Last week of the family

We were stuck in Patmos by strong North winds, but everyone was happy to sit by the hotel pool and swim now and then, while Kai found he could use the computers in the hotel and play on their Wii.  We ate out one night, where Charlie enjoyed his dinner:

The wind had dropped enough to leave for Arki on Sunday morning, though it was still a brisk 25 knots most of the way, close reaching.

We found a good spot on the quay in Arki and Kai immediately made some new friends, particularly Elian, a Belgian boy of his own age and temperament.
We had dinner at our friend Nicolas's taverna to find that his Polish girlfriend was back in Poland expecting their baby. Charlie, as usual, stuffed himself with bread and his favourite kolokithokeftedes (courgette croquettes).

On Monday Charlie and the grownups went round the corner to the beach,

while Kai went fishing in the dinghy with Elian and four Italian friends.

 We had planned to go to Lispi for the big festival on the Monday so that Kai could do some Greek dancing, but we decided that we would all rather stay in the peace and quiet of Arki, where Kai was happy to play with his friends. Jade and Amie found some kittens

On Monday afternoon Kai and Elian went off rowing in the dinghy to find a good spot for fishing,

but they learned that it is much easier to row downwind than to row back, so they had to tie the dinghy to the rocks at the bottom of the bay and clamber back over the rocks.
Later in the morning a fisherman came in with a 45 kilo tuna,

which Kai and his friends watched Nicolas gutting, and Lin and Becky had fresh tuna for dinner.

We left Arki for Lakki on Tuesday morning making good speed with a moderate north wind and the cruising chute. Kai watched a video

and read his Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The girls slept while Charlie played with the iphone

Becky sunbathed

and Andrew tried to catch a tuna.

On Wednesday morning we sailed down to Pothia,

for the visitors to take the ferry over to Mastihari. In the afternoon we went to the town beach, which was pretty mucky and the sea was too warm to be refreshing, but even the girls swam.

Everyone was up and ready to catch the 8.30 ferry on Thursday morning.

and we said goodbye.

Our visitors spent the day in the Mastihari water park, where they had a great time, before going to the airport for the evening flight home. Lin and Simon decided to head straight back to Lakki, because Pothia was too hot and busy to spend a couple of days cleaning. We had no wind until we rounded the corner of Telendos, where we were suddenly hit by 20-25 knots of northerly wind, with full sail. We rolled up a bit of genoa, but did not bother to reef the main because we did not think it would last, but in fact it kept blowing all the way to Lakki, much of the sacrificial strip of the genoa becoming institched as we rolled it up, so the first thing to do in Lakki was to send it off to the sailmaker for repair.

On Friday morning we slept in until 8.30 and were disappointed not to wake to Charlie's chuckles. Although we can rest at last we are already missing everybody - especially Charlie's laugh and Kai's enthusiasm.