Nísos Rínía

It was another day of little wind when we left Órmos Grámmata on Síros at 0745 on Monday 17 August. There was eventually enough wind to sail an hour after leaving the bay but half an hour after switching the engine off we had to admit defeat and switched it on again and stowed the sails.

Nísos Rínía sits just to the west of Delos which itself is loacted off the southwest corner of Míkonos. Like Míkonos and Delos it’s a burnt and barren looking low-lying island. It is almost divided in two by an isthmus in the middle. We had understood from our reading of the pilot book that yachts were not allowed to anchor off Delos, so we had decided to spend a night at anchor off Nísos Rínía before moving to Míkonos and then arranging a ferry trip to view the ruins at Delos.

Entering Órmos Skhinou with a tripper boat anchored close to isolated underwater rock in the bay’s entrance    

Órmos Skhinou is a large sandy bay with several inlets and lots of off-lying rocks on the east coast of Nísos Rínía. Surrounded by ancient ruins (Nísos Rínía housed a sizeable population when Delos was a thriving city, partly because the impure acts of human death and childbirth were not permitted to take place on Delos) it seemed to be an interesting place to spend the night. With what wind there was due to be from the north, we decided to anchor in the northern part of the bay but had to make a careful entry due to a large, isolated rock in the middle obvious route into the bay.

Isolated rock marked by that well-known official buoyage – an empty 5 litre vinegar bottle    

Once in and safely anchored, we had time to consider our options. We had seen a large number of yachts anchored quite close to Delos so we re-read the pilot books and decided that the slightly vague wording meant that yachts could navigate and anchor within 500m of Delos when the archaeological site is open. So, we amended our plan and decided to up-anchor early the following morning to re-anchor a mile or so away, close off Delos, and take the dinghy ashore to the ancient site. Unsurprisingly perhaps, we weren’t the only yacht crew to think up this cunning wheeze and as the day visitors left Órmos Skhinou and dusk fell they were replaced by other yachts the crews of many of which, like us, had plans for a prompt start the next day.

Nísos Rínía, Greece