Another little trip

After a few days cleaning the boat of Sahara dust we left Lakki on June 1st and motored up to Arkhangelos in no wind, using the conditions to swing the compass, which we have never done before, finding big deviations in the ship's compass, though the hand-bearing compass is pretty accurate.
We anchored in Arkhangelos, which kept on filling up during the day. Usually a lot of boats leave in the afternoon, but today nobody left, so there were eighteen boats anchored in the small bay, which usually has only a handful of boats in it, though Dimitra in the taverna told us that in August they sometimes have 50 boats there.

We had planned to eat at the taverna, but it had been packed at lunchtime because it was a public holiday and we thought it would be packed in the evening so we ate on board. Instead we went the following evening, when there were still as many yachts, but few ate at the taverna.

We set off early on June 3rd to sail up to Arki, but the wind died after an hour or so and we had to motor. We went on the quay at Arki, which was very quiet. Nikolas pointed out Dimitra's boyfriend, his cousin Spiros, and told me to go and tell him that I bring kisses from Dimitra. He looked first surprised and then pleased! We spent the next three days on Arki, chilling, swimming, reading and meeting new friends. We collected more thyme to add to our wild herb collection, thyme, oregano and sage (collected from Palionissos).

Nikolas's dad has renamed his model boat that was Varoufakis, so it is now called Poseidon. Nikolas felt that the crisis would not really affect them too badly, because they always had fishing and their vegetable garden, but he felt very sorry for people in Athens. His dad went rowing around us in his fishing boat with its long oars.

We had planned to go to the anchorage on Friday June 5th, but the wind was getting up so we decided to stay on the quay. Our German neighbours, a very nice couple with two small girls in a Swan 42 (a racing yacht hardly set up for family crewing - flat decks, no spray hood, no bimini) had planned to go to Agathonisi, but got a message that Agathonisi was swamped with refugees - 300 had just arrived, so they too decided to stay another day. While we were there they had their anchor pulled up three times by other yachts. The third time a large charter yacht came in, laid its anchor across ten other yachts and just as they reached the quay their anchor chain ran out - it had not been tied on. Fortunately for them the harbour is very shallow, though the water is murky, and they were able to recover it.
We sailed down to Lipsi on Saturday June 6th, mainly to do some washing at the excellent laundry. As usual the wind died and we had to motor, though we needed to charge the batteries anyway. We walked round to the further beach for a swim - the water is colder now than it was a couple of weeks ago - where we met Sally. She had come to Lipsi as the Laskarina rep in 2001, married a local and stayed. We have met her before in her brother-in-law's shop. She and her husband used to grow vegetables, but have now planted vineyards and established the Lipsi winery, which has been very successful, with their wines now having a national distribution. Lin bought some new flip-flops and a blouse.
We motor sailed (again very little wind) down to Lakki on Sunday June 7th and went back in the marina. The costguard boat came in soon after we arrived, crammed with refugees. The majority looked to be Syrians and Afghans, but quite a few looked to be Somali. The port police yard is now absolutely full of refugees. A little later a coastguard RIB came in towing a very large rubber dinghy. They lifted it out onto the road, tied it to the back of a car, and dragged it along the road to dump it with all the others in the Port Police yard.
Everybody in the islands knows about the pernicious and mendacious article in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3099736/Holidaymakers-misery-boat-people-Syria-Afghanistan-seeking-asylum-set-migrant-camp-turn-popular-Greek-island-Kos-disgusting-hellhole.html), which has received wide publicity in Greece, and they are very worried that it will lead to a big drop in tourism. We have tried to explain what the Daily Mail is and that these claims have been widely refuted, but that is not much consolation.
On Monday we cycled round to Merikhia for a swim and went for an excellent dinner in Ostria restaurant with Richard. I took the IKEA/Raleigh bike to the bike shop for a new gear cable, because the old one had seized over the winter. The bike man replaced the cable and lubricated the brake cables within the hour. They charged me 3 Euros. I said 'that is ridiculous', they said, 'is that expensive?, I said 'no,it is too cheap' and gave them 5 Euros.
We are planning to set off on a Southern Tour on Wednesday, to Levitha, Astipalaia, Nissiros and Tilos before getting to Kos to pick up Jade and Elliott on 25th.