Kim Kramer & Cay Rose
(inducted 2011)
Dear
King Neptune:
We respectfully submit some details of our recent adventure in Greece for your consideration for admittance into the Blue Water Society.
With little or no sleep during our 10 hour flight on August 20, 2010, from JFK to Athens, and flying through a 7 hour time zone, we arrived at the airport in Athens at 9:30 AM the next day. After gathering our luggage, we hopped in a cab and headed straight for the Kalamaki Marina in Alimos, just south of the ferry hub in Piraeus. With the Greek economy in shambles and threatening ferry strikes, rather than take our chances by traveling to the Cyclades by ferry and chartering our boats from Paros, we decided to charter our boats from Athens and sail to the Cyclades. This decision meant that we would sail overnight an estimated 15-18 hours to Mykonos, the first stop on our itinerary.
Exhausted from the flight and 7 hour time difference with no place to take a nap, we waited at the marina restaurant until everyone arrived and then headed to our boats to unpack and provision. We chartered two 43 foot monohulls with 8 people per boat. The owner of our boat greeted us with hesitation and immediately suggested that we not sail to the Cyclades due to the Aegean Sea’s notorious Meltemi winds forecast to be in full force for the next 4 days. Not knowing exactly what that meant but knowing that if we listened to him, our itinerary would be blown, we continued to provision the boats while our skippers spoke with the owners. Both skippers have had extensive experience sailing in all conditions and were able to convince the owners that sailing in the forecasted conditions would not be a problem. The crew? Well, mostly fair weather J24 sailors…
Before setting sail, our skippers gave us a boat and safety briefing which included identifying where certain things were located, and the requisite head use instruction and water usage etiquette. The last things we went over were where the harnesses were located and how to use them. I laughed to myself when Thierry pulled these out and while I was trying one on and figuring out how to adjust it, I couldn’t help but laugh again and whisper to myself, “Pfff harnesses, yeah, like we’re going to need these…….”
Our boat pulled out first with help from Matt and some of his crew. He smiled and waved good-bye as we shoved off the dock. Then, while tossing us our bow lines, he knocked his radio off his beltclip and straight into the water where it quickly sank and was no longer retrievable. They still had the radio down below. It was 5:00 PM, sunny and still 90 degrees. The winds were approximately 20 knots and the seas about 3-4 feet. These were exciting conditions for most of us and held steady for about 2 hours. As the wind and seas picked up and about 3 hours into the sail, 2 people on each boat were down for the count. Seasick, they went down below where they would remain for the rest of our journey unable to witness what was to come….
As the sun went down, the winds picked up. Exhausted having been awake since the morning prior, I went down below to take a nap. It took quite a while to fall asleep and stay asleep given that I was pinned against the leeward wall and occasionally levitating above the bed. I woke a couple of hours later when Cay came in with a horrified look on her face bracing herself against anything that wouldn’t move. When I asked her how things were going up top, she said that the wind was gusting to 35 knots, the seas were huge coming at us from the stern and beam, people were getting tossed around, everyone was harnessed and clipped onto the boat, it was scary but exciting and after grabbing her headlamp, life vest and whistle, she was going back up for more. I thought back to the boat briefing at that point and remembered that we didn’t quite have enough adult harnesses and was no longer laughing at the thought of a harness. Wanting to see what was happening up on deck, after what felt like being inside a washing machine down below, I immediately asked where the remaining harnesses were located. Cay told me that Susan had one with her in her cabin where she has been filling up trash bags full of vomit for the past 4 hours. Grabbing my headlamp and foulies, I stood up from our bed and fell into Cay and back on the bed again. Attempting it again, I held onto the wall and made my way out of our cabin only to go airborne into the Nav station. I was able to then find the harness but putting it on standing up was a challenge so I sat down on the floor and wedged myself between the table and seat, adjusted my harness, then stood up and carefully climbed the stairs to the cockpit at which point my jaw dropped.
Saying a quick hello, I clipped myself onto the boat and sat in silence as I watched Thierry turn the boat nearly 180 degrees towards a 10 foot wave at our port side beam while feeling and seeing the stern of the boat peel down the front of the wave as we tried to crest it. Turning back quickly, my once dry self was completely soaked. We continued to do these near 180s roughly every 5 minutes taking waves over our heads that in no time soaked us through to our underwear. Luckily the water and air were warm.
At this point, we had our main sail reefed twice. A third reefing point, although desirable, was not available on our rig. Our furling jib was rolled in to what looked like the size of the jib on my 17’ O’Day Daysailer-tiny. I was then informed that at some point when I was down below, we lost sight of our second boat, but had been in regular radio contact with them.
When Cay came back up, she sat down next to me and we sat in silence for a while. The water was churning, white and foamy and every few minutes the skipper would yell “Hold on!” as we got hit by another huge gust, followed by the jolt of a crashing wave breaking over our heads and a huge bang that sounded like the whole boat was breaking apart. The winds at this point were gusting to 40 knots.
Watching what was happening around us, I turned to Cay and said, “This is f*cking insane! And we have 12 more hours of this?!?!? “ After several more waves, twists and turns, I then asked, “Is this really ok? Should we prepare a ditch bag? Where’s the EPIRB? We have 12 more hours of this?!?!, Holy Crap”. The moon was full and the sky was clear so the seas were easy to see, which I’m not sure was a blessing or a curse. We could see, but what we were looking at reminded me of the sailboat in the movie “The Perfect Storm,” except it wasn’t raining, thankfully. If not for the full moon, we would have been left with only the loud and eerie sound of the howling wind. We wouldn’t have seen the boom as it went in the water nor the tears in the sails as they started to form.
Hours and hours passed with much of the same. It was as equally thrilling as it was terrifying. The few of us able to remain took shifts and at midnight, Thierry and I were the only ones on deck. Pete, who was hanging off the side of the boat vomiting finally decided to try going down below and get some sleep. With my hands on the main sheet ready to ease at a moment’s notice, Thierry indicated that he needed to pee. Knowing that I would likely not have the chance to helm in these conditions again, I offered to take the wheel. We called up Vicki to take the main sheet and I walked back to the wheel while yet another 10 foot wave came at our beam. Thierry turned the boat hard to port, the stern of the boat spun out, we crested the wave, turned back and while still holding onto it asked me to grab hold of the wheel. Scared to death and worried that I wouldn’t have the strength to turn the boat in these conditions, he stood behind me facing aft and let go of the wheel. Not 10 seconds later, another wave came and nearly launched me off the boat. With my head held down, I gave Thierry back the wheel and he continued to steer the boat and had no choice but to pee himself.
Sometime around 3:00 AM, due to the strong headwinds from the north, we realized we weren’t going to make it to Mykonos that night. So we radioed our companion boat and decided to abandon course. Sailing northeast into the wind would have gotten us nowhere, so we re-routed our course to Paros.
At 6:00 AM, I went back down below hoping to catch another nap. I woke to the sound of the anchor dropping in broad daylight. We were in the harbor off Agios Georgios beach on the south side of the island of Antiparos, over 25 nautical miles southwest of Mykonos. Our second boat was in Pariokia on the island of Paros, about 6 nautical miles north and east of us. Our sails were down and would not be raised until the five 2-4 foot tears along their leeches were mended. Despite our desperate desire to step foot on terra firma, we stayed the afternoon and evening anchored off Antiparos, the seas still too rough to dingy safely to shore. We all needed lots sleep and a good meal. Before the sun came up the next morning, we raised our anchor and began motoring over to the island of Ios, where we were finally able to step off the boat taking our shredded sails with us. We found a local wind surfing instructor/part time sail mender to repair our sails, with the promise of returning them by the next day. Our boats reunited, we went to a nearby hotel, swam in their pool and relaxed on lounge chairs and were served many very needed cocktails until sunset.
The next day, we raised our sails and headed back into the Meltemi winds with 6 more days on board to come and new itinerary yet to be defined.
