South to Lemnos

We left Samothraki on the 19^th August to head south back down 34 miles or so to Lemnos.

This time we were planning to anchor on the north coast before sailing around to Mirini.

The passage SSW to Lemnos

The Seajet ferry leaving Samothraki didn’t half kick up a wake, all the boats lurched about straining at their  mooring ropes.

   

Wash from the Seajet Ferries

On clearing the headland outside Kamariotissa we were met with a large swell from the NE on our beam. This was to be a feature of our sailing around these parts, not dangerous, but uncomfortable.

I see from the log we were underway for over 8 hours and 3 of them motor sailing.

We anchored in Ormos Hefaistia a small inlet off the larger bay Ormos Pournias.

Picture from the pilot of  1st anchorage (top middle) and 2nd anchorage (top left).

The beach on Ormos Hefaistia was a kite surfing Mecca. Some of the surfers were fantastic, if just a little too fast and too close to the boat at times.

It was a largish inlet but shallow so we had to anchor quite far out. We didn’t bother going ashore as there seemed only to be a type of “Cantina” Taverna that shut quite early in the evening presumably after the surfers had returned to their tents and campervans. The ancient site & amphitheatre of the same name was at the south of the bay.

The pilot book said reasonable shelter from the Meltemi and that was all it was, a bit of swell crept in, but not enough to prevent us staying two nights.

All in all quite stunning.

    

Sunset Ormos Hefaistia

It was now Wednesday and we were expecting strong winds at the weekend so we started to make our way back towards Mirini.

Just past the cape (Mourtzeflos) at the NW of the island there is a small sheltered bay just under the sand bar. This was our 2^nd anchorage stop on Lemnos. There was a French boat in when we arrived but he headed off in the afternoon and helpfully pointed out the better sandy bit he had been in so we moved over a wee bit.

Wolfgang & Renate had looked in earlier before we arrived but were getting conflicting depths from their chart plotters so decided to give it a miss. We also didn’t have any detail on our plotters but just felt our way in using the depth gauge. The pilot clearly showed it as an anchorage so we thought it should be OK. There was a shallow patch but we felt it was far enough away. The holding was very good & the anchor was well in . It was completely “black” dark at night – no transits whatsoever. Good stars though.

In the morning we were woken up by a fast rib circling us with what could only be described as the Greek equivalent of the SBS armed to the teeth. Having eyeballed us they took off again, presumably looking for refugees. We heard later that it costs about 5,000 Euros a head to come across to Greece so presumably they are on the lookout for boats illegally transporting migrants?

   

The anchorage late afternoon, you can see the sandbar to the right of the wee house

  

….. and in the morning  ….. and leaving. The dip in the distance is the sandbar.

Its now Thursday 22nd August and we made our way 7 miles to Mirini where we anchored off in the harbour  at 11:00 in the morning with 30m of chain. Perhaps may need a bit more later?