Skíathos

On 23 June we had an interesting sail from Steni Vala on Alonnisos around to the island of Skíathos. When we started out from Steni Vala there was a good strong northerly wind, about 18kts, so we put a couple of reefs in the mainsail and roared off downwind. However, it turned out that a fair amount of the wind had been generated by the ‘squeeze effect’ as the wind was accelerated through the narrow gap between the high ground of Alonnisos and that of Peristera. When we reached the southern end of Peristera the wind started to ease a little but we kept the reefs in in anticipation of further funnelling effects later in the passage. Interestingly, there was no such funnelling through the channel between the southern tips of Skópelos and Alonnisos, in fact the wind pretty much disappeared altogether. Then, as we got into the lee of Skópelos, we bumped in and out of wind shadows (drifting) and increasingly strong downdraughts (pretty interesting, with gusts of up to 28kts!). That meant that we were constantly trimming the sails and had to put back in the reefs we had shaken out. However, once we were clear of the southern tip of Skópelos and hard on the wind heading directly to Skíathos harbour, things settled down and we had a great blast. We saw several yachts drop sails and start to motor but BV plugged on nicely and we sailed all the way into Skíathos harbour.

Approaching the town of Skíathos. The main quay is off to the right   

Skíathos has several charter companies working from it and sometimes there is space to moor on their pontoon. However, it quickly became apparent that visiting yachts were being turned away from the pontoon because the space was being used for their own returning fleets.

The main quay was already full and so we chose to anchor off. There were already around 5 yachts in the anchorage and it rapidly started to fill up as others sought shelter for the night.

There are 2 no-anchoring avoid areas here, one to keep clear of the landing aircraft…

… and the other to keep clear of the ferries. We were outside of the ferries’ avoid area but just inside the airfield avoid. The Port Police, perhaps understandably, seem more concerned about the ferry avoid area and a chap was sent out daily to move yachts away from this area. We were amazed that yacht skippers seemed to be happy to stay at anchor well inside the ferry turning area, even when the ferries were getting to within 100 metres of them.

Skíathos is a lively holiday town and we had enjoyed visiting here last year. Already knowing the locations of the supermarkets and laundrette meant that we were able to get all of the victualling and boring admin out of the way easily leaving time to enjoy wandering around the rabbit warren of streets filled with restaurants and shops.

The EU Referendum took place whilst we were in Skíathos and so on 24 June we woke up to find that the UK populous had narrowly voted to leave the EU. The political turmoil was almost instant with the Prime Minister resigning and the Labour party showing little confidence in their leadership. Disappointingly, the media painted a picture that the majority of people who had voted ‘leave the EU’ hadn’t understood the implications or the costs involved. More worrying was the apparent complete lack of any political planning to implement a ‘leave the EU’ decision. From our immediate perspective everything suddenly became more expensive as the value of the pound went into freefall.

Órmos Siferi   

Our plans for a last night out in Skíathos were somewhat thwarted when half of the anchored yachts were told to move. There seemed to be no real logic as to who was asked to move; yachts almost directly under the aircraft landing path were left alone whilst yachts, like us, who were outside the ferry avoid area were told to go. Despite the frustration we were not in a position to argue and so we lifted our anchor and went to look at the bay just to the south of the town, Órmos Siferi. There were already a few yachts anchored here but we found it difficult to get our anchor properly set. The seabed is covered in seaweed and it took 4 attempts before we were happy that the anchor had dug in properly and didn’t drag when we tested it.

We discussed taking the dinghy back into Skíathos but in the end we went for the easier option of eating and relaxing on board. The weather charts had been showing the meltemi wind blowing out to our east but the forecast for Sunday showed weather that we thought would work for our next leg, a 58 mile passage to Skíros, and so we made plans to move on in the morning.

Skíathos, Greece