Friday 26th May and today we are heading to the famous Chalkis Bridge.
Sailing northward up the channel has been vastly different and an enjoyable change from our usual inter-island one tack passages and today was to be no exception. Again a relatively short 18 mile trip and in sight of land all the way – a novelty these days.
Although the above chart excerpt shows our straight rhum line to the entrance of the channel into Chalkis (Wpt. No. 1), we in fact tacked between Evoia and the mainland most of the way up & we weren’t too rusty after years of using Peggy (our self steering mechanism).
Ak Alvis is the low lying spit with the lighthouse (below) marking the entrance through the shipping channel. You can just see how shallow it is from the second picture of the guy fishing well off the point and the water just reaching up to his shins.
One past this spit ship yards line the shore and you get your first proper view of the new road bridge, under that and then Chalkis itself.
We did eventually have to use the engine in the fairway where we had to dodge two big Large Bulk Carriers, one exiting from under the new road bridge around a blind corner! and another being towed by a couple of tugs.
“Khalkis Yacht Club” (Voukari) in the distance. We think Bob & Andrea stayed here for a while a few years back.
1st view of the town proper
You can see (below) in the distance a number of boats anchored nearer the old bridge in preparation for that night’s passage through when it opens.
Chalkis fortress on the hill and the main town centre off to the right acrosss the bridge
We however had planned a stay of a few days to see the town & explore.
We anchored in the large bay on the left hand side near another Moody belonging to Sam & Graham who it turns out are friends from the same winter boat yard as Dale & Linda. Small world!
Sam & Graham’s Moody
Views back from our anchorage to where we came from.
