Levitha to Amorgos

We left Lakki at 9 am on Monday May 15^th to sail to Levitha in a Force 5 northerly wind. We went fast on a beam reach, but the seas were big, 2 metres, which made it rather uncomfortable. We got to Levitha at 1 pm to find nobody else there. Lin was worried that plague and pestilence had struck and we were the only sailors left on earth (or that nobody but us was so mad as to sail in those conditions). During the afternoon about eight more boats came in. We had lunch and a swim and Manolis came to collect our 7 euros. Although we had not been there last year, he seemed to remember us and to remember that Lin spoke some Greek. We went ashore about 7 to try to get a mobile internet connection, which we managed to do when we walked past the farm and had a good view of Patmos. We had a very good dinner in the farm and bought some of their delicious cheese. Manolis told us that Leros is still trying to get them evicted so as to build a wind farm, but the army is on their side. He suggested we stay the next day because of the forecast, but Simon persuaded Lin it would be no worse. He was wrong!

We left Levitha at 8.30 to sail to Amorgos and found that the wind was even stronger and the waves even bigger than the day before,sometimes towering over us at 3 metres high. Not long after we left Levitha Lin went below and reported that water was pouring into the forepeak. It turned out that Simon had not locked the hatch! Although we stood quite a long way north of Amorgos, still the wind bouncing back off the hills produced big gusts and sent the wind in all directions. We had planned to anchor behind Nikouria in the northeast of Amorgos, which is a beautiful calm anchorage even in the strongest winds, but the entrance is very narrow and on a lee shore, so we decided that it was too dangerous to go in that way. Since it was hardly any further to Katapola than to go round the island we decided to head on to Katapola.

We were keen to anchor as far in as possible, to avoid the ferry putting its anchor chain over ours (which has led to all sorts of problems for other people). The only space was right on the inside, next to a British yacht, but there was so little room to manoeuvre in the strong wind that we could not get in as the wind pushed the bow off before the anchor bit. The second time round we ran aground on the sandy mud at the back of the harbour. Fortunately full speed ahead got us off with much churning up of the sea bed. We gave up and tied up instead on the outside, as far as we could get from the ferry. 

Our only problem then was the later arriving charter boats. We had a fry-up dinner aboard and an early night.

On Tuesday May 26^th we had a strenuous, but not too long, walk round the bay to Xilokeratidi, then up and over the hill and back to Xilokeratidi. 

On the way we met a venomous rock adder – not usually deadly, according to the book. 

We passed some pretty little chapels, ruined farmhouses 

and a stone threshing floor, 

with wonderful views over the bay. 

For the last stretch of the walk the path was very overgrown with thistles and prickly bushes, so we made a detour, which meant that we lost the route for a while. 

We retraced our steps and picked up the recommended route, identified by a layer of purple slate sandwiched between layers of limestone.

 The last part of the walk, down to Gia Panteleimon chapel on a headland, 

was inaccessible because someone had installed a locked gate to block the path. The wild flowers are still in bloom in the Cyclades, whereas in the drier hotter Dodecanese they have already wilted.

After lunch we had a second walk up the hill behind Katapola, along a lovely old paved path (and then the road which had replaced it), 

to the ancient capital, Minoa, supposedly built on the site of King Minos’s summer palace. 

There is not much left to see, but again the views were wonderful.

View across to the Chora

We went for dinner at an excellent taverna, La Pasteria, where we met Ann and Roger who have a B & B in Salcombe. The owner overheard as saying that we were based in Leros and told us that Leros was his favourite island. He had worked at the tavern Tsaropoula in Pandeli for eight years in the 90s, when a third of the population of Leros still worked in the notorious mental hospitals.

We left on Wednesday morning for Naxos, this time in virtually no wind.