We spent a couple of days in Agathonisi before we had to go to Samos to pick up Lin's brother John. The excitement was the arrival of the mythical dentist/sailing instructor,
who comes up from Leros once a month - he says it gives him an excuse to sail. He has his dentist's surgery in a hut on the beach, which was also the base for his sailing school. He brought a couple of Optimists up to teach the kids to sail on his visits and had then got an instructor to spend a month there in the summer, but now the money had run out so he sticks to dentistry.
We motored up to Pythagorion on Sunday 7 July with a light wind on the nose and tied up on the quay. Water and electricity is still free because apparently they reckon it is not worth employing someone to collect the money. John arrived on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday we hired a car to drive round the island.
We first went to the tunnel above Pythagorion, but it was not yet open, so we went round the ancient theatre,
with a good view down to Pythagorion castle.
We then drove up to the rather ordinary monastery before going back to the tunnel, which was now open, but the tunnel was closed because they had no electricity.We went on to Vathi to visit the archaeological museum, with its enormous kouros:
We then drove along the north coast of the island before crossing over to have lunch at Platanos, up in the hills.
After lunch we started to walk down into the valley down a dusty dirt road, but it was very hot and a long way
On Thursday we walked to the other end of the island to see the archaeological site at Kastraki. The archaeologist showed us around.
It was very different picking up bits of ancient pottery and ceramics from seeing them in a museum. The site has remnants of a late neolithic settlement through to the second century ad, when it was destroyed by an earthquake. After going around the site we swam to the ancient harbour and boatyard, most of which is underwater.
As we walked back up John didn't feel too well, so hitched a lift up the hill on one of the roadbuilding trucks.
On Friday 12th July we had a good sail across to Arki, the wind having at last got up again. We were lucky to get a space on the quay. On Saturday we walked to Tiganaki beach, which we had to ourselves
and a friendly donkey
to the Italian fort, a second world war look-out post and prison at the north end of the island.
Arki, like Agathonisi, was a pirate stronghold in ancient times (Julius Caesar was captured by pirates from Agathonisi), but we will have to visit the remains of their castle on our next visit.
On Sunday the head of Coca Cola Greece arrived in his modest motor yacht, clearing the end of the quay so that he could have his favourite place. We checked the boat out on the internet - it would cost him over 50,000 euros to fill his fuel tanks.
By now the meltemi was blowing with increasing force. On Monday 15th we sailed the six miles down to Lipsi, as we had to do some shopping to get food and drink for the next few days, where we went on the quay. The wind got up to a solid Force 7 during the day and with it forecast to stay the same we decided to stay another day in the windy security of Lipsi harbour. With the strong winds we have decided to abandon our plan to go to Levitha. Instead we will go to Arkhangeli tomorrow, then to Xerokampos before returning to Lakki on Friday, for John to fly home on Saturday and Simon to go back on Sunday.
We motored up to Pythagorion on Sunday 7 July with a light wind on the nose and tied up on the quay. Water and electricity is still free because apparently they reckon it is not worth employing someone to collect the money. John arrived on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday we hired a car to drive round the island.
We first went to the tunnel above Pythagorion, but it was not yet open, so we went round the ancient theatre,
We then drove up to the rather ordinary monastery before going back to the tunnel, which was now open, but the tunnel was closed because they had no electricity.We went on to Vathi to visit the archaeological museum, with its enormous kouros:
so we got back in the car to drive down to a beach on the south coast. With four different maps and three navigators it was inevitable that we would go the wrong way - we came down a precipitous zigzagging dirt road to get to the sea at the windswept and deserted beach at Pefkos.
We tried to find a direct route back to Pythagorion. We tried to drive through the village of Skureika, but the village streets turned out to be too narrow even for our little car to get through. We ended up retracing our steps, avoiding the precipitous road, and got back to Pythagorion in one piece, hot and Simon was knackered after a day's tricky driving.
On Wednesday 10th we motor-sailed down to Agathonisi, again with almost no wind, and went on to the town quay. A fishing boat was unloaded from a lorry.
It was very different picking up bits of ancient pottery and ceramics from seeing them in a museum. The site has remnants of a late neolithic settlement through to the second century ad, when it was destroyed by an earthquake. After going around the site we swam to the ancient harbour and boatyard, most of which is underwater.
We walked back up to the main road and then across to some early byzantine warehouses
on the southeast coast of the island, now full of goat shit.
On Friday 12th July we had a good sail across to Arki, the wind having at last got up again. We were lucky to get a space on the quay. On Saturday we walked to Tiganaki beach, which we had to ourselves
until an English couple came and plonked themselves down right next to us.
On Sunday we walked through a farm and along goat paths, with views over the surrounding islands,
with the strong smell of the thyme that grows wild all over the island
Seems that you have sorted out all the boats problems and are enjoying yourselves now, about time!
ReplyDeleteSummer finally seems to have arrived in England. We can all moan about how hot it is now :-)