Athens (Part 1)

We took advantage of the early morning northwesterly to sail the 14nm from Áyia Marína on Nísos Aígina to Athens’ Alimos Marina on Monday 25 August. For the majority of the 2hr30 passage we had a nice 10-12kt. Just off close-hauled we had a good sail to just beyond the top end of the TSS off Athens before we bore away onto a reach to cross the Precautionary Zone off Piraéus to the marina.

Lots of shipping with BV shown as the solid black arrowhead in the middle bottom

There was plenty of shipping around and the AIS showed a very busy picture. Much of it was at anchor in Piraéus Roads but there was still a lot moving at high speed along a similar track to us and also a fair number of boats that didn’t have AIS on either. Happily, although it was a little hazy, the visibility was sufficient to be able to ‘see and avoid’ everything.

Unfortunately, a little before we reached the marina entrance the wind died and we had to revert to engine but that gave us time to tidy up BV before going into ‘mooring mode’. We also got a reasonable view of some of the stadia built for the 2004 Olympics.

Alimos Marina

Alimos Marina is a charter boat centre but as we had arrived on a Monday there was plenty of space available for us: it is normally completely full at the weekends because of the charter boat changeovers. Having checked in with the Port Police and the marina staff we explored ashore to suss out the local laundry (€10 per 6kg load for a wash and dry) and supermarket, finding en route an excellent chandlery.

20 litres of oil, delivered to BV on Neil’s golf trolley

Neil and Simon were working until late-ish that evening but when they had finished we were able to join them for an excellent dinner in their hotel and plotted to visit the Acropolis and the Archaeological Museum the following day (separate blog entry). Neil had also been able to use his local contacts to get us 20 litres of engine oil, to replace that which we had used on engine servicing. He had texted us to say that it was coming in one 20 litre container, rather than in the normal 5 litre containers that we stow in different locations around BV, and we had wondered how we would stow it. Happily, a 20 litre oil container is not as large as we had feared and it is now residing underneath the MPS (aka cruising chute) under Nicky’s side of the bunk.

On the Tuesday afternoon, Neil was asked to fly a client from Porto Heli back to Athens heliport. With space and payload available in the aircraft we were given permission to accompany him and Simon on the task.

Neil at work

It had been some time since we had been in a helicopter and so it was fantastic to get airborne again. A brilliant few hours with a full guided tour of the aircraft and then front-row seats for the half hour trip there and back; fantastic!

It was great to get a bird’s eye view of the sights that we had visited that morning and all the beautiful villas, as well as having the opportunity to do a quick en passant recce of some of the harbours that we hope to visit over the next couple of days.

The Acropolis

Athens