Stormy Catamaran Sailing round Paros

With my Brother Andreas I met our crew in Mario's Restaurant in Paroikia Port on Paros in the center of the Cyclades on Friday, 9th May at 8pm. We enjoyed the delicious food and made plans for our cruise.

Next morning after a hearty breakfast at Ragoussis Bakery we checked our boat Maritina, a nice Bali 4.4 catamaran built by the famous Catana shipyard. We found some problems which were partially repaired by Afros Yacht Services. After bunkering (without any acceptable meat or fish!) we had a nice dinner at Mira Restaurant and went to sleep on board.

Early on Sunday 11th we set sail west to Sifnos in nice northerly winds at 5bft. We had first to repair some entangled reefing lines and lazy jacks, but then sailed nicely up to 8kn speed. In the afternoon the wind stopped, we trained some MOB maneuvres and finally anchored alone in Ormos Fykadia in the southwestern end of Sifnos.

 

At 9:00 next morning we started with no wind and motored east to Tsigouri Bay in the Small Cyclades to the west of Schoinousa.  On Tuesday we continued with a nice Meltemi further east to Amorgos. According to the reefing table we had to reduce sail to the 2nd reef at 6Bft. After some tacking we slipped into the secure bay of Nikouria on the northwestern coast of Amorgos. Our crew checked the surroundings with our dinghy. After a nice dinner we spent a windy night at anchor which we had to set anew early next morning.
 

Sailing again with 2nd reef and nice speed we passed Keros and Kato Koufonisi next day and anchored finally with land lines in the small Rinha Bay besides the famous cave at the southern coast of Naxos. We had a wonderful swim and explored the cave. Our charterbase sent us an SMS with severe storm warnings for Friday. So we enjoyed Rinha Bay until Thursday noon and then set sail north through Stenon Antiparou to reach Parikia port just in time for the storm. Sadly our last day had to be in port with severe storms up to 52kts or 10bft. In the evening we celebrated our cruise with a nice dinner in Restaurant Dionysos.

Early on Saturday 17th my old crew left and I awaited the new crew for our next cruise.      
We sailed 38 hours and logged 165sm in 6 days.
You may download our track in gpx-format
or view it directly on GoogleMaps.