Sporades, Northern Aegean

We moved on to the next phase of our journey—the nautical
segment—arriving on the island of Skiathos from the mainland port of Agia
Konstantinou late on Saturday afternoon, 7 July. Our friend Lambros, who met us
in his van at the Athens airport early on Saturday morning, drove the five of
us and our too-many bags to the port, where we picked up the large, lumbering
ferryboat that serves this group of islands. We had all risen, grudgingly, at 5
a.m. in Nauplion, and drove briskly through the northern Peloponnese on the new E65 highway , in order to make our
rendezvous at the appointed time with our friend.

Our Maine friends—Lambros, his wife Cynthia, and their
fourteen-year-old son Alexander—invited us to join them aboard their sailing
sloop, a 45-foot Benetaeu. Lambros, who has completed several trans-Atlantic
and trans-Mediterranean crossings in even smaller vessels, is a highly
competent sailing, with a 100-ton master’s license. Their cruising area is the
Sporades, a group of northern Aegean islands consisting of Skiathos (the boat’s
home port), Skopellos, Alonissos, and a collection of smaller islands and
islets, most of which are uninhabited and steeped in history dating back 3,000
years.

When we arrived in Skiathos by mid-afternoon the temperature
was already well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A swim off the Bourzi in Skiathos
offered some temporary relief from the heat. The water is probably not the very
clearest in this area (so near to port one can only see to a depth of about 40 feet) but the relief from the heat
was greatly appreciated. The only real cooling occurred after midnight—the deck
temperature was about 85 degrees but it was still significantly warmer down in
the salon and cabins.

The boat sleeps eight comfortably. Manny choose sleep in the
cockpit until he found his sea legs; Lucia had a forward berth to herself; Nia
slept on the setee, and Ann and Jonathan slumbered in one of the two rear
staterooms, on the starboard side from our hosts.

The next morning we set off under the headsail for Klima
beach on the island of Skopellos, a
small port with a few tavernas and a grocery where we could spent the night. At
Klima we were able to take on 250 gallons of fresh, potable water, and with
free electicity we topped off the boat’s batteries—along with our various
devices (phones, computers, cameras).

The next morning, becalmed and with rising noonday
temperatures, we motored to “Mama Mia” chapel (Agia Yianni chapel, where the
movie “Mama Mia,” with Meryl Streep, was filmed). A small white chapel hanging
precariously on a stone edifice, this little cove attracts many tourists, most
of whom were Scandinavians on the day we dropped anchor. Jonathan swam to shore
and was able to help pull the inflatable boat, which carried everyone else, to
a safe landing boat. Five of us walked up the steep stairs to the chapel, took
our pictures, and then returned to the boat.

We then set off, under power, through a narrow channel of
uninhabited islands, past the large island of Alonnisos, toward a large and
very private anchorage on the island of Peristeri. Even between the small rock
ledges and islets, along the way the depth sounder read 500 feet and deeper. We
passed a spit of land on Alonissos, where the remains of 3,000-year-old,
pre-Minoan stone home was clearly visible. Such pre-Minoan structures remain
shrouded in the dark mysteries of what archaeologists call “pre-history.”

In our very anchorage (known as Vasilaia) the Persian
general Xerxes found calm protection for his fleet in 500 BCE; eight hundred
years later, the Roman emperor Justinian did the same here. Today this large
anchorage is private, secluded, and bears no evidence of habitation—the only
sound at night was the distant hooves of wild goats rustling in the bushes and
fish jumping from the becalmed waters The stars overhead were as clear as those
we find on a summer night back on Cobscook Bay in Maine. The only
difference—aside from the absence of blackflies, mosquitoes, and coyotes—is
that we are now on the 39th parallel, not the 45th. The angles of familiar constellations are
slightly “off” from our perspective.

En route to our anchorage, we were joined by a group of
dolphins, which swam alongside the sailboat, dodging left and right before the
bow. We hung over the foredeck tring to touch them as they rose gracefully from
the aqua-blue foam. They greeted us several times during our passage.

Secure in our evening anchorage, we swam from off the boat’s
transom. With snorkel gear, we were able to swim down to the bottom, break open
the sea urchins and then watch the fish come from all directions to feed on the
urchin roe. Alexander caught a small octopus with his bare hands—on closer
inspection, it sprayed Jonathan in the face with black ink, much to everyone’s
delight.

In the evening, Jonathan played his acoustic travel guitar
amidship, Lambros sang in his beautiful baritone, the kids played backgammon.
We all took turns swimming off the transom until well after midnight.

After a morning breakfast, we snorkeled for at least a half
mile, following the shoreline around a headland. Although the air temperature
reached 40 degrees Centragrade (about 95 F.), the ocean temperature remained a
relatively cool 30 C. (83 C.). Cynthia and Lambros dove for conch shells,
starfish, and other sealife unique to the northern Aegean—creatures that we
later released off the transom—while Jonathan taught himself to snorkel and
sooned joined the skipper exploring the sea bottom. Alexander caught another octopus, which we all
deemed too small to eat and later released. Manny tried his best to catch some tsipoura (porgies) to grill on the
beach. Failing in that effort, we ended up dining on canned tuna, pasta, bread,
olives, and tomatoes. A veritable feast for hungry sailors.

There was nothing more exciting and visually intriguing than
diving on several old wrecks, where large schools of fish, in a multitude of
colors, congregate. Lambros discovered a piece of ancient pottery on the ocean
bottom, with the marks of the potters fingers and some paint still clearly evident.
All the time we remained cognizant of moray eels, the only real danger in these
waters —and only aggressive if harrassed. We decided, as a group, not to harass
the moray eels!

Alonissos and the surrounding islands are part of a vast
marine preserve. Yachters and divers come from around Europe to explore these
waters, justifiably famous for the extreme clarity of the waters, the lack of
either current or large predator fish, and the long summer days. Light remains
in the western sky until 10 p.m. Others yachts have flags from Norway, Sweden,
Germany, Italy, France, and England. Ours is the only yacht with both a U.S.
and a Greek flag.

Leaving a large anchorage with ample room to swing and
entering into a tight port, docking stern-to, requires a level of skill and
clear instructions from the skipper. We are all doing our best to comply.

On Tuesday afternoon, after a day of snorkeling amid schools
of multi-colored fish, we raised our anchor and sailed back toward the the east
side of Alonnisos, to the anchorage called Steni Vala, a yachter’s refuge with
a few tavernas, a grocery, and the all important, critical supply of fresh,
potable water…and cold beer. Looking at the charts, we decided that from Steni
Vala we would in the next days visit Parimos and Votsi, two other anchorages
accessible only by boat, and then we set our sights on working our way back
toward Skiathos . Lambros has promised
to show us Koukarnaries, with its lip of golden sand and waters famous as among
the clearest anywhere in the entire Mediterranean. Jonathan remembers his trip
there, aboard the “Alexandros,” back in 2007 and has described to Ann and the
children the unique patterns of water color—greens, blues, and striations of
other hues.

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On Wednesday morning--after Jonathan took his morning run
straight uphill through the pine forest—we restocked the galley and pulled up
anchor, saying goodbye to Steni Valla
and heading southwest on a broad reach, leaving the island of Alonissos to
starboard. Under Lambros’s watchful eye, Ann steered the boat. We raised the
headsail and then the mainsail, and once rounded the headland were averaging
four and half knots under a steady breeze from the north. We spotted dolphins a
half mile off the port side, but maintained our direction rather than changing
course for a closer look.

The previous night, in Steni Valla, we had an encounter with
an ugly mariner, a German man and his wife who were crusing in a retrofitted
Saudi Arabian patrol boat, a veritable stink pot with an enormous V-8
Catepillar engine. The man chose to be confrontational from the outset: our
fenders were “touching” his fenders (this is Greece, after all, the land of
tight harbors), his swimming ladder could not be deployed because our boats
were closely nestled (who would want to swim in port anyway, where overboard
discharge is the norm?), and our anchor line was too close to his anchor line.
This last concern was corrected with belayed line, but this proved
insufficient.

At 4 a.m. he woke Manny (who as sleeping on the deck) and
threatened to cut our lines. We realized that he was treating us like we were
foreign guest works—in fact he was the foreigner, a guest in this beautiful
country. Lambros was roused from a deep sleep but still managed to remain gracious
and accommodating—but informed our neighbor that we would not be moving our
vessel at 4 a.m. The German man shouted, “You don’t understand, I live here.” Lambros’s short-and-sweet
reply was obvious: “You don’t
understand, I was born here!” To
which the owner fired up his diesal with a huff and a puff, filling our cabin
with diesal fumes, pulling up his anchor and leaving the port—waking the entire
fleet of sleeping yachts.

Under full sail, we reached the Skopellos anchorage called
Stafilla in a few short hours. Excavations there have revealed a trove of
Minoan-era (pre-1200 BCE) artifacts, including several double-sided axes,
inscriptions, and votive items. Somewhere on the headland lie fortification
walls. Further along the coast, on a small island, is the cave where Odysseus
was said to have slain the Cyclops. In fact, this entire area of the Sporades
chain of island is steeped in rich history and lore. In many ways, these same
waters described by Homer remain largely unchanged through the millenia.

At Stafilla, Alexandros snorkeled to a depth of 35 feet—much
to his parents’ alarm, who were unaware of his deep dive—emerging with a
perfect specimen of a large, colorful nautilus shell.

We hoisted our anchor after a simple lunch in the cockpit
and motored to Patimos, a much shallower anchorage on the island of Skopellos
where everyone (including Ann and Manny) could swim—and where the prospect of a
whole cooked chicken, for tomorrow’s lunch, proved a reality. Nearly as fine
was the promise of freshwater showers.

In our (briefly) private cove a flotilla of eight German
sailboats arrived. Our new neighbors were friendly and we were pleased to share
“our” cove with them. We swam until 7 p.m. off the sailboat’s transom. Jonathan
and Nia snorkeled in a school of irridesent blue fish, and Cynthia caught a sea
horse, which we photographed and then released.

After showering off the transom half of us took the dingy to
the taverna a mile away on the distant shore, which Jonathan, Manny, Lucia, and
Alexandros hiked along a dirt track to the taverna, rendezvousing with the
others. Lambros’s friend Costa, prepared fresh fish for us and cooked a chicken
for us to bring back to the boat the next day’s lunch.

On Thursday, after breakfast in the cockpit and a lengthy
swim in the cove, we hoisted anchor and headed back toward Skiathos, where our
journey began five days earlier, completing a near circumnavigation of the
Sporades. Our destination was the pristine waters of Koukounaries cove and the
golden sand of the beach there.