We arrived back in the main harbor of Paros on October 6th at about 4pm from the island of Sifnos, where we spent the previous night. We quickly learned that no ferry leaving the next day would get Deb to where she neededto be.
So, in less than an hour she packed her bags, purchased a ticket for the 6:15pm ferry and we said goodbye.
She arrived in Pareaus at 1130pm and Uber’ed to Athens where she stayed in the same hotel that Suzanne Richman had stayed in last month.
I decided that I’d work my way North towards Mykonos and then West back to Kythnos and ultimately meet her 5 days later at the island of Kea which is just off the mainland and only 13 miles from where we planned to leave the boat for the winter.
MYKONOS
If I had any remaining doubts regarding the fact that the Summer holiday season was over, they were put to rest when I arrived back in Mykonos to find that I was one of only three boats in the same harbor that probably had 50 boats when we visiting in September. To make matters worse, the other two boats were massive super yachts, and Morpheus represented only approximately 10% of the total boat lengths in the bay that night.
I did suffer from some feelings of inadequacy that evening…
The next day, I decided to take a long walk along the coast from my anchorage around to a couple of the other beaches figuring perhaps there was more going on than in my harbor. I took some nice pictures, but everything was either shut down or getting ready to shut down. Summer’s party season was officially over.
KYTHNOS
Finally, I enjoyed a great sail the next day from Mykonos around the North end of Syros Island, and back to our favorite little harbor in Kythnos. This harbor is actually three harbors in one with two of them separated by a narrow sand bar. You sort of get your choice of anchorage based on what you expect in terms of protection. The weather forecast was for strong Southerly winds and I absolutely made the right choice. This was good because as I sat in almost total calm for two days, I watched boats just on the other side of the sandbar riding out 2 foot swells. Not comfortable for them!!
Of course, I got my time on the anxiety bench as well when the winds shifted around into the West and blew right into my harbor for a night along with a sampling of the horrendous swells that others had been dealing with. That last night was not very fun. Up every hour to check the gps position and convince myself that I was not dragging back into the rocks that I knew were behind me but could not see. Ultimately, our new anchor passed yet another test and I have to say that it was money very very well spent!!
Morpheus Sailing 