January started off with a bang or should I say a blow with the temperature dropping winds increasing, thunder, lightning and hailstones.over the past couple of days. Not very conducive to sailing. In fact during January is renowned for 3 Coptic gales:-
- 11 Jan El Fedra, STRONG Gale, 3 days
- 19 Jan El Kibira, Feeder Gale, 5 days
- 28 Jan El Fedra, STRONG Gale, 2 days
The gales appear like clockwork year after year. The "Coptic chart" is named after one of the ancient religions and was devised many years ago in Alexandria (Egypt) but ask any local seafarer and you will find that most keep a copy handy or check the Internet. Perhaps ElFedra is a little early, but you can see that the weather during the month has a few challenges.
Our own boats are out of the water for maintenance, apart from Arcturus Of Dover our RYA training vessel which has booking running throughout the winter.
One boat was sunk in Paphos Harbour which is not a safe anchorage in winter happily only cosmetic damage by black rubber tyres rubbing against the white topsides as the boat ranged against the quay facing into the oncoming swell.
Today Children from our kids sailing school were due to come and and start helping to maintain their optimist dinghies, however they are suffering from colds, so we will see what happens with tomorrows group.
