World history was written here - or at least prepared. But if you were standing on the top of the enclosing wall between the young people, who are dangling their legs in high spirits with a view of the water, you would never guess it. The atmosphere is too sunny, the laughter too exuberant. Party instead of pathos. Óla kalá is what the Greeks say - "everything is fine".
At the centre is the Bay of Zeawhich is so circular that it looks almost artificial. Its narrow entrance and long pier offer the best protection, even when Notos - the god of the south wind - sends his storms up the Saronic Gulf in summer.
The floating jetties of the marina run from the shore to the centre of the bay. Boats from all over the world lie side by side, gleaming schooners next to weathered oldies and chrome-plated motor yachts. Further out, they get bigger and bigger, the masts higher.
A meeting of megas that puts even Monaco's Port Hercule in the shade.
The row of buildings that enclose the harbour is just as tightly closed, with restaurants, cafés and bars below and balconies with awnings and parasols above. Not a single spot of façade is wasted - life takes place outside, even at home. Two shopping temples shine in between. A small park with palm trees and dry trees provides shade. In front of it, everything is in motion: Cars, motorbikes, lots of people. The young heart of Piraeus beats here.
Even 2500 years ago, boats were anchored in the bay, but they were exclusively triremes. Around two hundred of the slender three-oarers were also housed in stone drying sheds on land: Piraeus had always served the much larger metropolis as a gateway to the Mediterranean with its trade routes to the known world. A position that had to be defended - and Zea was Athens' most important war harbour.
This is where the fleet came from that had to face a huge Persian superiority in 480 BC. Their Great King Xerxes was in conquest mode and the war situation did not look good for the Greeks. Even the Oracle of Delphi would not offer any consolation. However, the defenders managed to lure the overconfident attackers into a trap: In the Strait of Salamisbarely five nautical miles north-west of Zea, the battle took place.
Xerxes' fleet was unable to develop there, lost its order and was destroyed. The defeated great king retreated and Athens rose to become the dominant naval power. Without the great victory at Salamis, classical antiquity would have taken a different course - and with it the history of Europe.
"Fleet base" Zea is now a harbour again - for the sailing and motor yachts of The Moorings. After all, the Saronic Gulf still lies in front of the harbour exit, which, as in Xerxes' time, beckons with a whole range of attractive cruising destinations.
Fortunately, we don't have to row: Our charter boat for the coming week is a Moorings 434 Powercat with a powerful Yanmar on each hull. Its name is "Aquaholic". Sounds great: we're addicted to water too.
Mike, the base manager, takes care of the briefing in The Moorings office. Aerial photos on the screen are accompanied by sketch plans. We learn where and when it is possible to moor and where it is better not to moor, where it can get choppy and even where there are dangerous rocks. Whereby "mooring" is relative: there are no marinas in the area, no jetties, no mooring lines, no buoys. "You'll need your anchor every day," promises Mike, either in the bay or in the harbour with the stern to the pier. Even these places are coveted at all times. The season extends into October. So there's good reason for the thorough briefing.
A breeze stirs over the bay of Zea the next morning. The day is dawning, it's going to be very hot.
We left Hamburg in the rain and twelve degrees; here it is already twice as warm. We slowly leave the jetty and head for the harbour entrance. Sunseekers and Sanlorenzos compete in a long row.
Two young women in a two-seater cut the surface of the water. Apart from that, there is only activity on board the "Al Mirqab": the 130-metre megayacht is moored on the inside of the pier, and a whole troop of crew members dressed in white have just started their morning wash with hoses and scrubbing brushes.
The Saronic Gulf is framed by the mountainous coasts of Attica and Argoliswhose blue mountain ranges now loom pale in front of us. Off the island of Salamis, large ships are waiting in the roadstead for clearance at the Piraeus terminals. Our course is south-west, right between a rusty Chinese bulker and a container feeder bearing the Hamburg coat of arms on its bow. It's a good thing we have a roof over our heads:
The hardtop above the flybridge protects you from the sun, and the breeze ensures a pleasant temperature.
At the small island of Lagousa, we are overtaken by a hydrofoil: with roaring turbines, the fast ferry from Soviet times sprints past us in the direction of Aegina.
The island, which is almost ten kilometres long, marks the centre of the Saronic Gulf. The shores rise gently towards the interior, where pistachio and olive trees grow. We pass the main town of the same name, where the ferry has just docked, and follow the rocky coast further south to the harbour of Perdika, which Mike had recommended to us.
We're in luck: a space has just become available on the pier. We drop the anchor and, as we move stern-first towards the berth, we put out about thirty metres of chain. For this kind of manoeuvre, our Powercat with its two widely spaced drives, we fill the gap with pinpoint accuracy and pass our stern lines ashore to a helping hand.
The only problem is that a large rock is "integrated" into the wall at this exact point and we can't get close enough to land for our plank. No problem: we lower the dinghy and use it as a "ferry" to overcome the missing metre.
Along the stone-paved promenade, one taverna after another beckons.
White-covered wooden tables are lined up under bright awnings and canopies and the hosts can't complain: there is no shortage of foreign tourists or Greek day visitors from Athens. After all, it's Sunday! Beer is served in frosted glasses, coffee in small cups. Roasting on the grill Octopus and bream. Nevertheless, Perdika doesn't seem overcrowded - and the city dwellers have disappeared by the evening anyway.
Peace also reigns in the cool interior of the Orthodox church with its silent procession of painted saints. And in the winding alleyways above the harbour, only the cats ensure that the Greek still life of white walls and blue shutters under the even bluer sky is not quite perfect ...
As the afternoon progresses, the last few places in the bay fill up, whether on the rocks opposite or at anchor, even in the relatively unprotected, deep area in front of the entrance or very close to the shallow sandy beach. The harbour cinema starts when an English charter crew on a sailing yacht manages to hook two other chains at the same time.
Only when darkness falls is the situation untangled again - in the truest sense of the word.
Next day, next island. The weather: "unchanged fantastic" is noted in the logbook. We continue on to Poros. After casting off from Perdika, we have to cross the Gulf of Methana on a southerly course from Aegina. It takes its name from the peninsula in the west, which as a mainland is not only part of the Peloponnese, but - undersea - also of the volcanic Cycladic arcwhich stretches from Corfu to the Turkish coast.
There are correspondingly many sulphur springs on Methana.
However, our route leads past Cape Dana, which we leave on our port side, into the elongated bay of Poros. As the island lies close to the coast and slopes rise on both sides, we have wind here for the first time. the classic jet effect.
The village of Poros itself is located at the narrowest point of the passage on another small peninsula; a high rock, crowned by a clock tower and a Greek flag, dominates the panorama. A winding staircase leads up to it. Below, the houses nestle against the slope like swallows' nests, with oleander blossoming between them. We find a nice spot on the wooden pier in the marina bay to the west of the village.
This time, the landlord of the nearby Taverna Poseidon when mooring. A good advert: we will remember him in the evening and pay him a visit, which we will not regret. At this point, I would like to add that we will remember the openness and friendliness of the people for a long time to come. When Poros has shaken off the heat of the day, it really wakes up: the cafés fill up, mopeds rattle, couples stroll past and we experience a twilight in fantastic colours on our flybridge.
The biggest highlight still awaits us: the island of Hydra in the very south of the area. Because we know that you have to arrive there when the guests from the previous night are leaving - between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning - we set off early. Otherwise, Mike had told us that we would have to anchor in the second or even third row in the harbour. On the way to Cape Skyllaion, we overtake a whole flotilla of sailing yachts with the same destination, but we stay on schedule.
Finally, we round the cape with the passage between the islands of Spathi and Skylli and then head south-west across the Gulf of Hydra. Now we really feel the wind and see whitecaps on the deep blue sea for the first time. The rugged profile of the island looms on the horizon, a spectacular sight!
Another half hour and we are standing in front of the narrow entrance to the deep bay of Hydra. The town spreads out on the hillside like an amphitheatre, with the harbour as its stage. But we are still too late for this performance: inside, we are already in the second row. Mandraki Bay, half a nautical mile to the east, is an alternative, but it's not really attractive - at least compared to Hydra itself: an old cargo ship and an apparently empty hotel don't exactly add to the flair. So we turn round.
We found another alternative in the sailing guide: the barren island of Dokos, just under an hour to the west, uninhabited apart from a monastery and with a spacious natural harbour on the north side, Skindos Bay. Our anchor finally drops in ten metres of water off the eastern shore, and with fifty metres of chain and a long, tightly woven shore line, we are safe and sound. Engine off, silence!
We take the dinghy to the nearby sandy beach; a few donkeys and goats greet us, the bell of the Leithammel rings somewhere between the gnarled bushes and olive trees. Right on the shore is a tiny whitewashed chapel, inside an icon of Ágios Nikólaos, a golden double-headed eagle and a pile of plastic chairs.
The sacristy - not much more than an alcove - is hidden behind a faded curtain. After blue hour, we switch on the underwater lighting and soon fish are darting back and forth in the blue glow. The wind has gone completely to sleep.
Stars and anchor lights are reflected in the bay.
What remains now is to return to Hydra - and this time we have more luck. We find a place, albeit on the outside of the pier. It's deep here, but everyone else feels the same, and the anchor holds. Now we have time to look around.
It's crazy what's going on here: water taxis and ferries plough back and forth, including the "Hydraiki Cruises", the size of a small cruise ship, and flush tourists ashore, blonde Japanese women, Brits with straw hats, but also many Greeks from the mainland.
The semi-circular harbour basin is surrounded by shops and cafés, but not without charm. The kitchens are already chattering. The smell of barbecue rises. A wedding shoot with a white bride against a blue sky takes place at the bastion, and the donkeys at the harbour - Hydra is car-free - nibble peacefully on their carrots.
We are drawn to the Spilia Beach Bar, where you can watch all the hustle and bustle under parasols while enjoying a cold drink. What a great show! And just like at the beginning in Zea, we are right in the middle of it again. This day will also go down in history - our history.
