Trapped by the Meltemi

Man……the summer is well and truly over.   The wind has been relentless for the last week.  Every day it has been blowing strong from the north.  Here in Greece the North wind is called the Meltemi.  Its not outrageoulsy high but hovers around 25kts on average dropping to 15kts for periods or gusting over 30kts.   We could move but the wind is over the entire region and we are as good anchored here as anywhere else and besides it would probably be a wet, cold journey.

Mike being nautical

We took advantage of one lull and managed to get up to Mykonos and anchor in a relatively sheltered bay in the south of the island.  The new location gave Mike and Sue an opportunity for further exploring but things are definately starting to close down.  Mykonos town is an attractive but typical whitewahsed Greek town surrounding a small port.  In the season you can see that it would get very busy.

Mykonos Streets

Nearby Mykonos is the island of Delos which is an important archaelogical site and so we had a day trip to see the ruins.  Delos was an important centre in the Greek times and was supposedly the birthplace of Apollo.  As such, it was full of temples and sanctuaries.  Later it became an important trading location - a sort of Singapore of the ancient world.  The island itself is small, relatively flat and featureless and produced nothing of note - it was just a home for the temples and acted as a trading hub for the different peoples from the Mediterannean and near east .  But in its hey day the island supported a population of 30,000 people and so there was a reasonably sized town or city, the ruins of which are slowly being uncovered.

Mosaics on the floors

The ruins at Delos are not as impressive as some of the others we have seen but the old settlement is fantastic.  You walk down the original roads between the remains of the houses.  Again terrific mosaics are clearly visible on some of the floors.  As with a lot of the Greek ruins you need a bit of imagination to put it all together.  There is so much here though that it is absolutely overwhelming.  There are bits of columns, or carved marble, or pieces of statues lying scattered around the ground.  Obviously in some order to the archaeologists and just waiting to be reconstructed.  The archaeological work continues and the site can only get more impressive as they keep digging.

Nic on the old Greek streets

So here we now sit waiting for a break which is forecast in a couple of days.  This is one part of cruising which is not enjoyable at all.  It's kind of like going camping in the rain.  Most of the enjoyable stuff we do on the boat relies on nice weather.   We are safe enough swinging on the anchor but the noise of the wind howling through the mast and rigging is incessant and a constant reminder.  No matter how hard we try, at some angle one of the lines will vibrate against the mast producing an intermittent slapping sound.  Every now and then the boat heels slightly as a bigger gust hits the boat and occasionally there is a scraping sound as the anchor chain changes position on the bow rollers.  Out of the saloon windows the beaches of the bay spin as the boat swings on the anchor.  You know that you are secure but you can never clear your mind completely of the possibility of an anchor dragging or a chain link failing especially at night.  If you do manage to forget about the situation for a while the noise soon brings it back to your attention.  If we do venture ashore for a break there is a good chance we will get soaked during the transit in the dinghy, and once ashore you worry more about the boat being safe even though its secure.

Atop Mt Kythnos on Delos

So we settle in, get out the school books, regularly look at the anenometer readout and check the anchor snubber every now and then and wait for the winds to pass.  Once this clears we will start to trek back towrads Athens and there is supposed to be some nice weather coming.  We are starting to clean up the boat where we can, throwing stuff out and getting ready for the arrival of the delivery crew.