Khalkís

Leaving Limni behind us

After a slow and lazy start to the day (it was Sunday after all!) we left Limni at 1115 for the 20nm passage to Khalkís. The forecast had been for a gradient wind of 10-15kt from the east so we were hopeful of a good sail, albeit that the mountains of Evia (1225m high according to the chart plotter), would be relatively close east of us for the first half of the passage and were likely to disrupt the wind flow. True to form the first half of the passage was a bit of a mix with the wind being funnelled, accelerated and stopped completely by the mountains. On a couple of occasions we gave up and started the engine only to have 15kts across the deck again only a few minutes later, which provided us with a good 7-8kts through the water when we got the sails set again.

Cloud ahead over the mountains of Evia – an unusual sight after several weeks of wall to wall blue skies    

The scenery, however, was spectacular throughout. With high mountains to the east, lower hills to the west, flat water and a shifty breeze it felt rather as if we were sailing on a lake – perhaps this is what it is like to sail on Lake Garda.

Mountain monastery

In one of the gaps in the wind resulting from the high mountains, we spotted a remote monastery perched on one of the few bits of non-vertical rock. Below it was one of the few areas of gently shelving water too. Presumably everything arrived at the monastery by sea hence it had been built in a location with a possible anchorage close by.

For the second 10nm the ground to the east became less extremely mountainous and more hilly, consequently the wind became more consistent and we had some great sailing on a broad reach on flat water. We were joined for a short while by a school of dolphins. We had seen dolphins a few times before in and around the Northern Sporades but these were the first ones to actively play around BV, even though it was only for a very short time.

Approaching Khalkís and our first sight of the bridge

As we neared Khalkís, the scenery became more industrialised in areas, though it wasn’t until we were within a 3nm of the harbour that the urban sprawl became too intrusive.

We arrived at Khalkís north harbour about 1½ hrs after low water. By this time there was a good brisk breeze from the northeast and, with the tide in the centre of the harbour channel going out (northbound) there were some hefty short, steep seas in the centre of the harbour. Being a Sunday, members of the local kayaking club were having a whale of a time playing on the stoppers.

The area where we had expected to have to stern-to moor was almost filled with yachts alongside. Happily, there was space for one more (us or the yacht rushing up close behind us) and then we would have to start rafting up. We got there first and made an approach into the main tidal flow only to find that, as we got to within a boatlength of the quay, there was an inshore back-eddy which made mooring north-south untenable. So, we rearranged all the fenders and lines and did a re-attack heading north, which worked beautifully. The yacht behind us obviously did not see our shenanigans and attempted the same mooring as we had initially and had similar problems. Not wanting to move all their fenders they elected to moor into tide by reversing up alongside the yacht 2 ahead of us.

At Khalkís the channel between Evia and mainland Greece is only about 39m wide. There is a high new bridge a little further south, presumably on the main A-road/motorway between Evia and Athens, which crosses a wider part of the channel, but the moveable bridge in the centre of the town is still in place and operational. As you can imagine, the bridge is extremely busy with road traffic, though one imagines it is less busy than it was before the new bridge was built. Consequently the Port Authorities only open the bridge for shipping transits at night. To make things a little more complicated, the tidal flow at Khalkís is really very impressive and, it is claimed, not 100% predictable. As the bolus of high tide, caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, ‘makes its way’ from east to west across the Aegean (actually the earth rotates underneath the relatively stationary mass of water) it reaches Evia with some of the water entering the Evia Channel at the south end and moving north towards Khalkís whilst some enters the channel at the north end and moves south. The distance up the South Channel from the Aegean to Khalkís is shorter than the distance down the North Channel so high tide on the south side of the bridge takes place about and hour before high tide on the north side. This, compounded by the sheer volume of water that needs to get through a very narrow gap, means that the tidal flow is very high at certain times of day and that the ‘stand’ at low and high waters, which is when it is best for boats to transit the bridge, can be difficult to predict with accuracy. At neap tides the tidal flow apparently changes direction up to 14 times in a day! At these times the bridge doesn’t open at all for shipping, with the Port Police announcing ‘Messy Currents’!

With all this vaguely in mind we knew that we needed to speak to the Port Authorities about our forthcoming bridge transit. Happily(?) we had arrived during a spring tide period so we knew that the bridge should be opening, though, since it has been in operation since 1962, there are now not infrequent operational failures for technical reasons. The official in the Port Authority office told us that the bridge would open quite early in the night but that, being a Sunday, the increased bridge transit tax would bump the transit fee up quite remarkably. We elected to stay where we were for the night and go through on Monday night’s tide. In retrospect that was no bad thing as we had the opportunity to listen on the radio to the instructions given to the transiting yachts by the Port Police and then watch what actually went on: a hell-for-leather rush for the bridge!

Ottoman period mosque

With an extra day in hand, we took the opportunity to do a bit of food shopping and to explore the town a little. In one of the older parts of the town we found the old Ottoman-era mosque with the washing fountain outside. From the information board it was clear that this had once been part of a much larger structure.

We also walked up to the castle on the mainland side of the bridge.

Unfortunately, being a Monday it was closed so we could not get inside but we did have a pleasant walk around the outside of the walls.......

Southern harbour at Khalkís with the anchorage in the foreground and the new bridge in the background    

.....with some great views across the southern harbour and the anchorage where we planned to spend the rest of the night after our transit through the bridge.

Khalkís sliding bridge from the south

Our transit of the bridge was without any great drama other than the fact that we got no pictures of the amassed crowds on either side as we went through [Ed: too busy practising my royal wave, not enough time practising night camera settings!] Unlike the previous night when the bridge opened about 45mins later than we had expected, the bridge slid open more or less on time for us at 2330. We held our position on the quay whilst a medium-sized coaster made its way through the gap (must be very tight and quite nerve-wracking for a ship’s captain) and then the Port Police called us on the radio to tell us to procede. We followed the coaster and were, in turn, followed by 3 other yachts. There was a slight current with us but nothing dramatic and then, all to quickly, we were through and manouevring for a spot in the anchorage. Despite being anchored right under the (very picturesque) railway station, we had an excellent night’s sleep, ready for the next part of our journey south down the Evia Channel.

Khalkís, Greece