Day 10 - Day in Hydra - Υδρα
Tuesday, October 5
Travel time: 0, Distance: 0
A day in port
The Re-mooring Incident
Hydra Harbor
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Day 10 started around 6:30 a.m. when Kelli and Kevin arose to return
the dinghy to Butch. We needed to be up and ready when the regatta
participants moored behind us were ready to depart. When Kevin arrived
at Butch's boat, the crew of Polo III wasn't ready to go,
and Kevin was glad that the loaner dink wasn't holding them up.
Kevin and Butch stowed the dinghy and motor, and then Kevin went
ashore for a morning coffee and to wait for us to move Didimos,
or for the water taxi to start so he could return.
Meanwhile, the rest of our crew slowly crawled out of the sack.
We went on deck to find the sun rising for a sunny day and the wind
still blowing 20 knots with chop in the harbor. We anticipated an
entertaining morning watching the fleet unmoor.
David Kory departing on Tonina
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Since all of our buddy boats moored along the quay were going to
depart, we decided that as soon as there was space, we would move
our boat over to the quay and be out of the way of the regatta fleet.
It would give us a great spot to watch the fun. Little did we know
we would spend half the day getting ourselves moored again!
Around 7:45 or so, Butch pulled out, and soon a couple of other
boats left the quay. We took that as our signal to relocate to the
quay. We fired up and untied from the boats around us. We motored
forward, but the wind helped us. Mike had to back down to not overrun
the anchor. Mercifully, we did not have a crossed anchor.
With some maneuvering, Mike got the boat turned around and we started
backing down into the space on the quay. Of course, the wind was
an issue, though it was not a crosswind. Kelli dropped anchor with
good scope and we backed into the space reasonably well. Kevin was
ashore to catch our stern line, and with much rolling and scrambling,
we picked our rings on the quay and got two lines on. Unfortunately,
the anchor would not hold. Mike was holding us off the quay with
the engine, and occasionally going into neutral while Kelli tried
to take up the slack in the rode, but when we tested it with the
engine, it dragged.
At this point, we are the 4th boat from
the left on the quay
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We gave up and Kevin boarded the boat. We pulled forward to retrieve
the anchor and try again. Sometime during this evolution, another
boat had come in and set their anchor over our rode. As we retrieved
our anchor, it pulled up their chain. Kevin and Kelli were forward
to straighten things out. During this process, the handle to our
boat hook came off the shaft, and our boat hook departed our company.
They got us off the offending anchor rode, but we were boat hook-less
-- not a good way to be in the world of Med mooring
We gave up on that spot on the quay, and decided to try another
spot with more scope. The backing was less than perfect, but adequate
to get us lined up on the rode and backed into the space. Kevin
and Mark got our dock lines ashore and secured us to the quay while
we tried to ensure the anchor had set. This time, success!
We thought we had performed this particular mooring in the rolling
chop and wind pretty well, given that the anchor didn't hold the
first few times. We shut down the engine, and started to heave a
mental sigh of relief. The loss of the boat hook wasn't particularly
helpful, and we hoped we could find one somewhere in town.
While we were engaged in mooring, boats would occasionally depart,
but by now the fleet was getting underway in earnest. About every
other boat hooked an anchor rode, and went through the process of
trying to free themselves. We got a very explicit lesson watching
all this on the importance of an attentive helmsman. In our own
fleet, we saw a boat depart from the quay and pick up an anchor
chain. An inattentive helmsman then got his boat's keel hooked on
yet another rode and was in a predicament with a captive boat blown
onto boats still moored on the quay. In yet another instance, we
saw a boat hook a rode, and we watched the helmsman leave his station
to go forward to "help." Of course, the boat drifted downwind
and into the large cargo boat.
The moral of the story was very clear to us. During an unmooring,
the helmsman concentrates on steering the boat, monitors activity
of other boats nearby, holds the boat in position for the anchor
crew to work on the problem, remains aware of the other rodes in
the water to avoid hooking bottom appendages to complicate the situation
or damage the boat. The helmsman does not try to "help"
the crew at the bow other than to keep the boat in position, or
respond to requests from the bow crew to reposition the boat as
necessary to effect the untangling. This reinforced the lesson of
our own encounter between our rudder and the rode in Ag. Eufimia.
As the boats from the regatta untied, unmoored, and got underway
one by one, we watched as they handled the crossed anchors
with varying degrees of finesse. There was a race committee dink
moving around the fleet helping out where it could. It had to retrieve
one lost fender and return it to an unaware departing boat. Helping
lift many pounds of anchor and/or chain is not really possible from
the edge of a dinghy, but he did help direct traffic.
The cargo boat moored on the quay
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We noticed another small, wooden boat helping out a blue yacht
with a crossed anchor. As we watched that particular evolution,
we realized that unfortunate's anchor was crossed by the cargo boat's
very large rode. After much struggling it was quite apparent that
the yacht's windlass was not going to raise the cargo boat's anchor,
and could not get the chain up high enough to reach.
The small wooden boat belonged to a local fellow with a Greek fisherman's
cap and a long, gray beard. Donning snorkel gear, he dove into the
water. He went down to inspect the situation and came back up apparently
asking for a line. He took the line back down, looped in around
the big chain, and brought it back up. The crew on the yacht winched
the cargo boat rode up enough for the diver to get their line free
below. This episode took about a half-hour, so this yacht was a
tad late getting out to the starting line.
After resting and enjoying the show for awhile, we noticed the
boat unmooring that had been rafted on our portside the night before.
At this point he was moored across from us, a point or so off our
starboard bow. All went well as he untied and eased forward, raising
his anchor. He pulled up an anchor chain.
One of our crew noticed that our anchor chain was vibrating. Oh,
no!! He was pulling up our newly and nicely set anchor -- the
one holding us off the quay in the strong breeze. Mike quickly got
to the helm, started the engine and put it in forward gear at idle
speed to keep us off the quay. Kelli and Kevin went forward to watch
what happened, and work our rode. The other boat unhooked us, finished
retrieving its anchor and departed.
Our crew tried to reset our anchor with the windlass, but of course,
it would not set! After trying for several minutes, and praying
that it would grab, the crew decided we had pulled in too much scope
for this to work, and we had to redo the whole process.
Didimos finally safely moored.
We are the one with the blue
Moorings logo sail cover.
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Most of the outer rows of boats along the jetty were gone, but
the jetty itself was still mostly full. However, there was a little
space between two boats, and Captain Kelli decided that we were
going to squeeze into that spot. So we turned the boat around, got
aligned, dropped anchor and backed into the wind. People came up
on deck on both boats between which we were backing. One has to
pay attention to all the activity in a situation like this! We were
able to push the boats apart and squeeze in. The skipper of the
boat to starboard was very concerned about a chain coming off the
jetty underwater. It was in the middle of what should have been
his spot between rings for stern lines. They had to reposition their
boat.
View from our bow
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Our anchor held well, but on this side of the harbor, it wasn't
doing much work -- the stern lines were holding us and keeping us
from being blown downwind out into the harbor. After a good twenty
minutes getting the right lines onto the right rings, and resetting
lines for the boats we had squeezed between, we finally shutdown
the engine and declared victory (again.) We were on the right side
of the harbor given the wind, and finally moored securely.
Mike and Kelli check out the harbor
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This whole exercise had taken all morning! From the early rising
to return the dinghy to being finally secured to the jetty, we had
been "underway" trying to get secured off and on for about
4 1/2 hours.
Didimos, way in the back
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As a postscript to this story, by the end of the day, there were
two rows of boats in front of us on the jetty, so we were a little
concerned about making an early start the next day. But it was time
to go spend an afternoon sightseeing (and doing something other
than mooring the boat.) And Kevin, bless his soul, tracked down
a nice, new, telescoping boat hook -- an upgrade over the lost hook!
Exploring Hydra
Hydra is another charming spot in the Greek Isles. Hydra town sprawls up the hill from the harbor. It is very cosmopolitan, and
has often been a favorite getaway for the jet-set. The town is known
for great nightlife, and is a favorite spot for Europeans in the
summertime.
We all set off to explore Hydra and have lunch. Mike and Kelli
found an American restaurant with American food -- burgers, BLT
sandwiches, pizza, waffles, American music, and real coffee (not
the sludge that the Greeks call coffee.) All that healthy Greek
food was getting tiresome :-)
The entire time we were in Hydra, the wind blew from the north
directly into the harbor at 20 knots more or less. You can see the
whitecaps in the strait outside the harbor in the photos. We were
completely entertained watching other sailboats come into the harbor,
look around, and leave without even trying to Med moor.
The harbor is bustling with small fishing boats and cruising yachts,
ferries and hydrofoils. You can see all the empty tables at one
taverna. There are a half dozen more just like this along the quay.
One can only imagine the crowd when the summer season is in full
swing in July and August.
There are supposedly no good beaches on Hydra. You can see the
rugged coastline here.
One unique aspect to Hydra is that motorized vehicles are not allowed.
Therefore, donkeys provide transportation for people and goods.
They add to the charm of Hydra, but they likely add to the smell,
not to mention the braying at dawn.
Here is a mix of modern and classic -- note the fellow in the picture
below leading a string of donkeys carrying building materials. He
is talking on his cell phone.
Picturesque back alleys, colorful houses, cute gardens. We found
a nice spot up in town away from the waterfront tourist tavernas
for dinner.
We met back at the boat about 3:30 p.m. Here are a couple of happy
cruisers enjoying a Mythos after hiking all over town.
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