Cornith Canal Transit

Entrance to the Canal

After sailing the English Channel, Bay of Biscay, Atlantic Coast, and Ionian Sea we were on our final leg to cross into the Agean Sea. The shortest route from Sicily to the Agean Sea is via the Cornith Canal. With the canal closed on Tuesday's for maintenance, a 50% surcharge added for transiting on a Sunday and an extra 25% if you conduct a night transit we needed to plan our arrival at the canal entrance carefully. The extra costs were a good incentive to ensure we had our timings right!


Sabbaticus is #3 in the convoy

The Canal  is one of  of the most expensive canals per mile in the world - costing E270 (NZ$410) to transit the 3.2 miles.  The canal is only 25mtrs wide with a maximum permitted draught of 6.5mtrs and a maximum air height of 52mtrs. The impressive limestone walls rise to 79mtrs above sea level. There are two hydraulic bridges across the canal near each end. These bridges are lowered down onto the water with traffic lights indicating when you can enter into the canal. For yachts transiting the canal they may have to wait up to three hours for a commercial ship before entering the canal. Thankfully we only had a 30 minute wait before a container ship arrived for us to join a small convoy of three yachts following the ship through the canal.



For those interested in the history of the canal the following is an excerpt from The Greek Water Pilot Guide which advises the ancient Greek's used to drag ships across the isthmus on a paved road. At various times the Greek and Roman rulers worked out schemes for a canal but Nero was the only one to start digging. Using 6,000 Jews, he didn't even get to the rock before insurrections in Gaul diverted his energies. The present canal was started by the French and finished by the Greeks in 1893. It was enlarged after damage suffered during WWII and now comprises three bridges, a railway bridge and two road bridges.   

Greek Orthodox Church in Aigina

After transiting the canal we were now finally in the Agean Sea and had a couple of nights anchored off Aigina Island. While sailing to Aigina we observerd huge amounts of plastic materials and rubbish in the water - the most we had ever seen with our fishing line repeatedely snagging plastic bags. With a couple of days to spare and clear, clean water John cleaned the 'boot strap' (the waterline down to about 45cm of the boat). During this task John checked our anchor only to discover it was only half dug into the sand - not good when we were close to shore and the harbour breakwater!  After pulling up the anchor we then moved another 150mtrs and dug ourselves firmly into the sand this time.  During our time at anchor we enjoyed watching the continuous flow of ferries from Athens (20mins by ferry) the hydrofoil's were great to watch as their speed increased.

The holiday finally begins...

It was a short sail of 15NM across to Athens. Just as we dropped the sails John noticed a couple waving frantically at us from the marina breakwater. It was fantastic to see Maree and Colin (John's sister and brother-in-law) through the binocular's. After 3,700NM we had finally arrived in Athens on time and are ready to enjoy a holiday cruising with Maree and Colin for the next six weeks through the Greek Islands.

Below are some additional photos from of the Cornith Canal and our time on the Island of Aigina.