Abandoned Marina Argostoli to Agios Nikolaos Zante

Peter Robinson

We left as soon as there was wind enough to get the sails out although there was some difficulty getting off the berth as it was pretty tight and the wind was blowing us directly on. Eventually with a little help from Matthieu my French mate we managed to get off. it would have been an awful lot easier if access to the stern portaide cleat was easier. We got both sails out within a couple of hundred yards of the marina entrance and sailed comfortably out of the inlet leading to the town. the westerly which was forecast had become a southerly in the gulf so a lot of time was wasted tacking out of the gulf, although in fairness the wind did change direction a bit the closer we got to the entrance / the open sea. once we were out we had a lovely gentle sail with the wind more or less behind us. we started with a full main and full genny but soon moved to just the genny. the wind picked up and at the end of the run we were doing around 4-5 knots but as we reached the island the wind became very strong and despite putting the main back up but heavily reefed and having little genoa we were moving fast enough for me to want to reef down further. we dropped the main again and motored the last three quarters of a mile into the bay into a wind of at least 20 knots true. The guys helped with getting us on to a buoy but we also put down the anchor as well for safety. we were only about a hundred yards from the beach and the taverna. other than the excitement at the end it was a lovely sail