We started out the day with a “boat meeting.” We know the winds are going to pick up again on Friday and Saturday so we need to find a safe harbor to “hide” from the Meltemi. We would like to be on an island that has a ferry to Santorini. Our current plan was to stay on Paros in a different harbor and hopefully take the ferry to Santorini on Saturday, but after checking the ferry schedule that wasn’t going to work so we are back to figuring out our plan.
After our “meeting” we went into town. We split up and Rick and I went had breakfast, walked around, and did some grocery shopping. We visited Church of Panaya of Ekatontapiliani, literally the church with 100 doors which is a historic Byzantine church complex. The origin of the church’s name is obscure, as it does not have one hundred doors, or gates. The church dates to 326 BC. Its oldest features likely predate the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire in 391. The church was purportedly founded by the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (ruled 306–337), Saint Helen, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land when she stopped to worship at a chapel on the island. Later Justinian is credited for initiating construction on the site as well. Here are pictures from our town tour including a picture of the income ferry with hordes of people.
We went back to the boat and prepared to leave. There wasn’t much wind and the seas were calm so we didn’t put the dinghy on the deck and we left the motor on the dinghy.
We weren’t far out of the harbor and decided that the motor could fall off the dinghy so we stopped and moved the motor to its position on the back of the boat. Like I said, we were lucky that the seas were calm.
We motored to Naoussa which is one option for riding out the storm. We toured the harbor which had several huge yachts, one had a lot of toys, a couple of relatively small sailboats, jet skis, kayaks, a slide, etc. but decided not to stay there.
We continued on and anchored at Golden Beach on Paros which is a beautiful beach with a couple of resorts.
We were the only boat in the harbor. Terry, Mike, Kay, and Rick went swimming while Joanne and I guarded the boat. 😉
That evening we talked some more about our route but no decision was made. I think we are going to have trouble fitting in all the places we want to go.
We dinghied to shore and had to beach the dinghy so it was a “wet landing.” We had a nice dinner, followed by a game of spades.
Here are some pictures of Golden Beach.
