Loutraki and Glossa

It was an early start for us in Skiathos on Friday 24 July. Nicky and I set our alarm for 0550hrs so that we would be up for when the yacht next door left. When we got on deck there was one of their crew in the cockpit but it quickly became apparent that they would not be slipping their lines at 6am as planned. Over the next 20 minutes the rest of the crew slowly emerged and, after what seemed an age, they finally started their engine. We also had our engine going to hold us off the quay to allow us to put plenty of slack in our anchor chain so that they would be able to lift their anchor from underneath our chain. Sadly, they didn’t really understand what they needed to do and motored off in completely the wrong direction to lift their anchor. When it became clear that they could not lift their anchor out from under our chain, we released BV from the quay and raised our anchor to find that their subsequent pirouetting around us had wrapped their chain around our anchor. We duly released the tangle and then moved to the side to let them raise their anchor. They struggled to do so and eventually their anchor windlass stopped working. We re-laid our anchor and backed back up to the quay to watch with interest. It appeared that their anchor was laid diagonally across 3 mooring spots and that they were fouled on the anchor of the large motorboat next but one to us. Eventually they managed to reset the circuit breaker for their windlass but, still unable to raise their anchor, lapsed into a long period of confusion and inactivity. It was too deep to free dive and so eventually, 3 hours later, a scuba diver untangled the mess on the seabed and they were finally free to go.

Loutraki

We pottered about doing the odd chore or two, bought fresh bread and then left Skíathos at 11am. We had a slow drift across to Loutraki, all of 7.7 miles to the east, and moored up there at 1pm.

The charter yacht jetty at Loutraki

It was changeover day for the charter yachts based at Loutraki and so we knew that there would not be space for us on the small wooden jetty. Last time we had visited we had anchored in the harbour but we had also found out that up to 3 yachts could moor on the end of the ferry quay. So that is what we did. The first attempt failed because the anchor chain jammed again. So, part way through the next attempt I had my head stuck inside the anchor chain locker below trying to clear the jam whilst Charlotte worked the windlass above. It wasn’t our slickest mooring manouvre but we cleared 50metres of chain so that we could moor up without any further difficulties.   The reason for the anchor snags was that over the weeks on board, anchoring at most of our overnight stops, the chain had piled up into a pyramid in the anchor chain locker. During one of our more spirited sails, whilst BV was heeling over, the pile had fallen over and collapsed. The chain had, therefore, been trying to feed out from the middle of the pile with excess chain on top jamming it. To properly clear the problem for a while, we’d need to pull out all of the chain and then refill the chain locker, spreading the chain out around the whole of the bottom of the locker; a job for our next anchorage.

Our mooring on the end of the ferry quay

Mooring on the end of the ferry quay worked well for us, although if 3 yachts had been moored there the ferries would have been very close to the end one. As an additional bonus we spotted 2 bright red starfish on the quay wall.

Glossa

Our reason for returning to Loutraki was so that we could revisit the restaurant we had enjoyed up at Glossa for a birthday meal for Charlotte. Dressed in our finest we got a taxi up to the top of the hill and were able to have a brief walk around Glossa before our table was ready at the Agnanti restaurant.

They gave us a fabulous table on the sun deck at the top of the restaurant with marvellous views out over the Aegean towards Evia. It was an excellent meal with beautifully presented food which tasted wonderful and which was complemented by a good wine list. It was a superb place to spend the evening! Typically, we all ate far too much so we chose to walk back down the hill, in the cool of the night.

Loutraki, Greece