Jade and Elliott left and John joined us on July 2nd. The forecast for the next few days was strong winds, so we decided to stay in Lakki for a couple of days while we did washing and stocking up. We kept our hire car one more day so that we could go for dinner at Dimitri's with Sue and Steve,
watching the full moon come up over the bay.
We decided not to leave on Saturday because there were still strong northerly winds and big seas. Lin and John walked over to the beach at Marikhia. Simon was going to follow on the Brompton, but as he rode up the first hill a rear spoke broke. On closer inspection he found that three spokes had broken, so the bike had to go away until we could get new spokes. No doubt the bike shop in Lakki would have made us new spokes, but as we were going home soon it made more sense to get proper ones back home.
The forecast for Sunday, July 5th, referendum day, was not much better, but the wind had dropped in the morning so we decided to go for it. We motored up the west coast of Leros, which was in the lee of the wind, in quite gentle wind and seas, but the wind blew up and seas got bigger as we rounded the top of the island, so we decided to go inside Arkhengelos and up the east coast of Lipsi, where the wind was still a solid 5-6, but the seas were much less. We got to Arki at midday, found a good spot on the quay, and went to lunch at Nikolas's.
Lin was very impressed by part of Nikolas's display of shells, which she thought had been arranged to look like a turtle,
In the afternoon we went up to the school, which acted as the polling station. A woman who was voting at the time did not want to be photographed, so we had to wait until she left.
They count the votes on the spot and phone the results through, so we had the results of Arki's voting by 7.30. Of the 53 electors in Arki, 36 voted no, 11 voted yes and there were two spoiled ballots. This was not unexpected, but by 9 pm we knew that Greece as a whole had voted massively NO.
Tsipras's gamble had paid off with a vengeance. It was clear that the troika was not going to be able to engineer regime change through economic pressure and would not be able to find weapons of mass destruction to legitimate a bombing campaign, so the only way to avoid a victory over resistance to austerity was to engineer the collapse of the Greek economy with their own weapon of mass destruction (http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/080715/we-underestimated-their-power-greek-government-insider-lifts-lid-five-months-humiliation-and-blackm). Most people we have talked to have felt that things would be much worse in the short term, but at least they would have some hope for the future. Ominously, a handful of people felt that things were better under the junta, but it is unlikely that the CIA will engineer another military coup. A spoof Russian website claims that the Russian electoral commission, observing the referendum, reported that 85% of Greeks would like to join the Russian Federation and that Putin would appoint Tsipras President of the Greek Republic (http://intersucks.com/2015/07/06/svyshe-85-grekov-vyskazalis-za-prisoedinenie-svoej-strany-k-rossii.html ).
With continuing strong winds there were very few boats coming and going from Arki, in fact four boats had been here when we were here last week with Jade and Elliott, until Wednesday, when the wind dropped and there was a mass exodus.
We spent our time in Arki chilling, reading, following the news, and swimming, on the town beach
and at Tiganakia
We all walked over to Tiganakia on Monday, but it was a bit of a struggle for Simon with his stick, so on Wednesday morning he stayed on the boat while Lin and John walked over there.
On Wednesday morning we heard the shocking news that a yacht carrying 40 refugees had sunk between Agathonisi and Farmakonisi, just a few miles east of here, with 20 rescued by Turkish and Greek coastguards, with 20 still missing. There is no further news, but we hope it is not a repeat of the tragedy in January last year, when three women and nine children died when their boat capsized while being towed by the Leros coastguard. In that case a Syrian who it was claimed was steering the boat was sentenced to 145 years in jail, but the refugees claimed that the accident was the fault of the coastguard, who were trying to tow the boat back to dump it in Turkish waters (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/01/greece-farmakonisi-migrant-tragedy-one-year-and-still-no-justice-victims/ ).
We anchored in a good spot in Arkhangelos,
close to the taverna,
where we went for a superb evening meal and brought greetings to Dimitra from Arki.
The taverna (Stigma) was built by Dimitra's dad, with some help from a friend, and has new developments every time we come. They get their water from an 800 year-old well that used to serve a monastery, of which no trace remains, and their electricity from solar panels. They have now completed the hut, on the right of the photo, in which Dimitra lives, and are just fitting windows to the inner part of the taverna to keep it warm in winter. The food is superb and you can phone them and get picked up from Partheni if you do not have your own boat.
On Friday morning, with almost no wind, Simon went up the mast to fix the wind instruments, which had twisted round so the wind direction readings were inverted. He straightened it up, but will have to go up again to glue it more securely into place. Lin and John then rowed ashore to walk up to the ridge on Arkhangelos to enjoy the view.
In the afternoon we chilled, swam and listened to Test Match Special, before going for dinner at Stigma.
On Saturday morning we left Arkhangelos at 6.15 to pick up a buoy in Partheni, ready to get lifted out before flying home for three weeks on Sunday.
We lifted out at 9 on Saturday morning.
We rented a car for the last day and went for a swim and lunch at Alinda and into Lakki for the evening, before flying out on Sunday midday.
Lin has asked me to make it clear that this blog is Simon's work and she does not want to be associated with it!
The forecast for Sunday, July 5th, referendum day, was not much better, but the wind had dropped in the morning so we decided to go for it. We motored up the west coast of Leros, which was in the lee of the wind, in quite gentle wind and seas, but the wind blew up and seas got bigger as we rounded the top of the island, so we decided to go inside Arkhengelos and up the east coast of Lipsi, where the wind was still a solid 5-6, but the seas were much less. We got to Arki at midday, found a good spot on the quay, and went to lunch at Nikolas's.
Lin was very impressed by part of Nikolas's display of shells, which she thought had been arranged to look like a turtle,
but Nikolas assured us that this was not deliberate.
In the afternoon we went up to the school, which acted as the polling station. A woman who was voting at the time did not want to be photographed, so we had to wait until she left.
Tsipras's gamble had paid off with a vengeance. It was clear that the troika was not going to be able to engineer regime change through economic pressure and would not be able to find weapons of mass destruction to legitimate a bombing campaign, so the only way to avoid a victory over resistance to austerity was to engineer the collapse of the Greek economy with their own weapon of mass destruction (http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/080715/we-underestimated-their-power-greek-government-insider-lifts-lid-five-months-humiliation-and-blackm). Most people we have talked to have felt that things would be much worse in the short term, but at least they would have some hope for the future. Ominously, a handful of people felt that things were better under the junta, but it is unlikely that the CIA will engineer another military coup. A spoof Russian website claims that the Russian electoral commission, observing the referendum, reported that 85% of Greeks would like to join the Russian Federation and that Putin would appoint Tsipras President of the Greek Republic (http://intersucks.com/2015/07/06/svyshe-85-grekov-vyskazalis-za-prisoedinenie-svoej-strany-k-rossii.html ).
With continuing strong winds there were very few boats coming and going from Arki, in fact four boats had been here when we were here last week with Jade and Elliott, until Wednesday, when the wind dropped and there was a mass exodus.
We spent our time in Arki chilling, reading, following the news, and swimming, on the town beach
and at Tiganakia
We all walked over to Tiganakia on Monday, but it was a bit of a struggle for Simon with his stick, so on Wednesday morning he stayed on the boat while Lin and John walked over there.
On Wednesday morning we heard the shocking news that a yacht carrying 40 refugees had sunk between Agathonisi and Farmakonisi, just a few miles east of here, with 20 rescued by Turkish and Greek coastguards, with 20 still missing. There is no further news, but we hope it is not a repeat of the tragedy in January last year, when three women and nine children died when their boat capsized while being towed by the Leros coastguard. In that case a Syrian who it was claimed was steering the boat was sentenced to 145 years in jail, but the refugees claimed that the accident was the fault of the coastguard, who were trying to tow the boat back to dump it in Turkish waters (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/01/greece-farmakonisi-migrant-tragedy-one-year-and-still-no-justice-victims/ ).
Most boats left on Wednesday and a couple more came in. Nikolas is very worried that there are so few boats thus year, He has taken on a couple to help him over the summer but there is not enough work for them to do and he does not know how he will pay them, support his large extended family and save enough to see them through the winter. At least fewer customers mean that Nikolas and Carolina can take a break now and then.
It is a real mystery why there are so many fewer boats. You wouldn't expect liveaboards to change their plans, there are lots of boats based in Turkey coming to Greece to escape the visa rules and most charterers would have booked months ago.
It is a real mystery why there are so many fewer boats. You wouldn't expect liveaboards to change their plans, there are lots of boats based in Turkey coming to Greece to escape the visa rules and most charterers would have booked months ago.
We left Arki for Arkhangelos on Thursday morning, following Nikolas's dad out of Arki as he went out fishing in his little boat.
With very little wind we motorsailed, with the sails not providing much power but at least giving John the sense that he was sailing!
With very little wind we motorsailed, with the sails not providing much power but at least giving John the sense that he was sailing!
We anchored in a good spot in Arkhangelos,
 |
| With Dmitra, Tassos and their mum and dad |
 |
| Mia Hara from the taverna |
On Friday morning, with almost no wind, Simon went up the mast to fix the wind instruments, which had twisted round so the wind direction readings were inverted. He straightened it up, but will have to go up again to glue it more securely into place. Lin and John then rowed ashore to walk up to the ridge on Arkhangelos to enjoy the view.
In the afternoon we chilled, swam and listened to Test Match Special, before going for dinner at Stigma.
On Saturday morning we left Arkhangelos at 6.15 to pick up a buoy in Partheni, ready to get lifted out before flying home for three weeks on Sunday.
We lifted out at 9 on Saturday morning.
We rented a car for the last day and went for a swim and lunch at Alinda and into Lakki for the evening, before flying out on Sunday midday.
Lin has asked me to make it clear that this blog is Simon's work and she does not want to be associated with it!
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