Crew change

On Wednesday 17 July we sailed down to Arkhangeli, where we anchored in the shelter of the island. We went ashore to the new taverna in the evening. They were short staffed - the owner's husband had not been able to get there because his engine had broken and her daughter had not been able to get up from Lakki because it was too windy. Nevertheless she and her son managed to feed a good meal to us and a dozen Italians. Just after we had ordered a group of Italians arrived and asked if we had lost our pillow - it was our sun bathing mat, which had blown off the back of the boat and they had recovered from the sea. We just managed to squash it into the dinghy for the ride back to the boat.

The sail down to Xerokampos the next day was uneventful, except that the Sterling alternator regulator cut out, reporting a high alternator voltage. In fact the voltage was normal. I had a quick check of the wiring, but could not see anything wrong. An exchange of emails with Sterling followed, which produced a lot of red herrings but no solution to the problem. After a night in Xerokampos we motored back up to Lakki, where we hired a car for the day, to go out to Mylos restaurant for dinner and take John to the airport for his flight home next morning.

On Sunday 21 July Simon took the catamaran to Kos for his flight back to Birmingham. He got to the airport to find that the flight was delayed three hours and there was a huge queue outside the terminal building. Inside, the check-in was open with no queue, while Thomas Cook continued to herd their customers outside, so Simon checked in before the herd arrived. Despite the flight delay they all went straight through to the tiny departures lounge for a four-hour wait. When Simon went through just before boarding was announced it was like the Black Hole of Calcutta – sweltering heat, every seat taken and bodies piled up all over the floor.

On Monday and Tuesday Simon had to go to hospital for his treatment and on Wednesday he and Kai took the train to London to see Granny and stay with John before getting our flight to Athens on Thursday morning. On the Frankfurt leg Kai managed to slip into Business Class to sit with a Canadian boy he had met in departures, so he got a slap up lunch while Simon had a soggy sandwich. On the Athens leg Kai moved back to sit with a Greek boy he had met, whose dad had to come and sit with Simon. It turned out that they were going on holiday to our ‘home port’ of Nikiana, so we sent our love to our friends.

We had booked into the posh airport hotel for Thursday night as we had an early flight to Leros  next morning. Kai insisted on using his spending money to get some chips from room service and recouping some of the cost by lifting all the shampoos and a pair of slippers. I drew the line at nicking the bath robes and towels.

We had a very bumpy landing in Leros. As the wind whipped over the hills on the run-in to the airport the plane wobbled madly, with the wing tips looking as though they were about to brush the hillside. Some passengers screamed while Kai laughed his head off. We picked up our luggage and got a taxi to Lakki to meet up with Lin, who had had a peaceful week, cleaning, swimming, socialising and improving her French.

We decided to stay over in Lakki for another day so that we could have dinner with Ian, who has got two months in Evros marina on his own, since Jo has gone back to the UK. On Saturday morning we set off for Arkhangeli, beating into a force 5-6 northerly wind. It was blowing very hard at Arkhangeli, so we went instead into Partheni bay, which is more sheltered. In the late afternoon we went ashore, hoping to see Mark and Linda Morpurgo in the yard, but the yard gates were locked and we could see their boat, but not them.

On Sunday the wind was still northerly 5-6 as we set off on a beat to Agathonisi. We decided that it would be more comfortable motor-sailing, with just the reefed mainsail, which was certainly the case as the wind increased and solid white water was coming over the boat. 

I tried to video us crashing into the waves, but only got a tiny clip before a wave broke over me and the camera.

Kai grooved to Bob Marley as the waves crashed over us.

We got on the quay at Agathonisi and Kai got down to fishing. His Italian friends, whom we have met here the last three years, arrived on the ferry at 5 pm and were soon fishing with Kai. After dinner at Yanni’s Kai went off fishing with his new Turkish friends from the boat next to us. When we came back from dinner there was no sign of Kai. We eventually found him entertaining (?) an English family in George’s taverna.