I decided the day before when I sailed up from Rougas that today I would head to Preveza. the question was, when? with Rougas I left early and got caught in the blow. Today I decided to wait until after the blow. This would mean I would get better weather probably but would run the risk of arriving in the dark. I kept a close eye on the wind which was due to blow until.midnight or something which I knew to be nonsense but at around 4ish it calmed down a bit. I looked out at the gulf for whitecaps and other sailors and decided it was too early. I started getting ready at 5pm and left at around 6pm. a boat had arrived at the start of the blow from Rougas I think. under engine unsurprisingly. he anchored between me and another boat from Rougas - his mate I think - and then about an hour later re-anchored right in front of me, potentially lying in the wind over my anchor. anyway, I started getting the anchor in and fortunately the girl of the couple was in the cockpit. I said it could be close and she turned her engine on and moved her boat a bit. I had to motor over the anchor to get it up, and faced the right general direction, got the genoa out and turned off the engine. in my haste to leave I hadn't turned the autopilot and depth on when I turned on the engine so I I had to quickly nip in and do this before the genny was unfurled. I was getting around 14 knots in the anchorage so I decided to put two reefs in the main. despite me pulling hard on the reefing line before hoisting the sail the reef was still a bit of a mess. I tidied it up a little bit later by using the topping lift to raise the boom and tying the reefing lines on the sail itself. anyway, my line between the mainland and the island proved to be ambitious so I sailed a long way up into the gulf to come back down again. I tacked backwards and forwards using the bearings on Navionics to judge the kind of angle that I could make. I was frustrated however that there were times when I couldn't even tack through 120 degrees, the boat wanted to sail more than that. the best I got was about 105 degrees I think, but the wind may have been changing direction. I sailed into the land as best I could and made decent progress. I turned on the engine perhaps a mile from the anchorage (the were shallows, it was dark and I had done quite wellmtonget there in fairness) and motored the last distance after dropping the mainsail and furling away the genny. the sun had just set as I arrived in hospital bay and rather than go round and round looking for somewhere to anchor I picked the first place I saw and dropped 60m of chain in 16m (it is pretty much all.16m.there). the boat wouldn't weather cock. eventually after trying to reverse her in the right direction and going forward hoping she would fall back nicely I turned the engine off, tidied up, and waited for her to sit down properly. eventually she did. I reversed, the anchor bit, I reversed harder looking at a transit which didn't move and I turned the engine off. I didn't stop the tracker on the log or Navionics until the anchor was set because I didn't consider myself properly arrived

Vonitsa Anchorage (Koukounitsa) to Hospital Bay

Crew: 1

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