Day 2 - Mourtos (Μουρτος) to Paxos (Παξους)

Monday, September 27
(Mike's Birthday)
Travel time: 3 hours, Distance: 12.3 nm

Morning in Mourtos

It rained off and on all night. We all slept pretty well. Our luck continued and at 7:30 a.m. the sky was just cloudy. David Kory had already departed.

Kelli sewing the sail

Kelli grabbed the boat's repair kit and started sewing up the torn sail. Kevin came back from his coffee walk and announced that there was a shop just across the way labeled "Sail Maker." Our luck continues! The shop owner, Tina, is a German woman who has lived here many years. Tina came over and said that she could fix the sail and the stack pack on her sewing machine for €50, about $60 US.

So our morning challenge was to remove the sail and stack pack, something that none of us had done before. Kevin had the idea to use his digital camera to record areas of the sail's rigging that we might forget. So he took pictures of the reefing blocks, line colors, and other connection points. Once we got it down, the guys bundled up the sail and pack and headed for the shop.

It danced for 5 minutes

As we were taking the sail down, someone said "Look at THAT!" and pointed skyward. A funnel cloud! What else can happen! It was a half-formed funnel cloud moving along the shoreline from south to north. We watched it twist and turn with its funnel half reaching the water. It dissipated after five minutes. Five minutes later, another funnel formed where the first one was and moved along like the first and then disappeared. Must be the spirit of the Sivota Islands.

Drying out Didimos
(Notice the mainsail has been removed!)

Meanwhile, Didimos turned into a floating clothes line as we attempted to dry out all the wet stuff. Everything was wet -- towels that dried us yesterday, towels used on the floors, clothes, cabin floor -- the entire boat.

We heard the noon check-in of the Tradewinds boats. Many were headed for Paxos. We told them about our sail issue and told them that we would meet them there.

Mark and Laverne found the bakery, bought wine and meat. Mike and Kelli filled the boat with water and Stugeron (sea sickness medicine, yes several of us got seasick yesterday.)

And we all explored Mourtos.

Mourtos Harbor

Mourtos Ferry

"New" Sail

About 1 p.m., we picked up our "new" sail and faced our next challenge -- putting the sail and stack pack back on with an audience of spectators watching from the nearby tavernas.

Tradewinds boats in the distance passing Mourtos

As we started the installation, we heard another Tradewinds radio check-in and saw the "fleet" off in the distance headed south towards Paxos.

The installation went well. We referred to our digital pictures a couple of times. As we raised sail slowly, we noticed that we had mixed up the reefing lines on the leech. Fixed that, but caught the leech line under the reef line. Fixed that.

As we raised the sail to its full height, a round of applause came from the tavernas.

We have met all of our challenges -- Team Sivota was definitely baptized!

Leaving Mourtos

We fired up the motor and weighed anchor at 2 p.m., looked fondly back at Mourtos, and motored out to the point. At the point, we raised the sails in 10-12 knot winds and cruised to Paxos at 3.5-4.5 kt. Nice sailing, no rush. We relaxed, recounted our adventure, and drank Mythos.

To Gaios, Paxos

We sailed along slowly until 4:30 p.m. Then fired up the motor for some motor sailing at 8 kts. There were some clouds, the air was warm. The sea swells were about 2-3 ft.

The village of Gaios on the island of Paxos is another cute town. Paxos produces olive oil from its 300,000 trees. Its oil is know as some of the best in Greece. Gaios is the capital of Paxos. The streets in Gaios are too narrow for cars, therefore motorscooters are everywhere!

This harbor has a long, curved entrance and at the end, we found six Tradewinds boats. (An eighth boat arrived at 6 p.m.)

Entering Gaios Harbor

Our crew set out to explore the village. For dinner that night, most of the Tradewinds crew ended up at the same restaurant where we enjoyed a full moon. After dinner the music and dancing began.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day so most skippers were planning to leave before dawn, which is at 7 a.m. Butch and Kelli decided to "buddy-boat" to Meganisi, and Butch announced that he would be up at 5:30 to get a really early start.

Tradewinds members dance to Greek music