Amorgós Katápola

Sunday 28 August was another day when the plan for our destination kept changing. We left Órmos Xerokambos at 0700 based upon the forecast wind early in the day being more northerly than later on. This strategy paid off handsomely and we soon found ourselves sailing westwards on a heading of 250. We were hard on the wind but, having started at Léros, we were now able to track north of Nísos Amorgós. It was all much better than we had hoped; so much so that we changed our destination to Katápola on Amorgós and even started talking about perhaps getting as far as Skhinoúsa.

Then, unfortunately, it all started to become quite hard work. The wind got up, then it went down and then it got up again and so on….. and so on. Every change brought with it the labours of taking in reefs, followed by letting them out again when the wind eased. Finally, as we approached the eastern end of Amorgós, we had a dramatic change in wind direction and the best we could make was southwest towards Thíra. Thíra was too far [Ed: both in distance and far too far south – all that ground to windward lost!!!] but did we flog on tacking west towards Katápola or did we cut losses and head south to somewhere on Astipálaia?

The dramatic cliffs at the eastern end of Amorgós   

We’d worked hard to get this far north and so it seemed silly to throw that away and head for Astipálaia. Similarly, Thíra was a long way south albeit more to the west. We decided to press on.

Thereafter we seemed to sit on the eastern end of Amorgós for an awfully long time and I was reminded of a tale of a crew who got their tidal sums wrong in the Alderney Race and spent most of the day battling into tide looking at Alderney on one side and Cap de la Hague on the other. We had no tide to contend with, just the wind, a slight adverse current, a choppy sea and a few ships to dodge. Eventually the miles ticked by, the tacking stopped and we were able to track southwest along the north coast of Amorgós.

Approaching Katápola   

We had a great sail down the coast. The wind eased and we shook out all the reefs [Ed: again!!]. However, as we neared Katápola the wind picked up again so we rolled away the genoa and should, by rights, have reefed the main but we were just too close to go through all that again. It was a pleasure to turn into the bay but with the wind up at 20+kts we elected to ware around with a tack rather than gybe. Perhaps overly cautious but it seemed to have been a long day. Inside the bay we saw a large ferry stern-to at Katápola ahead and to our left a lovely little bay and swimming beach by an island chapel; our back-up anchorage spot.

Katápola quay   

However, tempted though we were by the beach anchorage, we ignored it and headed for the town quay. Sadly, there did not appear to be room for us there and so we anchored close by where there were about 8 other yachts.

We then had to spring into action. Having not stopped at Kalimnos we had not refuelled BV there as we had originally planned. The forecast showed no wind on Tuesday and so we were expecting to have to motor all that day. We had enough fuel but it would be more comfortable to have more in the tanks. A check of the area using the binoculars and a Google search showed that, of the 2 fuel stations on the island, the nearer one was quite high up above Katápola. This was not going to be a walking job! A scan of the quay showed everything we needed: bins and a taxi. We inflated the dinghy in double quick time and zipped ashore with the rubbish and 3 jerry cans before the taxi moved off.

Katápola from the petrol station   

It worked like clockwork. Forty minutes later we were back on board BV with fresh bread, 3 jerry cans full of diesel and all of the gash ditched. We had even had a great view of Katápola and the bay from the vantage point of the petrol station!

We got the fuel transferred into the main tank just before the last of the light went and, once the dinghy was stowed again and everthing tidied up, we felt that we had definitely earned a glass or two of wine after the day’s exploits.

Katápola, Greece