I experienced a fair bit of quandary over whether or not I should write this blog, but at the end of the day - as with my 14th of February blog on life in Spain - I owe it to you to be honest about our lives. All of it; the good, the bad and the ugly.
I think it was the statistics about my number of site visits that played a role. While the temptation occasionally exists - I am not writing blogs, like the many popular sailing bloggers out there, about places to visit, rating restaurants and museums or giving sailing tips - that’s not what I am about. I am sharing my personal experiences, my challenges and victories as I adopt this new way of life. I believe that the people that choose to read what I write do so because it’s personal and real and something they can relate to.
The support I have received and the constant visitors are the reasons that I want to share this journey with you. 3567 people have read at least one of my blogs since I published the first on arrival in Barcelona on 25 January 2020. Somehow there is a story behind that.
So in the spirit of transparency and the facts that we are now safe and the mother knows what happened, here it goes - the bad and the ugly.
My last blog was about being bashed around by freak 20 knot plus winds in the Lefkada quay while getting our engines serviced. I deemed that as scary, wow - little did I know! Let me just remind you I am not a tough seasoned seaman who races in Cape to Rio, but darn I think after this I might just get there. I certainly have grown some balls.
Part of sailing, and especially living on a yacht, is always being aware of the upcoming weather in relation to where you are now and where you are heading. So on Tuesday, with the forecast of an approaching storm for Thursday, we quickly decided to get the hell out of Lefkada quay as soon as our engines were ready - which turned out to be a good decision. We spent a while deciding what would potentially be the most sheltered bay on Lefkada Island and aborted our plans to sail further South to Kefalonia. We hunkered down in the ironically named Tranquillity bay, with 60m of anchor chain out and two lines ashore to the end of a headland we hoped would protect us from the brunt of the predicted NE.
By Wednesday the storm had been upgraded to a category 1 Medicane - a Mediterranean hurricane named Ianos - and its predicted West to East path of destruction kept moving North, to where we were. Throughout the day the yachts continued to arrive, also seeking shelter in this bay offering 100% protection from winds and swell. Hello, I guess that would have been under normal circumstances! It was with interest we noticed the immense work going on around us to safely anchor, or tie ashore if lucky enough to find a spot, and to tie down and secure as much as possible.
We waited with increasing anticipated horror as Ianos kept creeping North and the original three islands in its path - Zakinthos, Kefalonia and Ithaca - now included Lefkada. The forecasts warned of winds over 200 km/h with over 500mm of rain for a minimum of 48 hours. So no, not just a passing squall then.
It started Thursday evening and again we put poor Russell and my sister Vanessa on alert (also Tony, but somehow he thought he had the day shift and went to bed early 😜). We decided to get some sleep while we could, knowing we were going to be up when it hit us with full strength in the early hours of Friday morning, and we doubted we would get much sleep after that. By 03:00 it was time to be constantly alert, the conditions were wild. Sitting with a cup of coffee we watched the horror unfolding around us as boats started to drag their anchors in the fierce winds. At one stage there were three yachts and two motor boats battling the waves and winds in the dark trying to find a safe place to re-anchor. Panicking skippers were blowing horns and flashing lights to try avoid being crashed into by these barely in control boats.
Either it was in pure desperation, or selfishness or just plain stupidity that resulted in more than one yacht crossing anchor chains with another and to start dragging the poor victim around as well. I think it was a combination of all three that resulted in a largish motor yacht dropping far too little anchor far too close to us in the hope of getting some shelter from the headland of which we were at the end. He spent the better part of four hours with his engine on, using his side thrusters to move away from our bow each time the wind and swell blew him too close. And sometimes he required some encouragement from our horn.
Eventually he paid the price of laying out too little chain and went flying backwards as his anchor gave way. It was a close call as he almost collided with another yacht (Andy) and in the panic managed to collect both Andy’s and our chains with his dragging anchor. It was with some detachment that I watched a beautiful red and grey lilo, followed by some plastic crates, blow past our bow as the motor yacht spun around in circles trying to break free from Andy’s chain. Poor Andy was dragged around and then let loose to suddenly find himself being blown onto the two catamarans anchored behind him. The motor yacht managed to get their anchor up at last, ignoring their deck cushions flying overboard and away (just not a priority at that stage), complete with some other chain wrapped around the end. They threw the other chain back into the water - I still don’t know whose it was - and pissed off to go endanger someone else.
Meanwhile Andy was trying to position himself to re-lay his anchor, but thanks to the motor yachts drama had become entangled in our chain. How our shore lines didn’t snap through all of this is a mystery, poor GypsyDjango was being pulled from both ends. Andy couldn’t hear our horn in the wind so we enlisted the two local Greeks, who were trying to further secure their five “for hire” speedboats next to us in the morning light, to give Kevin a lift down to Andy. Eventually Andy got his anchor safely down and we agreed to wait till after the storm to try and untangle.
The day passed with ferocious winds and heavy rain. Our ropes were groaning with the strain and my level of tension has never been so high. I have never been as scared and, certainly that terrified, over such a sustained period of time. We kept checking weather updates and knew Ianos would abate slightly by midnight, which thankfully it did. We were able to get some sleep at last - and sleep we did. Lights out.
The adrenaline that kept us going, alert and on watch, is now gone and we are depleted. It’s a beautiful day and one that belies the belief of Ianos.
We are very grateful to be safe, on an exceptionally stable and safe yacht, and grateful that we made the right decisions and made them early - our timing and sheltered position definitely paid off. There are reports of at least five vessels that have been sunk, including in Lefkada quay (aren’t we glad we got out of there). With wave heights recorded of 7m, crazy winds, flash floods, at least a 1000 people rescued by the fire department and still some missing this is being reported as the strongest Medicane in history. Thankfully they are extremely rare.
You can read more about the damaged caused if interested at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/19/deadly-mediterranean-hurricane-ianos-hits-central-greece )
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