Cheating death

Simon took Kai home on Saturday 28 August, leaving Lin on the boat in the marina, and came back overnight on 2-3 September. We then spent a couple more days in Lakki for Simon to catch up on his sleep, to do some shopping and to have dinner with Simon and Christiana, who had just returned from the UK.
On Friday 5 September we sailed and motored up to Arki for a few days of quiet relaxation. We found that Frank and Lin had arrived just before us and managed to squeeze in next to them on the quay.
There was a lot of activity in the square and we learned that the daughter of the head of Greek Pepsi (or Coca) Cola was getting married the next day and we would all have to get off the quay. As soon as they tested the sound system we decided not to contest the order as we would never sleep through the racket.
Nikolas was very stressed. On 23 August his mother, Maria, who is a workaholic and does all the cooking, had found herself paralysed. She did not get any better, so they had taken her to the doctor in Samos. After some tests she was transferred to Athens to have a tumour removed which, fortunately, turned out not to be malignant. She was recovering in hospital, but was still very weak. At the same time Mikhailis, Nikolas's brother, who does the grilling, had gone with his mother and his aunt to Athens. Nickolas's partner Carolina had gone back to Poland with her mother, leaving Nikolas to run the restaurant, and to prepare a mass of food for the wedding, on his own.

Having taken a photo together,

next morning we, and Frank and Lin, motored round to the anchorage, Porto Stretto, just over the hill from Port Augusta, which was beautifully peaceful.

In the afternoon, Simon walked over the hill to check out the preparations for the wedding.

Frank and Lin invited us to join them for a barbecue that evening. We rowed over at 6 o'clock to find that Frank had caught quite a big fish,

an unprecedented event, which Lin (Priddy) suggested we put on the barbecue. Simon agreed, rashly thinking that it might be disgusting, but there were no harmful fish in the Mediterranean. Frank was more cautious, since he did not know what the fish was and could not find anything like it in his fish book. We decided to leave it in the fridge and take over to Nikolas and ask him what it was and, if it was edible, cook it for our lunch the next day. The barbecue was delicious - we couldn't have eaten the fish as well, we were so full.
The wedding seemed to go off well and fortunately we could barely hear it from over the hill, as the enormous speakers were pointing in the opposite direction.
Next morning we went over to Nikolas for lunch. Nikolas took one look at Frank's fish and said, 'throw it away, it is lethal'. He told us it was a lagopsaro. When we looked it up on the internet we found that it was a pufferfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus), which had only recently entered the Mediterranean through the Suez canal, the Japanese fugu, eaten by suicidal Japanese gourmands and lethal if not prepared by a trained and licensed chef (and lethal even then if he makes a mistake). Frank's caution had saved our lives!
Next morning, Monday 8th, we all had a slow downwind sail to Lipsi, where we had to do a lot of washing. We were going to top up our water tanks, but Frank's meter showed that the water was not drinkable, and we saw a lot of muck coming out of the house, so we did not do so.
On Tuesday we had an other slow, but very pleasant, downwind sail to Lakki, where we had to get ready for Annie's arrival on Wednesday morning.