THE THREE FINGERS AND THE INCREDIBLE MONASTERIES NEAR MT ATHOS

On 27 June with Kevin & Diane we left Kavala after a very enjoyable stay there. It’s great to see destinations where normal local people live and work, without hordes of tourists. Those tourists who do visit this area mostly drive down from eastern Europe. Our Greek friends from Blue Cruises wished us “kales thalases”, meaning “have favourable weather and a safe voyage”, and left us their contact details in case of any problems – they are professional skippers and engineers.
We cruised over to the area of Chalkidiki or “The Thee Fingers”, so-called because there are three peninsulas, each about 25NM long, forming two gulfs between them, and another gulf with mainland Greece. The easternmost peninsula is Akti, and at its southern end is the spectacular “holy mountain” of Mt Athos, rising to 2,033m, with ice flows still visible near the cloud-shrouded summit. The Virgin Mary is said to have visited here after the death of Jesus. The Akti Peninsula is a semi-autonomous region of Greece ruled by the monks who inhabit 20 large monasteries, some dating back to the 9th century. Some of these are the size of large villages, and of course over the centuries have been attacked and ransacked numerous times by various pirates and invaders. Access to the peninsula is sealed off, and only 110 visitors (who must be Christian) are allowed each day, after gaining permission which can take up to six months. No females are allowed to visit, and any boat containing a female is not allowed to approach closer than 500m to the shore. Because of this limitation we had to make the 61NM voyage around the peninsula in one day, and several times we were joined by schools of dolphins frolicking around Envoy’s bow. It was really spectacular to see not only the monasteries, but also numerous other monks’ huts and retreats perched on the sides of cliffs, some in the most inaccessible of positions – they sure like their isolation.
Here for the first time we’ve seen a few other cruisers – one night nine other boats in the same perfectly protected bay of Ormos Kriftos, about half the size of Auckland’s Islington Bay. Four of them were rafted together so there was ample space.
In retrospect we should have stayed another night or two there, as the area has several beautiful and secure anchorages.
It’s a tradition when we go boating with Kevin & Diane that Kevin makes pikelets, and this time he made a lunch of them which we enjoyed at anchor off Ormos Sikias.
We finished our time with Kevin & Diane in Porto Koufo, a very protected bay that reminded us of Northland’s Whangaroa Harbour, with its narrow entrance, high rugged cliffs and perfect shelter.
We took on fuel for the second time this year, buying 750 litres at Porto Carras marina at Euro 1.57/L (about NZ$2.86). Here was a large resort with plenty of facilities including a doctor I visited to get an ear infection looked at. She gave me some antibiotic ear drops and asked me to come back 2 days later to have my ears cleaned out. She did an excellent job, and the two visits cost a total of Euro 80 (about NZ$146), which was excellent considering the time she spent.
Nearby we met some British cruisers aboard a yacht called Rosa di Venti, and it turned out they know our friends Alan & Anne from Sula-Mac. Once again a small world.
We did a 49NM cruise south to the Northern Sporades, where we are now en route for Chalkis, on Evia Is near Athens. There we’ll meet the Naiad serviceman coming from Holland to try and fix our stabilisers. He says it will be a 2-3 hour job so here’s hoping he’s right!
There are more boats around now as the holiday season kicks in, but nowhere has it been crowded. The temperature is now in the low 30s with the sea a very warm 26. Although the Aegean is notorious for it strong NW wind – the Meltemi – it doesn’t often reach this NW section, and we’ve had light winds up to about 15 knots.
There is little observance of boating regulations, or common sense here by small boat users, and speedboats, RIBs and jet skis roar around at high speed, very close (5 metres distant) to anchored vessels. This is annoying and of course highly dangerous, especially as there are often people swimming from anchored vessels.
TECHNICAL
Kevin is very knowledgeable about rigging, and he inspected ours, and took some measurements of the mast and boom so that he can calculate if it’s safe to lift our large RIB, weighing about 250kg, up out of the water behind Envoy’s transom using the boom winch The purpose of this would be to avoid barnacles growing on the RIB, which is not anti fouled. Our initial conclusion is this would not be a good idea, at it would place too much strain on the lifting tackle. It would be possible to design and build an A-frame support for the boom so this lift could be done, but I think we’ll just continue to lift out our RIB for a day or two once a week. In any case when Diane and I don’t have visitors we use our smaller RIB, weighing only about 50kg, which we do lift out at the transom without any problems.
LOG (to 10/7/11): 68 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 929NM cruised for 190 engine hours.