Athens to Kea

This was the plan - to pick up our boat at Athens and sail the Cyklades (Kiklades) in a counter-clockwise direction.

We would pick it up at the Moorings in Kavos which was where the Kalamaki Marina was located.

You check in at the office and by the time you get assigned a boat, and provision it, it's too late to travel. So we spent the night on Arethoussa, our Moorings Sun Odyssey 42.2  - and this turned out to be a noisy night.

There were 3 couples on this charter and the Sun Odyessy 42.2 had 3 cabins and 2 heads. The cabins weren't a problem, but the women didn't want to share their bathroom with the men! So the men got one head and the women got the other.

We had a sun dodger on the back and roller furling main and genoa.

We couldn't wait to get out of there, and were greeted with this view of Athens (what ever happened to Piraeus?)

Panorama of Kalamaki Marina.

Not much wind at first, but as the day warmed up, it filled in. Look closely between the shrouds and you can see the Temple of Posiedon (also called Sounion). It is at the tip of the Greek Peninsula and the last thing you see as you head out into the Agean Sea.

If you have a telephoto, you can bring it in.

This is a postcard showing our first island, Kea, and it's port, Vourkari. We were told not to stay at the bigger port town of Korissia because that is where the big ferry boats docked.

And sure enough, one was there.But right around the corner was Vourkari.

It took a couple of tries to "Med tie" Arethoussa, but we managed. The quay is deep enough for all keels, but we found out that it isn't deep enough for all rudders. The guys next to us had to move, as their rudder was too long for that spot. The plank was our way ashore, and it wasn't fancy, but you can see the line attached to the end to keep it up. But you never leave the boat with the plank up for many reasons.

This is the row of tavernas that are next to the quay. Your can see the boats on the left.

Our favorite was Nicos Taverna - note the sign is in another alphabet.

We tried other spots, but Nicos was also handling our torn sail problem. The leach had blown off - the roller furling sail protection fabric pulled away from the genoa, and we had to send it to Athens on the ferry. And none of us spoke Greek, and at first we had to try to use the pay phone - which was impossible if you don't speak the language. Finally Nicos called Moorings on the cell so we felt obligated to eat and drink at his place. Actually it was more complicated that that, as Nicos didn't speak much English, and we used our waiter, Johnny, as interpreter.

We walked to Korissia, of course, and found that scooters could be rented. So we explored Kea.

 Here's Jane exploring Vourkari.

Looking back on Korissia were we had started.

And at the end of the road is this Chora. They originally built up here for protection from pirates, we were told.

But it was a little cooler up here.

And we took our dinghy across the bay to inspect a chapel and looking back we saw this.

There was even a beach.

And eventually we got the sail back and bent it on. Only it wasn't the original sail, but we didn't care.

But it's a funny thing, you stay longer than you plan, but you are none the worse for it. We leaving or entering all of these harbors, there were churches or shrines on the headlands.And we were off for our next island, Siros, and Finkus Harbor. If Siros isn't next on the list, you can find it in the right margin and click on it.