Chalkidiki – Skiathos
Sailing holidays

This is the second part of the logbook that shows our sailing holidays and yacht charters in the Northern Sporades, Greece.

Day 4   Sikias – Kyra Panayia (Planitis bay)

Because of time constraints we had to forego sailing for instance deeper into the gulf to the mini cruising areas of Ammouliani and Diaporos, or to either (or even both) Thasos (Limenaria port) and Lemnos (Myrina port).

Instead it was prudent to sail south in the direction of our destination: Skiathos.
This meant the large crossing to either Psathoura islet or Pelagos (Kyra Panagia) island, and entering Zone A of the National Marine Park of Alonissos in the Northern Sporades (NMPANS). In this nature reserve there is no phone signal, thus before entering we purchased tickets for a stay in the park for 3 days. We somehow paid twice yet the organisation swiftly reimbursed us.

This leg proved a good opportunity to practise with the inmast furling system. For performance reasons (and sometimes availability) we had only sailed with full batten mainsails. A furling main had indeed some advantages especially when sailing with children, but upwind the efficacy is significally reduced, and the combination with the twin rudder set-up is therefore decidedly silly.

Ahead of us was a 45+ NM leg towards Kyra Panagia (Planitis bay), or 10 NM shorter if we were to end up in Mandraki bay on Psathoura isle. We left rather late 11:30 with the Sithonia and Athos promontories in a haze. We started with E 2 Bft that slowly built up to a steady 3 Bft

Just before the imposing lighthouse of Psathoura came into sight we encountered a lively pod of harbour porpoises, easily recognized by their very short beaks, exceptionally rare, but indeed reported in the Thracian Sea, Thasos and the Black Sea region.

Route map of the Psathoura, Yioura, Kyra Panagia (Pelagos) sailing Northern Sporades
Second stretch of our route – sailing into Zone A of the NMPANS, notably Kyra Panagia island.

The Psathoura station was built by the French (with Skopelos' stonemasons) in 1895 from locally quarried vulcanic rocks, and it is one of the largest lighthouses in Greece, standing at 28.9 metres.

It was a very slow and zen crossing with W 9 knots, while only during dinner (17:14) we got a 130° M bearing on the Psathoura lighthouse. Subsequently the wind fully died, the sea became silky smooth and we started the engine.

With our youngest crew member fast asleep in her forward cabin / play room we entered the northern bay of Planitis on Kyra Panayia island.
Behold we saw another yacht - in Endéxio, nonetheless we planned to be near the small beach in Draví and found total solitude.
Finally we decided to drop anchor NW of Lapsi cove and Martijn & Robbert took a long line to the shoreline with the dinghy, Rozemarijn handled the anchor winch on the bow.
By 19:20 it was getting dark and we enjoyed a superb starry night throughout a very casual anchor watch.

Day 5   Planitis bay stay

After spending such long hours at sea yesterday we decided to stay in Planitis, also to explore the area. Going ashore isn't allowed here but we took the little one to the miniature pebble beach in the west side near a shallow creek.

It was painful to see so much debris from the fishing industry and discarded plastic bottles all over the place. Other yachtspersons had already made some attempts at cleaning the beach – a lee shore at a vast fetch with the prevailing winds – and had filled garbage bags stuffed with fishing buoys, nets and lines, but these bags had begon disintegrating over the winter. Appearantly nobody of the NMPANS was collecting the vast amounts of litter.

We hadn't been provided with bin liners / garbage bags, and more to the point, if no-one collects these… ah well, by using recovered plastic fish containers, we rounded up as much rubbish as possible.

The little one wasn't bothered by the debris and found all kinds of treasures such as shells, shiny stones, sea anemones, sea cucumbers and a stick.
Robbert and Martijn enjoyed themselves in the water, swimming to the anchor on the rocks, exploring Lapsi cove.

Handy tip when you place the stern anchor on the beach / rocky shore:
attach a fender to the line in such a way that the end of the anchor chain (usually ±10 metres) is lifted from the seafloor: this will prevent chafing since the anchor line is now floating above potential sharp rocks.

We were not sure whether we spotted an Aegean Gull Larus audounii, for the opportunistic ones near our yacht were probably Black-headed Gulls L. melanocephalus in their winter plumage, i.e. without their black feathered heads.

The second night in the bay was as tranquil as the first with just a few katabatic gusts.

Day 6   Kyra Panagia: Planitis – Ag Petros

We left the relatively uncultivated bliss of Planitis at 10:20, and outside we were greeted by an easterly 3 Bft (8 knots), which meant motoring a bit towards Pappous isle, followed by hoisting the sails.

Our initial goal was Monastiri bay and a visit to the Monastery. During our last visit we received a lovely welcome from the resident monk, but the weather was more favourable (WNW 3), Monastiri is completely open to the east.

Once inside the small bay we estimated that anchoring was still an option if one of us stayed with the yacht. No other vessel was using the short natural pier, and it was unlikely that any official Marine Park vessel would bring tourists so early in the season.

Calamity (sudden but averted): the anchor had dropped only a few metres when the chain got completely stuck between the anchor rollers and the bracket on the bow.
We were very fortunate that the anchor had not caught the seabed, so we motored quickly into deeper waters. Then ensued an hour of frustrating hard labour (from Robbert and me mostly) before we were finally able to dislodge the chain.

Since we were late and now downwind of the Monastery we decided to proceed to Agios Pétros bay on the south-west side of Kyra Panagia. Between the south cape of the island and Melissa islet the wind veered all the way to SW 3, tacking to the south cape.

We were the only sailing yacht but there was a small caïque from the Thalassa Foundation stern-to behind the tiny islet of Agios Petros.
We dropped anchor in 5 m NNW of the islet, and placed the stern anchor on the shore; Martijn and Robbert did the hard work in the dinghy, Rozemarijn was on the foredeck, while the skippered kept one eye on the little one and the other eye on the depth sounder.
Although the prettiest and safest, this spot is quite some distance from the start of the trail that leads to the Monastery, so instead we spent the afternoon swimming, snorkeling and rowing the dinghy.

Lateron a motor yacht and a larger caïque came in the bay and they started cleaning up the shores, yet this region (not a lee shore) was exceedingly cleaner than the Planitis bay.

The day ended with yet another culinary triumph from Robbert, who was a master in shredded raw cabbage salads i.e. lachanosalata - λαχανοσαλάτα and consistently prepared superb dinners even at sea.

During the night we had 15 knots from the north with gusts either over the sadle NW or from Kokkina cove (east).