Ronja’s crew surrender – and go backwards into the berth
39° 12′ 6.9444” N 20° 11′ 11.0868” E
June 3rd, 2018
Paxos is a fantastic island. It’s small, it’s kind, it’s lush, and it has only one and a half harbour, so it provokes us to anchor a lot in the most beautiful bays. Here we do not count Longos as a real harbour, because it is said to be reserved for tripper-boats, Lákka count as the half port, and the whole port is Gaios. The port of the island’s capital village, Gaios, has the shape of a river that winds within an island, where you can choose whether you want to lie among fishing boats in the outskirts of the village or you want to go into the village center and mingle with the big yachts.
While everything is still calm. Minutes later the wind goes up, the kedge anchor drags … and we are hurrying out of the harbor
We start mingling with the big yachts, and we use our kedge anchor from the stern, as we have done several times in the Swedish archipelago. Out with the anchor behind the boat, then slowly forwards towards the quay with the frontend first, and then a pair of lines to the quay. That’s the way to do it! “Ho, ho,” we giggle. One more time we have shown the South Europeans, that they are wrong in their unbelievable love for always backing their boats into the berth with an anchor from the forehead and then a couple of lines from the boat’s back end to land.
One more time we have shown, that we put our hat and boat as we please. “The Scandinavian model”.
But Paxos shall be the place, where we lose our faith in the superiority of “the Scandinavian model”. In the afternoon the wind is raising, the shape of the harbor as a river with land on both sides creates a wind tunnel that pushes us from the side, we can see that the kedge anchor is losing its grip to the bottom, and suddenly we are heading towards a neighboring boat. We start the engine, pull up the anchor, accurately avoid the neighbor’s anchor chain and moves Ronja outside the harbor, where we throw the bower anchor (front) in a quiet and beautiful anchor bay.
The next morning we try again. We sail into the port of Gaios, find us a new berth, this time throws the bow anchor instead of the stern anchor and goes BACKWARDS into the berth. Like the Greeks. The southern European model.
We have learned the lesson: When in Greece do as the Greeks, and sail backwards into your berth
Now we have been sailing for two years in southern France and throughout Italy, and apart from twice, we have succeeded in insisting, that we belong to those who go to a berth with the front end first. Now, however, we have come to a country that does not use fixed mooring lines attached to the port bottom, and where you therefore have to use your own anchor, and here we must acknowledge that our stern anchor is smaller, have a shorter chain and therefore is not as strong as our bow anchor.
We have learned the lesson. When in Greece, do like Greeks: Sail backwards!!
