It was such a treat to enjoy a delicious
meal (followed by a mandatory ice cream cone as we walked back to the dinghy)
and have a relaxing evening after all the wind!
The peace was not to last however, since we had anchored (unknowingly)
below a hill on which stood a nightclub that played ‘doof doof’ music all night
and only stopped at 8am the next morning!
Thank goodness for earplugs is all I can say.
The weather was predicted fine for the next
leg on our journey north so we left Lindos early; our destination for the next
night was not far (about 17nm north) but we wanted to find a good spot and we
were not sure how suitable the anchorage was based on the charts. The area we were headed for is called Ak.
(point or head) Ladhiko and there were anchorages on either side depending on
the wind direction – as we passed the southern side, the wind was blowing from
the north and so it looked okay although small, and fairly tight for a
catamaran of our size, unless we tied stern-to to the rocks. We had a look around the northern side and
found a lovely little bay, although crowded, looked rather nice. We headed back to the southern side for
another look, but in the meantime the wind had changed direction by 180 degrees
(as it does!) and on closer inspection the southern bay was not very appealing –
so back to the northern bay (also known as Anthony Quinn Beach - so called because apparently when he was filming "Guns of Navaronne" here, he loved the area so much that he purchased property in the vicinity and loved to come to this beach) to try and find
an anchorage. Little did we know that
this was a popular day-tripper boat stop and no sooner had we dropped anchor
than we were surrounded by boats, and swimmers.
Fortunately there was little to no wind and we were able to anchor in
fairly shallow water so didn’t have too much swinging room. It was a lovely place to spend the afternoon
and night if you don’t count the obnoxious people who chartered two large motor
yachts and competed with each other for loudness of music – this bay is
surrounded by quite high cliffs on three sides and so the echoing and
reverberations of the Middle Eastern music on one boat and the ‘doof doof’ of
the other was rather deafening!
Anthony Quinn Bay
Interestingly, it was after dark (about
9:30pm) that we heard another yacht enter the bay – by this time we were the
only boat left which was heavenly. Tad
went out on deck to see who it was and saw a charter monohull trying to anchor
in the dark. The challenge of this bay
was that there was a rock shelf as well as large boulders in towards the beach
of which one had to be careful (and aware!) and which you wouldn’t necessarily
see until it was too late. Tad tried to hail the skipper to let him know, but
was ignored. They dropped their anchor
(it must have been literally on the rocks) and then put out so much chain that
they were almost on top of us (even though they were to one side); in fact,
during the night, the wind shifted slightly and they ended up only metres from
our hull. These lovely people then
proceeded to have their dinner and then have a swim later on about 1am – not quietly
in the dark but splashing and yelling and carrying on until about 3am. Naturally we were up bright and early to
depart and made a point of banging pots and pans and yelling at each other to
return the favour. When one of the
people on board (two of them slept in the cockpit) finally raised their head I
told them in simple terms that not only were they rude but also dangerous. The
way they had anchored might have resulted in a collision, but worse for them,
they had so much chain out, that had the wind shifted they would have ended up
on the rocks.
I was so annoyed by these people that I
wrote an email to the charter company and told them of the situation. I received a fairly prompt and polite reply
that it was not the charter company’s responsibility if their charterers
behaved badly (I realised this!) but that they did teach them how to anchor
safely and didn’t recommend anchoring after dark! If you charter in Australia you MUST be
anchored or moored and checked in via radio by 3pm!
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