Galaxídhi

The wind continued to blow reasonably hard during our second night at Nisos Trizónia but not as hard as during the day and, as we had experienced the previous night, there were quite large lulls between the howling gusts. We therefore planned on an early start from Trizónia so that we could work our way out of our berth before the wind started screaming again in earnest – and from the GRiB files it seemed as if it would blow harder during Sunday 17 August than it had on the Saturday. The plan worked and, by springing off, we got away from the mole very easily in a good long lull.

Nísos Trizónia slipping behind us

With the wind behind us we unrolled half the genoa and set off east towards Galaxídhi. For a short while the wind seemed to drop a little, probably because we moved out of an acceleration zone near a headland, so we unrolled a little more genoa and then, as the wind reached 25kts true and BV whizzed along at about 8kts, we wondered how best to deal with the leg from the next headland to the Galaxídhi approaches, which we expected to be a close reach or a fetch. With plenty of searoom before the headland we rolled the genoa away (and still continued to rush on at 4kts under bare poles!) and readied the mainsail to hoist with 3 reefs. With the main up and the boom held out to port with the preventer, we continued to dash along, though at a marginally more sedate 6.5kts, despite the fact that the triple reefed main is a lot smaller than the amount of genoa we had previously had out.

3 reefs in the mainsail - a rarity, we hope!

At the headland we rounded up towards the wind and, with the staysail flying too, continued our rush towards Galaxídhi. It was a fantastically exhilarating sail ………. and then suddenly the wind stopped! It was as if we were on an indoor sailing pool and someone had switched off the fans. At first there was lots of wind then suddenly there wasn’t.

Approaching Galaxídhi

Clearly the hills around Galaxídhi provide it with excellent protection from the prevailing wind and our period of calm lasted for a good couple of hours after we had carried out the stern-to mooring procedure which can be tricky with a crosswind but was easy today. However, by early afternoon the wind had even made its way into Galaxídhi harbour and we sat in the strong and gusty crosswind with all the other yachts that were hunkering down there, very grateful for the morning’s period of calm in the harbour and even more grateful that we weren’t still sitting alongside the wall at Trizónia.

Galaxídhi is a very pretty little place with a narrow harbour formed from an indent between 2 headlands and a town which is a maze of small streets with a large domed church at the top of the hill.

We had a lovely afternoon exploring the town (very quiet because it was Sunday) and walking out around some of the local coastline and enjoying the fact that we weren’t out sailing in the white-capped seas. The place has the feeling of an island rather than of the mainland, so it is easy to see why it is such a popular place with visiting yachtsmen and other tourists.

Galaxídhi has clearly been inhabited for centuries; at one area of the town we saw the remains of the old protective wall and it was also clear that newer buildings have been constructed above the old, probably using the same stone. Most of the town dates from 1830-1870 as the original buildings were pretty much destroyed during the War of Independence. It used to be one of Greece’s major harbours, with a fleet of over 400 kaikia and schooners but the shipowners failed to convert to steam power and so the town’s prosperity vanished.  Galaxídhi’s mansions date from the heady years of good trading and reflect Venice and the other faraway places the wealthy ships’ captains had visited. There is a Nautical and Historical Museum in the centre of town, which we would have been interested to visit. Unfortunately, it is normally only open early in the day and not at all on a Monday, so that’s another thing to see when we are next passing by.......

Moored next to us was a German yacht called Juella. Having spent the last few years exploring the eastern Med their plan was to work their way west and eventually back to Germany transiting through the canals of France. We told them of our plans to go east and they very kindly put together a list of great places to visit, tourist maps and brochures for the Aegean islands which they had picked up on their travels. I’m sure that they will prove to be invaluable in planning what to see. You meet some lovely people when cruising.

Much as we liked the place though, we knew that we would move on to Itéa the following day as we wanted to visit Delphi. We had two reasons for not doing the trip inland from Galaxídhi: firstly, the bus from Galaxídhi to Delphi routes via Itéa, where you have to change; and secondly, at Itéa BV would be moored alongside a breakwater and so would be very safe.

At Galaxídhi we had no option but to moor BV stern-to with the anchor holding the bow in position. BV would be quite vulnerable to someone else snagging our chain or anchor and disrupting her mooring as they arrived/departed and, if we were away for the day, her stern might get damaged on the quay. Itéa is less picturesque but, we decided, a better place from which to visit Dephi. But, as Itéa is only 4miles away there was no great rush for us to move on the next day which gave us a bit longer to enjoy Galaxídhi.

Galaxídhi