Órmos Loutro

At quarter to eleven on 7 July we left Orei. We hoped that by leaving in the late morning that we would get some wind but it was not to be and so we motored east along the norhern coast of the island of Evia.

Pondikonísi

However, we had a further plan up our sleeve to delay and take advantage of an afternoon wind. At the northeast corner of Evia lies the small island of Pondikonísi. Our pilot book briefly describes a small cove on its southwestern side and we planned to stop there for lunch.

Pondikonísi

We found the cove and it did offer the better shelter but there was a RiB anchored in the middle of it and elsewhere in it our chart showed there to be power cables coming ashore to power the lighthouse on the other side of the island. So we moved a little further east into the less well sheltered bay and anchored there.

Our lunch stop on the south side of Pondikonísi    

The twine which was wrapped around the propeller

It was a really nice place to stop. The rocky coastline had several large caves, some of which you could swim into. We found it to be the best place to snorkel we’d visited so far with lots of rocks underwater which you had to swim between to get into the caves, plus there were lots of fish and very clear water. Coming back to BV we noticed that we’d picked up a birdsnest of white twine around our prop. It probably hadn’t been there long because it was quite loose around the blades but we were still pleased that it all came off easily and hadn’t dislodged any of the prop anodes or jammed up the rope cutter.

Vrak. Mirmingonísia rocks

Setting off again to the south we were able to sail most of the next 10 miles of our passage although the wind did die off in the middle period. BV was motoring at that stage, being steered by ‘George’ our electric autopilot. It would have been very easy to switch off and miss the approaching Vrak. Mirmingonísia rocks which are marked on the chart but which have no warning buoys. Standing at just a metre above water level they were difficult to spot in the haze until we were very close. They are about a mile offshore and are on the logical direct route for yachts down the coastline. It seemed strage that they didn’t have a warning buoy of some sort but I guess they are not deemd to be a hazard to commercial shipping.

We stayed a few miles offshore to go outside a collection of small islands and reefs just northeast of our destination. There is a very small and rocky channel close in but we went for the longer, safer outside route which had the benefit of bringing us up onto a beam reach and a better sail for the last few miles.

Approaching Órmos Loutro

Órmos Loutro was quite hard to pick out on the coastline. A couple of large rocks off the eastern headland of the bay stood out first and then, as we were almost on top of it, the horseshoe shaped bay open out in front of us. There were a lot of fishing boats moored in the bay which we hadn’t expected but it looked like there was space for us and so we continued in after we’d dropped our sails.

The bay shallows quickly so we anchored close to the entrance of the bay in 6 metres and then immediately prioritized swimming to cool off. We didn’t need to go ashore so we stayed on board and just enjoyed the scenery and the swimming. The anchor was well dug in to a sandy bottom and our swimming explorations confirmed that we had anchored about as far in as was comfortable with the shelving depth.

Dinner in the cockpit was very pleasant and, over a glass or two of wine, we planned a prompt start in the morning to tackle a 50 ish mile passage east to our next stop, the island of Skíros.

Órmos Loutro, Greece