We didn't visit the rock on which a scene from the 2008 ABBA musical ‘Mamma Mia’ was shot for the film with Meryl Streep. But we did make a detour from the southern tip of the Pilion Mountains past Skiathos to the island of Skopelos in the Northern Sporades. We had already been there three years ago with our friends Andrea and Axel. This time we wanted to try a different harbour: Loutraki. Sail Aegean has moorings there. We had signed up. What we didn't know beforehand was that the ferries make a lot of swell there and you have to lay 50 metres of anchor chain across the whole harbour, even though there are murings. We didn't quite understand this, but Katerina from Sail Aegean will know why. Letting out 50 metres of chain while reversing and that in a crosswind - mamma mia! That's difficult with our long keeler. We tried, but then gave up and travelled three nautical miles further south to Neo Klima. The wind came from the front when we moored and we only needed 20 metres of chain. Everything was fine.
Obviously not much has changed in Neo Klima in three years, but something very important for sailors has: Most of the places at the pier are now occupied by Athenean Yachting. You can't simply moor there as you usually can in Greek harbours. This is a development that we are also observing in other harbours. The large charter companies are ‘hijacking’ the berths in the municipal harbours.
We visited Loutraki again the next day on foot during a lovely hike.
In the meantime, we are already back on the mainland, heading north towards Olympus.
