Windy days

We set off for Nisiros early on Monday morning with a gentle Northwesterly breeze, flying the cruising chute to keep up a decent speed. We arrived in Pali

in time for a late lunch in our favourite taverna, Afroditi, where they wanted to know where Kai was (everywhere we go we are asked, 'where is Kai?'). We swam off the harbour wall and went back to Afroditi for dinner. With strong northerly winds forecast, we decided that it was time to start heading north for John to get his flight back, so we headed for Kos marina next morning (we also needed to do some washing and get some boat bits - to replace an exhaust pipe that had sprung a leak and other bits and pieces). We started with no wind, then a bit of a breeze for a short while, then nothing at all, then as we approached Kos we suddenly had 20-25 knots, and even more as we turned the corner to thread our way through the windsurfers. We tied up in the marina, got the washing on, and could not get any of the boat bits we needed.
Next morning was blowing hard, so we set off to beat to Vathi with one reef in. We sailed on one tack to the Turkish shore, then tacked back towards Pserimos. As we came towards Pserimos the wind was gusting up to 30 knots so we tried to put in the second reef, but the reef line jammed so we decided to motor the rest of the way to Vathi, where we got into the last comfortable spot on the quay. In the afternoon Lin and John walked up to one of the ruined early christian churches.

We were just going to bed at about 10 pm, with the wind howling, when a German charter boat came in, having just picked up their boat and left Kos at 6pm. They blithely dropped their anchor across ours, despite our protestations, insisting that there was no problem, 'it is just like camping', then scraped their rudder on the rocky bottom, despite shouted warnings that it was shallow, before getting tied up at the second attempt. Next morning we we ready to leave at 7.30, and eventually managed to rouse our neighbours, with much shouting and use of the foghorn, so that they could release their anchor chain and avoid our pulling up their anchor. We got away OK, with two reefs already in the main, but once we got out we decided (Lin's still sore back decided) that we would be more comfortable motoring up to Lakki, on Leros, in the lee of Kalymnos, which we did, though the wind and the seas did not turn out to be as bad as we had feared.

We tied up in Lakki marina on Thursday afternoon and hired a car for the day on Friday, to show John the island and get him to his flight. We got the exhaust hose at the boatyard in Partheni, John checked in for his flight to Athens, and we crossed the road for lunch in the taverna opposite the airport, before John flew off:

Having seen John off, Lin and Simon went round to the war cemetery at Alinda, which we had never managed to find (because we had been looking in the wrong place), then in the evening to Dmitri's taverna in Vromolithos, which again we had failed to get to before because he had been closed on our previous attempts, where we had a wonderful meal with a stunning view.

The forecast was for gale force winds over the weekend, so we, like most others, decided to stay in Lakki and do washing and jobs on the boat until the gales blew out.