We took the night ferry back to Piraeus on Wednesday June 13 - the ferry was almost empty, no more than 100 people on a giant ferry. We had booked a cabin for two, but we had a four berth, which was the height of luxury. We got the ferry from Piraeus to Aegina to spend a day with Hilary, Rosa, Fleur and Mick (though Mick went off to Athens in the afternoon to go to the Syriza pre-election demo and do some work with his Greek colleagues). Shock horror, Nikos's warning was confirmed - our favourite restaurant in all the world, Ippocampos and the restaurant at Brown's Hotel had closed and Petros had done a runner - it seems that he had borrowed a fortune from the banks, no doubt on the strength of his rave write ups in Greek gastronomy magazines, and had not been able to pay. Still we had a delicious lunch behind the fish market, then went to the beach at Marathona and back to the beautiful house that Mick, Hilary and Rosa were borrowing, where we played with Fleur and Hilary made a lovely dinner.
The contrast between Aegina and the Dodecanese was amazing. Hardly any of the Greek population in ther Dodecanese can afford to go to cafes or restaurants, but in Aegina they were heaving with the beautiful people, no doubt flush with their foreign bank accounts.
On Friday we got the ferry to Piraeus and bus to the airport and flew home for two weeks, to do hospitals, dentists and Simon's mum's 90th birthday party, which was a great success.
We flew back to Athens with Lin's brother John on June 29th and got the night ferry back to Leros from Piraeus. This time the ferry was jam packed, though a lot of people got off at Syros - probably weekenders, so we had to sleep on chairs (or in Simon's case on the floor) in the bar. We got to Leros at 5 am and collapsed into bed on the boat. Saturday was shopping and a celebratory dinner with Sue and Steve and Ian and Jo, the latter celebrating their last night in Lakki marina before moving over the bay to Evros (see my last post about the scandals and ructions).
We stayed in Lakki for the Sunday and motored up to the quiet anchorage at Arkhangeli at the north end of Leros, where we
swam and chilled – Simon was still very tired from his last dose of Rituximab.
The one thrill was a Greek exhibitionist, who arrived driving a small motor
boat naked, anchored right behind us and spent a couple of hours displaying his
large belly and appendages below before driving off into the night (no
photos!).
On Tuesday we had a hard beat up to Lipsi with two reefs in the main and half the genoa (it was still very windy but it was not
far), which was again a day of swimming and chilling and a nice meal at Manoli’s
up the hill.
On Wednesday we had a short motor-sail up to Arki, where we tied up on the
quay. Soon after we had tied up a large Turkish motor yacht arrived. He first
dropped his anchor over ours and our neighbour’s, but re-anchored when we
yelled at him. He then came into the gap just down from us at an acute angle
and attempted to straighten up by accelerating in reverse, only to crash
heavily into a moored French yacht. There was no visible damage, but the sound
was the crunch of fibreglass breaking, so it is very likely that the hull was
damaged beneath the gel coat. After some yelling, ‘you fucking bastard putain’
as the Frenchman put it, insurance details were handed over and it was all
settled amicably. We spent two nights in Arki, with excellent eating in Nicolas’s
tavern, good swimming,
and a walk over to the idyllic beach on the south of the
island, only to find two Italian couples already encamped there.
Our French friend was staying in Arki till Monday because he said that force
8-9 gales were forecast, though we could find no such forecast anywhere. When
we told him that we were going to Fourni he had a fit – he thought we must be
mad, Fourni is hell on earth (it has a reputation for being very windy).
We set off for Fourni on Friday, with two reefs in the main and half the
genoa, sailing into a force 4 northerly wind no sign of a gale. We passed
several bays marked as anchorages, all but one of which were empty – the bay at
the bottom had one motor yacht in it. We came to the last anchorage, south over
the hill from Fourni town, to find Sue and Steve’s boat tied onto the fisherman’s
quay.
It turned out that they had come up the night before, dragged the anchor
overnight, then the engine wouldn’t start because the starter motor had failed
again, so they had had to be rescued by a fisherman. The fisherman told Steve
that there was a wizard mechanic in Fourni, who fixed their starter motor in no
time.
Fourni was, as promised windy, with occasional
vicious gusts, so we anchored and took four lines to bollards on the rocks,
which seemed to have us secure.
On Saturday we all went into Fourni town to
shop (a steep climb over the hill)
to find it is a lovely place, just like the
Greece we knew nearly fifty years ago, with very few tourists. After shopping
we had coffees in a little café under a big plane tree by the town square.
Suddenly there was an almighty crash and a scream – a thick branch had come
crashing down from the tree and just missed an old woman who was walking past –
it just grazed her ankle. The square was being filled with chairs and tables – the
café owner told us that it was a ‘honeymoon festival’ and everybody was invited.
We had drinks with Sue and Steve in the evening, but decided not to go the ‘festival’,
though we could hear exciting bangs, which sounded like gunshots and the occasional
stick of dynamite. It turned out that it was a wedding – Sue and Steve went and
left at 3 am when it was still in full swing. It was lucky we did not go. Soon
after we had gone to bed there was an almighty shaking and rustling – a gust of
wind probably 50 knots or more shook the boat like crazy. Lin went up and
thought at first that two of our lines had broken, which would have been odd
because they were not the lines that would have taken the strain. In fact we
found when we pulled on them that they had just gone slack. Anxious to get back
to bed we convinced ourselves that they had gone slack because of the strength
of the wind, but in the morning we found that we had moved closer to the cliff –
we were just off the rocks – and when Simon dived to investigate it was clear
that our trusty and expensive Rocna anchor had dragged – or at least had pulled
a couple of metres back through the sand.
We had planned to stay another day in Fourni, because Lin wanted to explore
the town a bit more, but we decided that rather than bothering to reanchor we
would move on, so we set off to Agathonisi. The forecast strong wind did not
materialise but we had a very pleasant gentle sail to Agathonisi, where we
anchored off the village with two lines to the rocks. We spent two days in
Agathonisi doing the usual nothing much, with the usual dramas of people cocking
up their mooring (fortunately not us this time). The old tavern/shop on the
quay that was being painted when we were last here has now opened as a shop.
Apparently the son of the old man who used to run it has taken it over after
leaving the army, though the license is still in his father’s name so
technically it is illegal. Construction is continuing with the six new
apartments and restaurant just back from the quay.
We walked up the hill to mikro hora in the morning and over to the fertile hidden valleys, now very dry, the other side of the ridge.
The second night (Monday) a lot of charter boats arrived and tied up on the
ferry quay, behind two navy boats. They were turfed off at about six o’clock
because a freighter arrived to tie onto the quay to offload sacks of food for
the fish farms onto a lighter. The charter boats all had to leave, milling
around, dragging anchors until they finally all settled down, though they did
not look too secure. Fortunately the expected wind did not blow up overnight.
On Tuesday we left after breakfast for a fast off-wind sail to Arki. We had
planned to anchor in the bay by our idyllic beach, but the most sheltered spot
was taken and it was still pretty windy, so we decided to come instead to Lipsi
for water and electricity, where Lin and John walked over to the anchorage in
the south for a swim, while Simon caught up with the blog.
On Wednesday we motor sailed down to Arckhangeli, the quiet anchorage at the north end of Leros. Lin swam ashore to feed the goats with our old bread.
In the afternoon a small boat arrived and three men went ashore and walked over the ridge. We heard three shots - mafia execution? Goat rustling? Or just shooting rabbits (we heard four more shots early next morning).
Thursday was John's birthday. We motored down to Lakki and went on the town quay, where Sue and Steve joined us for a beer. In the evening we went to Dmitri's in Vromolithisos, where we had booked a table on the balcony with a beautiful view of the bay.
On Friday John was taking the early afternoon flight to Athens so we hired a car for the day and drove round to Alinda, where had a drink at the barrel and an excellent light lunch at To Steki before putting John on the plane and saying good bye ti Sue and Steve. After a swim at Xerocampos we returned the car and settled in to our chilling, cleaning and repairing routin to get ready for Becky, Andrew, Kai and Charlie to come in a couple of weeks time.
Friday and Saturday were very hot - up to 39 in the saloon, so we decided that we will go and anchor in the bay where it will be cooler. On Saturday morning Simon went to Yanni, the upholsterer, to collect the new mattress we had ordered. But he had forgotten to order the foam from Athens, though he promised to have it for us on Wednesday - we will see!
