A Shaggy dog story and the Lucky Bastards Club

On the next leg of our Greek Odyssey from Skyros to Andros – the northernmost island in the Cyclades – we had some delightful company, a beautiful fluffy white Samoyed dog called Gursi.

She wasn’t a exactly a stowaway and no, we didn’t press gang her but we did offer to have her aboard for the seven-hour trip to help out fellow yachties.

Gursi belongs to Andrew and Lisa, the son and daughter-in-law of our sailing buddies Sue and John from Catabella, who were travelling with us aboard their Bavaria 36, Sea Pony, along with Gursi, another Samoyed puppy called Elsie, and their almost five-month old baby boy.

On the previous passage Gursi had been a little anxious and Lisa was having to try and soothe her, look after the baby and cope with her own seasickness – all at the same time! So it was decided that Gursi would travel with us on this next leg.

Gursi was very happy once we had made her a “kennel” under the outdoor table by enclosing it with cushions.

The trip went very smoothly and soon we were anchored in the bay at Batsi, an old fishing port on the island of Andros.

Gursi had been incredibly good on the trip but as soon as she heard Elsie’s joyful bark across the water she was definitely ready to go and join her aboard Sea Pony.

Batsi is an attractive town with lovely, stylish shops and many restaurants and tavernas. Despite being quite touristy it has kept a traditional and picturesque charm.

The port had beautifully clean and clear water and a pretty beach at one end.

After a couple of nights we decided to head on to Kea, another one of the Cyclades islands, as Catabella and Sea Pony, who were tied up at the wall, were experiencing some nasty swells.

Gursi travelled with us once again and was an absolute angel! It was so lovely to be travelling with canine company!

It was only a four-hour trip this time so we arrived in plenty of time to enjoy getting to know our new anchorage. We anchored in a small village called Vourkari in the bay of Aghios Nikolaos.

The bay is reputed to be one of the most sheltered and safe bays in this group of islands (the Cyclades) and for this reason it is, of course, quite crowded at times.

When we arrived, there seemed to be plenty of room for everyone but when we were on the way back from an evening stroll we witnessed an Italian skippered charter yacht trying to anchor in between Catabella and Sunday.

Fortunately Sue and John were on board and requested that the skipper anchor his 53 feet yacht elsewhere. To give his due, he did so but then he anchored slightly further out but still far too close to us and another New Zealand flagged yacht.

We were still in our dinghy at this point so we motored up to the yacht and asked politely if he could anchor further out – but he rudely refused and told us to go to the police if we didn’t like it! Fortunately the wind didn’t change during the night otherwise he could have hit us as he moved round. We weren’t sorry to see him leave the next morning!

A couple of day’s later we noticed that a couple in a nearby yacht was having difficulty pulling up their anchor. It looked as if they’d become tangled in some old mooring chains on the seabed.

This sort of thing has happened to us (and buddy boats) before and Jonathan has a great piece of “kit” that he uses in such situations – a great big hook attached to a piece of rope that can be used to take the pressure off the anchor chain enabling it to be freed.

It turned out that the couple were from Russia and had limited English but that didn’t stop them inviting Jonathan over for a drink on their boat later that day.

He said he felt very sorry for them as they felt unable to return to their country but all their loved ones were still there. So sad.

Our next island was Kythnos which we had visited before in 2020 when we were travelling to Turkey during Covid and had been told to leave Greece as we had used up our 90 Schengen days. That time we anchored on one side of a glorious sand spit in Ormos Kolona and later moved to the other side due to a terrible swell.

We decided this time to stop in another anchorage – Ormos Flampouria, a delightfully quiet little bay which is by-passed by most charter boats.

The water here was beautifully clear and there was a picturesque little church on the headland which is apparently used a lot for weddings.

There were two downsides – an uncomfortable swell caused by an unusual westerly wind and a lot of heavy vehicle traffic noise caused by massive trucks moving to and fro from a building site on the side of a nearby hill. The upside was that there was a friendly taverna off the beach with cool drinks and very good Greek Salads.

Sadly, this is where we parted company with Catabella and Sea Pony for the time being as we were heading for Poros where we were picking up our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter who were joining us for a couple of weeks.

Sea Pony and Catabella were sailing back to Kea – Andrew and Lisa and their baby were leaving their boat there for a few days while they flew back to Austria and their dogs were being driven back by their friend Dora who had been staying with them for a short holiday. Sue and John were also having to leave for a week or two because their Schengen days were running out!

Before we parted we gathered for a photo shoot of all us in our wonderful “Lucky Bastards” Club t-shirts that Andrew and Lisa had commissioned and surprised us with.

It took us roughly seven hours to get to Poros and we sailed much of the way which was excellent.

Last time we had visited Poros was in 2020 and we were looking forward to seeing this lovely island again!