Sailing to Náxos

Sailing from Nísos Glarópounda towards Náxos was going to be straight into wind which would be funnelled and accelerated between the islands of Náxos and Páros. We had already seen that this could be quite unpleasant and slow and so we got up early on 29 July to try to sail during the part of the day when the wind is lighter.

Charlotte multi tasking: drinking tea and steering   

The 0615 departure was a bit of a shock to Charlotte’s holiday routine but armed with a mug of tea she sailed us up towards Náxos and also took her turn grinding the winches to pull in the sails after every tack. The direct route to Náxos harbour was 17 miles but because we had to zigzag backwards and forwards we actually sailed 26 miles. With the wind coming over Paros, we sailed close up the island’s eastern shore to minimise our exposure to any wind-blown current to keep in the smoothest water, out of the worst of the waves. It was very pleasant sailing with about 20knots of wind and we arrived off Náxos pleased that we had set off early because we could already see the wind strengthening and the sea building.

Just squeezed into the marina on the pontoon end   

The other advantage of the early start was that we were able to get one of the last mooring places in Náxos marina. It’s a very small marina and we had to lay out our anchor and raft alongside another yacht; the ‘space’ having been pointed out to us by the helpful marina manager. The passarelle just reached the corner of the quay on a diagonal which made getting ashore an interesting game.

Waterfront and up to the old Venetian quarter and castle   

The location gave us a great view of the waterfront and up to the old Venetian quarter and castle area on the high ground. Ahead of us was another yacht with its anchor laid out at an angle to ours and so it was no real surprise that when they came to try and leave our chain started to rumble. We ran the engine to hold us off the corner of the quay and let out loads of chain to allow them to pull up their anchor but their anchor windlass wasn’t able to. With the strong wind we were worried that the yacht would drift sideways onto our bow and so whilst they still had space to manoeuvre we got them to raft up alongside us. Rather than try to explain what they needed to do, the easiest solution was for me to hop over the side and see what the problem was. It turned out that the harbour seabed is criss-crossed with chains for permanent moorings and their anchor was caught under one of these. I cleared it for them and, once they were gone, we were able to tighten our own chain. Many of the moorings here have pick-up lines to avoid the hazard; our mooring didn’t and so we suspected that we’d have the same problem with a fouled anchor when we came to leave.

Temple of Apollo doorway standing conspicuously   

However, that would be something to deal with in a few days. Náxos has the attractive old Venetian quarter to explore, the imposing ruins of the Temple of Apollo on a nearby spit of land plus we had also arranged to meet up with my sister, Julie, who was holidaying on the island.

Náxos, Greece