Sunday 2 June 2019 – Messolonghi

We left early to get a space in Messolonghi harbour.   Getting up the anchor gave me a new experience.  I had been saying how we had been anchoring in mud, well the mud we brought up today won the competition for muckiest by a long way.  Not only was the anchor entirely full of gloopy mud, but at least one meter of chain was also entirely encrusted with the stuff.  I had to get a bucket out and pour water over both just to be able to get it all aboard.  Heaven knows what is going on in the chain locker!

We put up the mainsail at anchor.  Well, you face into the wind when at anchor so it makes it easy.  Although the wind was from behind it was very light.  We did eventually put up the Genoa, but we had a passage to make and so it was a motor sail.  The journey here was fairly boring.  The landscape was mainly flat.  There were very few boats.

To get up to this harbour we had to follow a canal.  That was quite interesting in that it is lined with houses built on stilts, rather like in southeast Asia.  When we got to the harbour the wind started to get up.   This  seems to be a pattern with an afternoon blow.  We were confused about where to look for somewhere to berth.  There is a marina here and we could see boats in it. However, the Cruising Association website says that it is closed and won’t open for at least a few weeks, if not months. Seeing boats inside we tried to ring them on the VHF, but got no response.  We don’t really want to anchor because we haven’t yet blown up the dinghy and we want to go ashore.  So we spotted at bit of wall where in principle we could moor alongside.  Richard tried to get me close enough to a large bollard to lasso it, but we couldn’t get that close.  Luckily another boat came to our rescue and took our lines.  There are not really good cleats, bollards or rings here so tying on is a bit haphazard but we are on the wall and can get on and off the boat easily.

The problem is the wind. It is blowing hard (15-20 knots) and it is bouncing us about and making the sea slap against the back of the boat which is loud and annoying.  We hope the wind will calm down, but at 9:30pm there is no sign of that.

We found a very busy café and had a coffee and got the internet.  Then we went out to dinner as I have depleted most of our fresh food. The town is about 1km away from the harbour.  As it is Sunday and most things will be closed we haven’t ventured in.  We will stay tomorrow and go to town then.  The wind is supposed to be bad then too, but better on Tuesday for us to move on. 

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