What goes up must come down.
At the end of the summer, the Eudokia needs to come back home from Athens down wind back to Herzliya.
Since pictures didn’t pass previously, see the link to the photos library
I am writing at day 4 and so many adventures have already passed and it a bit long:
Day 1
Friday – instead of heading east we had to backtrack to Porto Heli to get a stamp on the “transit log” that should be stamped on every entry and departure indicating the next port of destination. The police officer was so kind to say “I didn’t see you or you need to pay 2,000 euro fine. Within 15 minutes we started sailing. Truth be said, a very nice journey even though extending our distance significantly.
Arriving to Porto Cheli at 6pm, it is beautiful!
We went directly to the port police to stamp out…. Ha ha not so easy.
Greece introduced a new passage tax ”eTAPAI” and ours ended 12.9.24! So how much do we need to pay? “It’s not so easy my friend”. She gave us the number of Manolis a local agent who said he will help us at 8 am (Greek time).
Day2
Saturday Morning comes and Manolis is nowhere to be found, we walked back and forth to the police station/ town ~2 km in the heat and sun, when at last
We walked into an office all sweaty and stinky and said “can you assist us, eTAPAI”. Instead of calling the police this magnificent lady gave us 2 bottles of water and allocated 1 hour to assist us. To our question she insisted on no payment, we bought a nice weekend cake to thank her.
We stamped out, paid the marina and departed from beautiful Porto heli to be greeted by 30 knots of backwinds . we pushed the night to enjoy the good fortune of the wind and compensate for the detour.
Night sailing is special and with a 3/4 moon lighting our path even more…
Day 3
Sunday 7 am we pulled into a bay in a small inhabited island to rest, eat and freshen up. While preparing pancake with fruit, yogurt and honey we realized the ️ is slipping so we had to try 4 times to throw anchor, when unsuccessful we decided it’s a sign that it’s time to leave and so we did at 20:30 after a nice short swim.
Good winds and open seas we hoisted our jiniker that flew for 1 minute and the shakel broke.
Long story short, 2 hours of wrestling this 70 meter sucker with a nasty tare that will cost and no kite for the rest of the way .
It’s now night and we are q15 miles from Leros, bright moon, clear skies and as I have nothing to do on my watch this is the result.
Stay tuned…
Day 4
We cut across to Nisiros, a volcanic island with a population of 1,000. Niki, the owner of the motor rental, greeted us and took our lines. At her recommendation we rented the luxary Nisan instead of scouters and drove to the volcano while meeting and hearing from the locals about life. Nice and interesting island.
Day 5
We left AM destination Rhodes. Clean quick sail with good tail winds.
Day 6
Preparing the boat, changing crew and enjoying the island…at 22:00 we left with Kosteleriso our destination.
Day 7
11:00 swimming at the marvelous blue cave, quick entry and stamping out of Greece. 16:00 next destination Herzeliya, usually a 70 hour
Day 8
Literally storming out of Kaste with 35 knots of wind ..
Sailing for 60 hour’s across the Mediterranean and are waiting to enter Herzliya marina after a good journey that ended after a brief rainstorm.
September 22nd marks the end of the summer and this summer adventure.
See you soon
