Back on the water
We arrived back in Athens after a miserable no sleep 9 hour flight and both have been trying to overcome the jet lag. I am just getting back to a decent sleep pattern after 5 days. We spent very little time back in Athens as we had to leave the marina or we were going to get charged for a full second month we were told. Our plan was to spend the next several weeks in the Cyclades (Kick la deez).
We made our way south east in a building Meltemi to anchor up for the night in Sounio Bay. We were getting gusts in the anchorage into the 30’s but the Rocna caught well and we felt very secure.
The next morning we sailed fast to Kithnos with winds in the 20’s low 30’s and anchored in Sand Bar Bay. A beautiful spot where there are two bays, separated by a thin isthmus of sand that basically connects two islands. We are currently sitting out some northerly meltemi winds. These are the normal summer northerlies that affect this area. We are in a protected bay but the gusts come over the hills in multiple directions making Cadence dance around like crazy on anchor. Ugh, the boat life. not like a stable bed back home.
We are settling back into life aboard, and there has been some culture shock, I won’t lie. We are currently looking to get back into our rhythm and keep the journey going. The first couple of days we were in this anchorage there were just a handful of boats, our last night here was like somewhat let the crazies out of the cage. There must have been 40 more boats that came in, flotillas. There were about three flotillas. With the meltemi settling down and the charter boats dominating, we were ready to leave. So off we went the next morning to Nisos Siros and the harbor of Finikas.
A quaint little town on the southwest corner of the island. Siros is the main island in the Cyclades and Ermoupolis is the main city on the island. We took the bus over from Finikas to explore Ermoupolis the capital city. This was a bustling little city with some impressive buildings and town squares. We spent the better part of the day here, hiked up to the Orthodox Church and then the Catholic Church, both at the top of hills overlooking the city. A lot of stairs and a lot of sweat for a few nice views.
We made a short hop over to Paros and anchored for a few days in a lovely protected bay on the north end of the island. Great holding, great protection, great swimming, great scenery, not many boats, the beautiful town a 5 minute dinghy ride across the bay, ahhhhhhh, perfect. This was exactly what the doctor ordered. We spent several days here, hiking, swimming and playing. We are both back in the groove and very happy to be living the dream. All we needed was some easy tranquil living and Paros gave us that.
From Paros we made our way over to Nisos Naxos and stayed right in town at the municipal marina. The marinas here in Greece are good and bad. The good is that they are either free, or cheap. They come up with these weird prices per night, like 12.35 euros. Its always different and always cheap. The bad is that there are rarely if ever mooring lines tied to the quay, so you must drop your anchor and back in. When leaving you always are concerned someone dropped their anchor over yours, a common occurrence. Also, they are often kind of dingy, sometimes there is electric and water, sometimes not. You never need a reservation as it is first come first serve. Sometimes they are full on arrival sometimes not. Usually, they help squeeze you in somewhere though. Naxos was a super touristy town with ferries coming and going all day. The typical white washed greek buildings, little alleys winding up the hill with a church on top. We stayed here a few days and enjoyed the fruits of the tourist trap.
Since we are headed south to Crete and then on to Malta, we decided after lengthy debate to just move on south to Crete and out of the Cyclades. There was a ton more we could have seen, but everything is starting to blur together and nothing was really standing out.
