Órmos Panormou

Órmos Panormou looking northwest from the inlet where we anchored    

On Saturday 20 June we left Néa Klima to potter just a couple of miles back the way we had come to Órmos Panormou. Órmos Panormou is quite a large U-shaped inlet but it is very deep – mostly too deep for anchoring – but the smaller inlet on its south side has better depths and is more protected. It’s still a little tricky though, as the depths in the centre of the inlet are around 40m rising slowly to 20m, before very quickly coming up to 10m and less in a narrow shelf around the shoreline.

When we arrived there were a few yachts ranged around the sides of the inlet all with long lines taken ashore. Given the topography and the very light wind we anchored in the same way but, within a couple of hours, a brisk northerly wind had picked up. Since there was plenty of space, we decided to re-anchor fore and aft (so that we didn’t swing into the shore) in the relative shallows along the line of the inlet with the bows to the wind; this configuration puts less sideways strain on the anchor, fairleads etc and we feel more secure. An hour or so later the wind had gone to the south! Better head to wind than stern to wind we re-anchored the other way around.

A couple more yachts joined the anchorage in the early evening and, like the rest, took a long line ashore. Overnight the wind dropped and went round in circles and we woke up to calm and building cloud. Whilst anchoring fore-aft into wind had suited us well, and we certainly prefer it to having a beam wind whilst moored with a long line ashore, we realise that it takes up a lot of space around the edge of what, at the height of summer is likely to be a very crowded anchorage. I guess that we will just have to get used to Med-mooring! Meanwhile, we decided to potter up the coast to Loutráki to see that harbour and the town of Glossa above it on a quiet day (ie when the charter fleet based there is not on changeover day).

Órmos Panormou, Greece