Skíathos Town Again

On Thursday 23 July Nicky and I slipped out of Órmos Peristéra whilst Charlotte and Sophie slept below. The wind was already building and we thought about setting our cruising chute but in the end went for the more conservative sail plan of a poled out genoa. That worked out be the right choice because the wind built to about 20 knots. We have a self-imposed limit of 15 knots true wind when we fly the cruising chute. We can sail in more without any difficulties but with just 2 of us on board getting the large sail down in more than 15 knots of wind can be quite entertaining. We’ve tried it in 18 knots of wind and the sail was powerful enough to lift me off my feet as I hauled down on the snuffer. With our poled out genoa we went slightly slower but still made good progress around the south side of Skópelos and back towards Skíathos.

We think this is the Dragon’s Rift

As we sailed along the southern side of Skópelos we kept our eyes open for a deep ravine. Our tourist guidebook tells us of St Rigínos the Boring, the patron saint of the island. Legend has it that when Rigínos was the local priest, the island was terrorised by a rampaging dragon. All attempts to defeat the dragon failed and, in desperation, the locals implored Rigínos to direct one of his sermons at the beast. As Rigínos’ congregation had expected, the dragon was so bored by the priest’s sermon that it reared up and fled. Doggedly Rigínos pursued the dragon until it was cornered on the top of the southern cliffs. The dragon chose death rather than listening to another of Rigínos’ lengthy sermons and threw itself off the cliff. On landing, the impact made a deep ravine know to this day as Dragon’s Rift. A little different to St George’s approach but it worked and Rigínos was canonised as St Rigínos the Boring.

Whilst our guidebook helpfully told the story it did not really explain exactly where the Dragon’s Rift is. As we sailed past we studied the coastline – the picture above is of the only cleft which fits the description.

Órmos Agnóndas

Having passed our ravine we sailed on a mile or so more and turned into Órmos Agnóndas where we anchored. This is an absolutely beautiful place with clear turquoise water, pine wooded headlands and chalky white cliffs and rocks. It also featured in the Mamma Mia film and as we swam and enjoyed lunch we could see a steady stream of visitors make their way along the headland to be photographed by the two pine trees on the end. As a lunch stop it got a big thumbs up from our snorkelling team but sadly after a few hours there we had to continue on to get to Skíathos.

We arrived in Skíathos at 4pm and were slightly concerned because the anchorage seemed to be very full of yachts. We surmised that the town quay would also be full but took a look anyway. Luckily for us there was a space right next to a large and very beautiful Italian yacht. Before any of the other yachts arriving could grab the space we set ourselves up for a stern-to mooring. All went well until we were 15 metres off the quay when the anchor chain jammed. That stopped BV in her tracks so before she drifted onto the Italian yacht we came back out and repeated the manoeuvre. The same thing happened again so we re-laid the anchor closer in and resolved to untangle the anchor chain in its locker at the earliest opportunity.

All was well, we’d got a rare space on the quay and were able to relax and enjoy the hubbub of this busy tourist town. Nicky set off to book tickets for the open-air cinema showing of Mamma Mia as the office opened at 1930hrs. Just as well that she did because, being almost at the head of the queue, she got 4 of the last few tickets for that evening’s showing. Meanwhile, a message had been passed to us that the Port Police needed us to move because a large motoryacht was coming in and ours was one of the few spaces it could fit into. The chap running the moorings was very apologetic but he both found us an alternative mooring and also defended it for us from circling charter yachts eager to get onto the quay. We lifted our anchor and made our third stern-to mooring of the day before enjoying some pre-film cocktails. Our only slight concern was that the charter yacht next to us had clearly laid their anchor at a severe angle and we judged that our chain was laid over the top of theirs. However, since they planned to leave at 10am we resolved to deal with it in the morning and instead focused on our film night.

The open air showing of ‘Mamma Mia!’ turned out to be a real hoot. The cinema was packed when the film started and so we were glad that we had taken the ticket seller’s advice to arrive early so that we got seats together.

As the film progressed the cinema staff leapt onto the stage, sometime in fancy dress, and got the audience on their feet and singing along to the ABBA songs. It was great fun and a big hit with our 2 Mamma Mia tourists [Ed: and us too!] who loved recognising all of the film locations we had just visited on BV.

All in all it was a great evening out. The only slight negative was that whilst we enjoyed a last glass of wine in the cockpit before turning in, the crew on the charter yacht next door advised us that they had changed their plan and now wanted to leave at 6am [Ed: and this at 1am, presumably after a few glasses of wine]. With little more than 4 hours sleep ahead of us before we had to get up to sort out the crossed anchors we turned in, having double-checked their intent to slip at 6am. Oh the joys of the cruising lifestyle!

Skíathos, Greece