October 27th, 2011

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Thursday Oct 27. Can it get any worse??

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

It blew up a full gale during the night, Force 8, 40 knots plus. It howled and “Fleetwood” was hanging hard on it’s mooring lines. In the middle of the night I added an extra bow line. The spray coming across the bulkhead was like going through a saltwater shower. Everything is covered with a thick crust of salt. It is hard to sleep with the noise and the bouncing. But at least I am in a slightly better protected spot than the boats in the main Khios harbor, see below picture.

It looks like I missed my chance to get to Amsterdam by Saturday. I would have had to take a ferry at midnight today. There are none tomorrow. But there was no way to stick my nose out into this raging terror. So, instead I spent a couple hours finding and dealing with the authorities, immigration, customs, harbor master, pay 30 Euroes to customs 15 to the Harbor master, just like I had done in Mitilini on my first entry into Greece, to become legal. I had seriously considered to skip the nonsense. It makes no sense that a sailor should not be able to sail between these countries that are in many places only a few miles separated from one another. But then I might have run into a problem on leaving Greece from Athens.

It looks like it might calm down some on Friday but only Monday starts a return to more normal conditions.