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WOW the night was rough, due to the steady mild chop in the seas. But I managed to sleep anyhow. We decided on an early start, so by 6:30 AM we had pulled up anchor and started heading out, with a final destination of Ermione. The original plan was to stop after a few hours for a swim and some lunch, then continue on to Ermione, where by brother-in-law and his girls would go exploring the caves for a good climb or two. We started to get enough wind to start sailing, but we decided to just motor our way straight to Ermione without any stops, to allow for maximum climbing time in Ermione.
Once we arrived in Ermione, the docks were fairly empty so it was an ideal place for Jenn and I to practice our stern-to docking. The dock was basically a cement dock, running parallel to the shore for a half mile or so. We managed to get docked with help from our coach, Jason. Once the climbers were out on their land-side exploring adventure, Jennifer and I prepared for more stern-to docking—this time the coach would be sitting on the shore, so he could not help us much at all. It took me a lot longer than an experienced skipper, but we made it in and docked stern-to on our first attempt! Nice. At my experience level, the most important part of the stern-to docking process is the check that the anchor is holding. For each test, once it feels that the anchor is holding with the throttles idling in reverse gear, I rev the engines up to about 1500 RPM each, to make sure the anchor holds. Then we can drop a bit more chain, then test again, as we get closer and closer to that cement dock. With me doing multiple checks in that way, I gain confidence that the anchor will prevent us from colliding into the cement dock, and my anxiety decreases significantly. Well, look: this first real stern-to dock without any help from a coach was a success!
We decided to try one more stern-to docking before connecting up to shore power for a bit. At this time it was a bit before 5pm, which in retrospect was not the greatest idea: 5PM is when the big rush happens, since that is the time that the dock manager comes around to activate the shore power and water columns at the docks. Well I took us out to position us for the docking. Since I take a lot more time than your average skipper coming in to dock, by the time I was all lined up for the stern-to, one boat was already heading towards us. The docking was going well, except that we started dropping anchor too early and ran out of anchor chain! So we had to pick up the anchor and try again. By this time now the rush had started—while we were picking upo anchor, a catamaran came in and parked in the spot we were targeting. And by the time I was all lined up, now I was parking between two boats. Well the docking still went well, until close to the end of the process the anchor slipped and we then needed some quick help from the coach who jumped on the boat and saved us from knocking the boats next to us. Since our anchor was not holding, we needed to pick the anchor back up and go for another stern-to. But the anchor windlass started to lose power, and was hot to the touch. So it was not safe to pick up anchor chain anymore, we needed to sit parked to allow enough time for the windlass to cool down. But how can we sit parked when the anchor is not securing us? The answer was to tie off stern lines to the dock, and then start engines and put the engine in forward gear—this would prevent too much swinging, and the stern lines would prevent us from going too far out. An added bonus to this approach was that the engines would also charge the batteries. So we sat that way until Steve and the girls came back from their onshore climbing adventure. To give us more time, they went for a quick reprovisioning, then we backed up enough for all to get back onboard before we finally picked up anchor and headed out for our destination for the evening: A bay off the cast of Dokos (Skindos Bay, to be exact).
Skindos bay was less than an hour away, so a quick motoring was all we needed before picking a spot and anchoring stern-to with stern lines running to shore.
We had a nice dinner on board, pan-fried salmon with rice, and then settled in for the night.
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( Part of series: Bareboat Charter in Greece 2026 )