that Bouboulina, from Spetses, and her fleet were critical in the war effort in this part of Greece.

The fortress was disarmed in 1865. After being renovated, it was a high class hotel and restaurant from the 1930s to the 1960. Now it is a tourist destination, and a very interesting part of Greek history.

The town of Napflio is very touristy, but the old town was really fun to wander around. Of course all the requisite cats were out posing. We had lunch at one of the local tavernas – building up our strength for the Palimidi Fortress.

From the base of town, you can climb 800+ steps up to the fortress, but you still have to pay admission to enter. It was 90+ degrees, we had a car, why would we walk? Besides, it’s still a hike within the fortress walls.

Though Napflio shows signs of inhabitants since prehistoric times, the building of the Palimidi Fortress by the Venetians (along with Bourtzi which we had just visited) wasn’t built until 1714. This was the last fortress built in Greece by the Venetians, and despite its size it was poorly manned and easily taken over by the Ottomans the year after it was completed.

After the Greek War of Independence, the fortress was used as a prison. You can climb through the tiny entrance to the two rooms that held General Theodoros Kolokotronis when he turned treasonous against the Greek government.

The views from the top were amazing. Thankfully in this heat, there was a small snack bar at the top, so we stopped for a slurpee to relax.

But we had a car for the day and more exploring to do.

I had never heard of Spetses before a friend mentioned anchoring there. We had bypassed it for Porto Chéli. But I looked into it and we decided to take the ferry over instead.

Spetses is like the St Barths of Greece (ironically just featured in Vogue a week before we went). Old money still vacations there, and the clothing stores were lovely but wildly out of my league (we can cruise because I don’t shop in these places).

Nonetheless the town is beautiful and has quite a history. It was here that Laskarina Bouboulina was the only female naval admiral leading battles and supplying ships during the Greek War of Independence in the 19th century. Her home has been turned into a private museum and we got the chance to visit.

As expensive as the shops are in Spetses, it costs nothing to wander the streets admiring the architecture. We walked from the main square down to the old port along the water.

We found a bar with a view of the old port for lunch and sat and admired all the classic yachts at anchor (it turns out we had just missed the Spetses Classic Regatta by two days).

After a slow walk back to town, stopping for ice cream and another drink, it was time to head back to the boat.

What a shock, another night sail! This time we actually did get to sail. With a couple of big tacks to get around Spetses island, and a few reefs to slow us down so we would only come in during daylight hours, we had a great sail to Porto Chéli.

It’s a huge anchorage in a very practical spot – I liken it to a mix between the Great Salt Pond in Block Island and Rockland, Maine. It’s not pretty, but the anchorage is massive and the holding is good. We needed to ride out the edge of a meltemi (strong northerners) and decide what to do next, as our plans for Napflio were being thwarted by all these northerly winds.

We slept in & cleaned up, then I got a text from Steven & Kristy of s/v Dash – berth neighbors that we had last seen 1 1/2 years ago in Montenegro. They were also anchored here, and offered to pick us up later for drinks ashore. Great to catch up with a wonderful couple.

The next day, we dropped off laundry, cleared in with the authorities, had lunch, wandered around a mostly deserted town (it comes alive at night), picked up provisioning, got back to the boat for a swim, and enjoyed dinner in the cockpit. All in all a good day.

We were trying to head north to Napflio, but the winds were constantly coming from the north. Things would at least calm down toward the end of the day, so we’ve been in the pattern of moving early evening and doing shorter runs. Regretfully, on the evening that we left, the wind practically died so we had to motor. Unfortunately the alternator belt snapped two hours in, but I managed to get the boat pointed away from shore, and sailed along at a leisurely half knot pace while Trip got a new belt installed. Luckily there were only two boats in the anchorage of Fokianós when we got there at midnight, so our biggest problem was making out the buoys that mark the swimming zone before we dropped our anchor.

Fokianós is your typical Greek, stony beach with nothing on shore except two tavernas and a cafe. We were there long enough to treat ourselves to two of the best meals we’ve had in Greece, and for the most reasonable prices. During the day we’d swim and rest (brutal heat) and would then paddle in with the kayak for dinner.

It was a couple of lovely, quiet days tucked up in a beautiful anchorage

Another anchorage, another night approach. We had a nice sail from Elafonisós to Cape Maleas. And being a nice day, we had none of the horrid conditions that sailors report in this area (sudden high winds, confused seas). However the westerly winds we had expected never set in and we had to motor the last five hours up to Monemvasia. We arrived with the last scrap of daylight at 9:30pm and crossed our fingers as we dropped the anchor (you can’t see the bottom at this time of day to determine if you’re landing in grass or sand or on a rock). The anchor felt like it dragged just a bit and then set so we were happy, but the next day when I snorkeled I could see we were in weed, so I was happy that we wouldn’t be there during a blow of any sort.

We spent the day in the mainland town of Gefyra (Monemvasia is the high, rocky island connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway). We were doing mundane things like getting our transit log stamped by the authorities, filling up water jerry cans in the abandoned marina, provisioning, and enjoying a coffee and a smoothie on the waterfront. The heat was brutal – it was already reaching 100F, so frequent rests in the shade were a must. By the end of the day we had accomplished everything we needed, and, with the temperature finally dropping, we took the bus from town up to the walled city of Monemvasia for dinner and a stroll around.

In Byzantine days of the 6th century, this town was carved out of rock on the side of the island (now connected by a causeway). It’s considered one of the oldest, continuously inhabited, ‘fortress style’ villages in Europe. It was established when Sparta underwent a raid by the Slavs, and the inhabitants picked up, moved, and founded Monemvasia (apparently not all that uncommon of a thing to do in those days).

There is an upper and a lower town, and we spent an hour or so wandering the lower town and finding a place for dinner. Despite the fact that it was late June, a reservation wasn’t necessary, and it’s still easy to walk into any restaurant with a water view (which is most of them), and get a table on the spot.

The next morning we got up early and caught the first bus up to town, as we wanted to hike to the citadel on the very top of the island, and temperatures promised to be brutal again.

We could hear a violin playing as we climbed the path, only to come upon a man named Nikolaus playing a startlingly pink violin, and his partner, Danae, filming. They’re traveling around Greece for the month and he’s performing in beautiful remote locations for their YouTube channel. It was a hauntingly beautiful way to start the day.

We continued to climb, wondering at the extent of the ruins indicating just how big a fortress existed at such a height. And it was amazing to see the condition that the Hagia Sophia (built in the 12th century) was in, given its age and the fact that it had been a Christian church, a Muslim mosque, a Catholic Church, then a mosque again before being handed back over to the Greeks in the War of Independence.

We continued the climb up to the peak, where ruins of the citadel still stand. From that height we could look back down at Kalyra, still safely sitting there in the anchorage.

The next day, as we headed north, we got the chance to see the city from the water. The lower city and the upper city were easily distinguished along with the fortress walls, and we could truly appreciate both the climb we had made, and the history of this special place.

Laundry is very hit or miss in Greece. I found a reasonable place in Pylos that would wash but not dry for 10 euro a load (a little expensive but not bad). Monemvasia, our next stop charges 3 euro per kilo, so I won’t be doing laundry there. We have to wait till Napflio (where there are self service machines) to do everything.

How do I know? The NoForeignLand app is crowdsourced and it rates everything about anchorages, marinas, clearing in procedures, restaurants, services, and shows me exactly where I’ll be able to do laundry along the way.

Luckily I have plenty of sheets and towels on board, and we both live out of swimsuits and dresses or shorts, so it’s just underwear I do by hand every few days and hang to dry. And fellow cruisers are pretty much used to laundry hanging out to dry on any boat they pass by…