13 May 2025 - Astros
It was a rather disturbed nights sleep. As forecast, the wind that the island had protected us from during the evening, swung round to be coming from the open side of the bay. This caused the boat to swing and rock a little as it rotated to be into the new wind. The forecast had also indicated that the wind would strengthen during the morning, and so the plan was to leave early. It was also important to arrive at Astos before the rain came in the early afternoon. As ever, when you know that you have to wake before your usual time, we both came to many times during the night, concerned that we had overslept, but all was well.
The voyage to Astos was directly into the wind, so it was motoring rather than sailing.
Astos sits behind an outcrop of land which gives it protection from winds in most directions, but the pilot book warned that it looked like an island from the sea, rather than a continuation of the mainland. It was good to have this information, as it did look quite separate until we were very close. The port is newly upgraded and a distinct improvement on some of the others that we have seen, with water and electricity available. The plan is to use this as a location to do much of the preparation work before the boat is lifted next week, and we return home. The harbour master had said that we could moor "side to", and this was welcome as there was no one available to take lines if we had been required to go "stern to".
Once safely moored, a couple of frustrations occurred. The first with the Port Police who we needed to stamp our Transit Log. There were no spaces left to stamp, for reasons that we discovered later, and they said that they could not do anything. When we get to Navplion, we should see the Port Police there, to resolve this. We said that we weren't going to Navplion, and the reply was "why not". We explained that the boat was being lifted next week but were sent away with the idea that it was our problem and not theirs.
The second was with the electricity supply. The post that was activated for us had a fixing that we had no connector for. We were told that a couple of places in the town sell the necessary adaptor, and so after waiting for the worst of the rain to abate, we splashed our way to the town. One of the shops that seemed likely to sell the adaptors was closed, but another was open. It was difficult to explain what we wanted to the 2 very nice ladies in the shop, but eventually the message was transmitted and we were led into a store room that had a large number of likely looking pieces. The one that looked right was selected and the paid for, followed by another paddle back to Equinox. On arrival, the piece we had was the wrong size, so it was back to the shop, still in the rain. All of other connectors that they had were either the same size, the wrong number of pins, or female instead of male. The lady said that she would call someone, and to come back in an hour! By the time of the return, the rain had stopped, and a beaming lady greeted me at the shop, clutching exactly what we needed. On the return to the boat, the rain started again, but the prospect of working electricity made this tolerable. It just needed to be wired up, and we could have hot water etc....
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| Not a usual connection, but presumably we are in a big motor yacht space and they need 3 phase power. |
Steve (and Tricia)
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