Potamos and trying out a new navigation App

The weather looked good for a long day sail over to Potamos and back. It's about 30 nautical miles which in a small boat is a good day sail.

I checked the weather on Predictwind.com and Windfinder. The two most dissimilar forecasts came from Predictwind, but both looked reasonable. 

There was supposed to be a lull as the wind changed direction but other than that would be great sailing across the bay and back.

I've been using iSailor for my navigation app and they have changed to a subscription model so I thought I would check out other apps if I am going to have to pay a subscription. Don't get me wrong iSailor is good and I have used it for a number of years, but there are quirks to using it which I found frustrating.

The charts are digital but display a lot of detail at all scales and so look cluttered and hard to read at times.

I'd used Navionics charts on chart plotters so thought I would try their app.

It was a lot cleaner in interface and had no learning curve. I thought like I thought. Everything was where I expected it to be.

It also seems to have a lot more features than iSailor and for €20 a year for the Mediterranean charts seems like a reasonable price. So I shall most likely change over to using this.

The wind was more like westerly than north-westerly so we managed to get the whisker pole out…

and rigged with a preventer on the boom… 

And off sailing happily across the bay until… 

…well, until the wind dropped
which meant starting the noise creator on the stern!

But the wind shifted pretty much southerly as predicted and we could sail past Cape Pyla and up to Potamos. 

While Helen snoozed gently in the cockpit.

Except when she was up checking our position on the Navionics App that is!

Sailing to waypoint rather than just sailing around as a day sail was good practice for all of us.

One of the things I rather like with the Navionics App is the ability to overlay satellite or land navigation layers.

For non-sailors the blue line is the plotted route and the yellow line the actual track, showing how we were trying to use what little wind we could across the bay. Then as it came to what we needed we could sail closer to waypoints.

So, first things first, time to cook sausages -- OK, too many and we overate -- and have salad and pittas…

And nothing brings a smile faster to Helen's face than the mention of food!

Having had a wonderful lunch it was time to get the boat ready for the trip back. 

But before that we wanted to check out the Potamos river and look at the fish farm.

We draw about 0.80 m so I didn't want to go under 1m on the depth gauge and there was a powerboat in the river watching us carefully. I suspect wondering if we were going to get stuck. At the point I saw 1m I turn and headed back to the sea.

Each of the fishing boats has it's own little shelter so the boat owner to prepare their catch for market. The photo is a bit strange as that was right into the sun!

We then headed out to the fish farm, but I didn't want to get too close as I didn't know the way they have the lines and I certainly didn't want to get tangled in them!

If you click on the photo you can see it enlarged and see the buoys and the nets more clearly.

The wind was southerly as predicted so we motored to save time… it looked like umpteen tacks to get to Cape Pyla and losing 2-3 hours just on that stretch was not worth it... but as we got to the Cape the wind came up, veering southwest… no that's not what we want that's where we want to go! And up to 15-20 knots, so reef the sails. 

Then weering west… that's exactly where we want to go! So the GFS wind model was correct on direction but way under on the windspeed.... climbing up to 20-22 knots showing gusts up to about 25 knots or so on the wind gauge! Had it been the 8-10 knots predicted it would have been a slow but gentle sail tacking across the bay, but it wasn't so motor sailing it is. We really don't want to be home in the early hours of the morning having had a battle across the bay!

Waves climbing to 1.5-2m which for a small 6.5m boat is quite a lot! And Mediterranean waves are short and choppy not like the rolling waves of an ocean. You barely come off one wave and you're banging into the next. They weren't all that large many only about 1m but there were enough that I felt we should be clipped on.

Helen meanwhile is peacefully sleeping in the cabin. Indeed she slept through most of it, except on one occasion when she put her life jacket on, poked her head out of the hatch and was drenched by a wave coming over the bow of the boat!

So, Sheila went for the tethers so she and I could be clipped on. They were exactly where they should be and as she was coming out of the cabin we hit a big wave… she grabbed the main sheet as both of her feet left the cockpit deck!

Yes, being clipped on was the right decision!

Some of it was motor sailing back and some just motoring but arrived back in the marina about 20:00. Then really hungry! Well, at least Helen and I were!

All in all a really good day sailing...
(and motoring when we had to)!