Just chilling

We have had a pretty uneventful ten days.

Lin’s brother, John, arrived early on Monday morning, June 16^th, and Lin went up to the airport with Richard, our Canadian neighbour who had hired a car to meet his friend David off the same flight, to fetch John. We pottered around Lakki, did some stocking up shopping and went to To Petrino for giant steaks with Simon and Christiana, who were going home on the Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning we had a nice sail in a gentle breeze to the anchorage by Arkhangeli, at the top of Leros. John had brought out replacement screws for the propeller, but when Simon dived to fit one it turned out that the screw had not fallen out at all – it had just been screwed in so far that he had not been able to see it  - panic over.

On Wednesday 18^th there was no wind, so we motored up to Arki, where we anchored off Tiganaki, the blue lagoon, in two and a half metres of water. 

Occasional RIBs arrived for a swim, but otherwise we had it to ourselves. In the early evening the wind got up a bit so we decided to move, because we were a bit vulnerable with the water so shallow, so we motored round to the anchorage south of Port Augusta on Arki, where we spent the night, and next morning, after a short thunderstorm, motored round the corner to tie up on the quay, where we got a good spot in the middle.

There were a lot of crossed chains, with boats leaving pulling up the anchors of those who remained. We had a lot of chain out, so we decided to re-anchor with less chain to make us less vulnerable.

We had a quiet time in Arki, meeting people, reading, swimming and eating at Nikolas’s tavern. On Friday 20^th we woke to thunder and menacing dark clouds to the south. We then noticed what looked like small tornadoes coming down from the cloud – eventually there were three of them. 

It turned out that they were tornadoes that had swept across the harbour in Lipsi. Some people walked to the top of the hill so see them better. Everybody cleared their decks, but the storm passed us by, with just a few drops of rain and, by the afternoon a blistering hot sun in a clear sky.

Lin bought herself some fancy new shoes in the little cafe/boutique.

A theatrical performance by a group from Samos was advertised in the square for 9 pm Sunday evening, so we decided to stay for that. Chairs were borrowed from the tavernas and laid out in two rows. At 9 pm the performers were still sitting around drinking and the auditorium was empty. At about 9.20 three of the performers took up seats on the chairs and a few people, mostly kids, dribbled in so the performance started at 9.40. It consisted of an accordionist providing background and linking music and a series of dramatic monologues (and one dialogue), which looked impressive (and we were told by Greek friends were very good), but which we did not understand. The first was Tchekov's 'On the harmful consequences of tobacco'.

On Monday morning, June 23^rd, we set off for Agathonisi. When we came to pull up the anchor we found that two boats had anchored over us – our anchor came up with one anchor and one chain hooked over us. Once we had got free and had got round the south of Arki we found ourselves close reaching into a Force 6 wind with big waves, which was uncomfortable, so we turned south and went back home to Lakki.