Bow of a white sailing boat over clear turquoise water, seen from above

A week on a boat we barely knew how to sail

Five friends, a 32-foot sloop out of Alimos and seven days in the Saronic gulf.

by Elena Koutsou 8 minute read 1.6K views 1.2K shares

The plan fitted on a napkin: Aegina, Poros, Hydra, Spetses, back to Athens. Nikos had passed his day-skipper exam in 2023 and had sailed exactly one weekend since, so the charter company gave us a two-hour handover instead of one. The man from the marina showed us the bilge pump, the holding tank, the gas shut-off and the one winch that sticks, then shook our hands and walked off down the pontoon. It was four in the afternoon and we had a boat.

We did not leave that day. We spent the evening finding where things lived – the winch handles were under the chart table, the fenders in a locker we had assumed was the anchor well – and eating gyros on deck while the ferries came in. The next morning we motored out of Alimos at seven with the sails still tied down, because nobody wanted to try hoisting them in front of the marina office.

The boat does not care what your plan was. You go where the wind lets you, and the wind that week wanted us in Poros.

The wind came up off Aegina around eleven, twelve knots from the north, and Nikos said we should try the main. It went up crooked, came down, went up straight. We killed the engine and for the first hour nobody spoke much. Aegina slid past on the left with its one hill; the water changed from grey to the blue you see in the brochures and then to something darker. We got to Poros at five, tried to moor stern-to on the town quay, missed, went round, missed again, and were pulled in by a Dutch couple who had clearly done this for other people before.

Hydra, and the day we did not leave

Hydra has no cars, so the harbour is the loudest place on the island: water taxis, mules, a man selling sponges, the church bell. We anchored in Mandraki bay a mile east because the harbour was full by noon, swam in from the boat and walked the coast path into town for dinner. The taverna above the harbour steps charged 14 euros for grilled sardines and a jug of wine, which by the end of the week we understood was cheap.

On Wednesday the meltemi arrived. The forecast said 25 knots gusting 35, and the harbour master came round the moorings telling everyone to stay. We stayed. We read, we played cards, we walked up to the monastery on the ridge and got blown about at the top. It was probably the best day of the trip, and we did not move the boat a metre.

Things we would bring next time, in the order we missed them:

A second anchor, because the first one dragged twice in Mandraki.
A paper chart of the gulf – the plotter went dark for an hour off Spetses.
Twice the water. Five people emptied a 300-litre tank in three days.
Reef ties. We reefed the main with a shoelace.
One more hat than the number of people.

We came back into Alimos on Saturday morning under engine, tied up on the first try and stood on the pontoon slightly surprised. The boat cost 1,900 euros for the week between five of us; fuel and mooring fees were another 260, and we ate out most nights for about 20 euros a head. Nobody fell in. Nikos has booked the same boat for September.