With the Refugees in Leros

Since we have been back in Leros we have not seen any of the refugees going to the beach for a swim in the afternoons. We thought this was because of Ramadan, but apparently First Reception has decreed that no children are allowed to leave Pikpa without explicit permission and then only with their parents (which presumably means that unaccompanied minors cannot leave at all) and few if any parents want to take the children to the beach.

On Thursday, June 9th, we cycled over to Merikhia for a swim.

Simon went in up to his knees and decided it was too cold for an enjoyable swim, but Lin struck out. 

We did not go to Pikpa, but that evening fourteen unaccompanied minors were taken from Pikpa in the evening to the hotspot. This was on a decision of the local representative (‘First Reception’) of the Interior Ministry, who informed the police and the ministry in Athens of his decision. The children were distraught – three of them immediately tried to climb the fence to get out of the hotspot. This was in response to an attempt of one young man from the hotspot to board the ferry with a forged Bulgarian passport, who was immediately detained by the port police and is now in gaol in the police station in Agia Marina. Apparently there have been several occasions on which people have been trying to sell forged passports in Pikpa. Probably as a result of this all volunteers now have to complete an application and provide a photocopy of their passports to be allowed to help.

Today (Friday June 10^th) we went to Pikpa in the morning, as there was no school, and talked to some of the kids. One of the mothers was sitting nearby when the First Reception representative walked across with an interpreter and read out a long lecture to her about the responsibility of parents – to take responsibility for the children, not let them make too much noise, not to let them wander onto the road, not to leave Pikpa in the evening etc. 

By the end the mother was in tears, she thought that this lecture was some kind of admonition of her behavior (she has five young children). Eventually Gillian, a volunteer from New Zealand, and Lin managed to comfort her and explain that this was not directed at her. 

Ahmad and Rehat joined us.

Ahmad is an excellent student, who is making very good progress with his English. He is also learning Greek and has learnt a bit of Hindi from watching Indian films. 

A family of four unaccompanied Yazidi children, three boys and a girl aged from 13 to 19, have had a tough time. Their parents are in Germany and the 17 year old girl has serious health problems. Yesterday the whole family went to Rhodes with a doctor and nurse for her to have a brain scan, which showed nothing untoward. The younger boys had not enjoyed the journey – apart from any memories of their previous sea crossing, they were sea sick.

We helped hand out the lunch, which is more complicated now that Ramadan is under way. About half the people in Pikpa are not fasting, either because they are children or they are not moslems, so we have only half the amount of food delivered at lunchtime. However, some of the older kids try to take food and hide it in their rooms until the evening, so we have to check who is fasting and who is not.

In the afternoon we cycled over to the hotspot to see if we could contact any of the kids who had been moved over there. 

The hot spot is a dense collection of air conditioned boxes, with little open space, and a tough wire fence with vicious barbed wire on top. 

The gate was not locked, but half a dozen police sat nearby and we did not even try to go in. A small group were having a Greek lesson with the two young women who work for Save the Children. A few refugees came out and walked down the road, to sit by the sea. We walked around the perimeter of the camp, but did not see anyone we knew. As we got back to the entrance we meet a local guy who is employed by UNHCR to ferry people between the hotspot, Pikpa and the hospital. He told us that it had been decided that Pikpa would only be for families and he thought that the kids would be looked after in the hotspot, but he did not sound convinced or convincing. We cycled on around the bay and had a look at the building that was reputedly Mussolini’s villa, then the central building of the mental hospital, which is now derelict, the marble steps and floors deep in goat shit. 

When we got back to the hotspot Imtiaz, a young Pakistani boy, spotted Lin and ran towards the fence to talk to us. He said that it was bad in the hotspot. Nobody had told them what was happening and they had no food until Matina brought some over last night. Soon after we started talking a man came up to us and asked us who we were and what we were doing. We explained that we were volunteers at Pikpa and Lin had been teaching some of the kids who had been brought to the hotspot. The man was obviously very nervous that we might unfavourably publicise conditions in the hotspot.  He asked Imtiaz if everything was OK and he said yes, good. We asked the man who he was and he said that he was the manager who was responsible for the hotspot and for Pikpa. He warned us to be careful what we said because we could get him into trouble.

In the evening we went to the performance by the theatre group travelling on the Estonian schooner. It was essentially a very athletic modern dance performance, in an amazing venue in a part of Platanos that we had never ventured into before. The stage and auditorium seemed to be the adjoining flat rooves of houses built into the mountainside with a view across to the floodlit castle.

Le Monde today has published a blog by a French photographer who spent the winter here, including one photo of Anna and some of the children that Lin helps her to teach.

A weekend in Palionissos

On Thursday afternoon, June 2^nd, we tested the outboard by motoring to Merikhia for a swim. We did not go to Pikpa, but we met Eveline in the afternoon who told us that there had been a big argument that morning because a bus had been organized to take the kids over to the beach at Alinda in the afternoon. The kids were very excited, but some of the parents objected to boys going and seeing the girls swimming (though both boys and girls go to the town beach together). There was a long argument and in the end a compromise was reached which allowed boys up to 12 years old to go. The older boys had to walk down to the town beach. Ramadan starts next week, which is likely to be chaotic. Some of the refugees (the Yazidis, younger children and less devout Muslims) do not fast, while the majority can only eat between 8.30 pm and 4 am, whereas the evening meal is delivered at 6.30 pm and no food is allowed in the dormitories. The woman who organizes the food has agreed to deliver the evening meal at 8.30 pm, but that will leave the non-fasters hungry and the small children will get agitated, so there will probably be a lot of bad tempers next week.

On Friday morning Lin went to teach in school while Simon pottered around doing odd jobs (emptying and drying the bilges, derusting and painting the engine mounts and keel bolts) and shopping. On Friday afternoon we finished off cleaning and polishing the boat ready to set off on Saturday morning. On Saturday morning, June 4^th, we motored down to Palionissos, as there was no wind at all, passing Mike and Ann, who were coming back, on the way and arriving about 10.20. There are now 14 buoys laid by the two tavernas, but when we arrived there were only two other yachts there, though others came in during the afternoon. 

We immediately went ashore and walked along the hillside, gathering what we thought were sage and oregano. 

When we got back we went up to the taverna for a beer and Pothitos told us that what we thought was sage is in fact mountain tea and what we thought was oregano is in fact unripe savory, which will not be ready to pick before July. He pointed out the oregano bushes in his garden and offered us some, so we cut some sprigs and threw away the savory.

On Sunday morning we finished the polishing of the back of the boat, that we had missed in Lakki. We went ashore for beer and a wonderful burger for lunch at the beach bar, then swam and chilled for the afternoon. While eating a bit of burger Lin felt a tooth go – she thought it was a filling coming out, but later discovered that it was a broken tooth. We phoned Frank to find out about his wonderful dentist in Pothia, who was setting up a clinic in Lakki, but it turned out that the dentist had got a rare disease which affected his back and was not now working in Lakki. We did not want to go to Pothia, so decided to check out dentists when we got back to Lakki.

Monday was another day of swimming and chilling and an evening meal at the taverna (if you moor on a taverna’s buoy you are morally obliged to eat there, which is no penance!). We checked the bilges for water and they were pretty well dry, so it may be that after ten years we have conquered all our leaks.

On Tuesday morning, after three days’ rest in Palionissos, we set off sailing back to Lakki. The wind was light and the way back was directly upwind. We sailed a long tack out to sea, to get out of the wind shadow of the islands, then tacked back, but the wind soon died to we decided to motor so that we could get to Lakki in good time to look for a dentist. We arrived at midday and were welcomed back to the marina, but we were placed at a point where there was a break in the quay for steps, which made it very difficult to rig our passarelle so that we could get on and off the boat comfortably. Simon pinched a piece of wood from the neighbouring navy building site to bridge the gap, but Lin had no confidence in Simon’s engineering skills, so after a beer at Poppy’s with Richard and Sue, we pulled the boat closer to the quay so that we could reach terra firma.

On the town quay was a magnificent Estonian schooner, built in 1927, which is here as part of a cultural tour of theAegean. They will be performing in Pandeli on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Lin went in search of dentists. Anna in the marina did not know of a dentist because she did not trust local dentists and went to one in Athens. Poppy also goes to the dentist in Athens, but told us of one that she had heard was good. Lin texted Anna, the teacher, who texted back details of an excellent woman dentist she goes to and Marietta recommended another woman dentist who worked above her shop, who she thought was cheaper than others. Having eaten out every night in Palionissos we eat aboard on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday morning Lin went off to teach the refugee children while Simon did more repairs (the sink drain had sprung a leak again; the shower drain cover was falling apart again and he took up the floor to wire up the new instruments). Lin’s first class with the younger kids was excellent, but none of the older students came – they were probably all sleeping because Ramadan has started so they had all been up to eat at 3 am. It seems that Omar has gone to Athens – as usual nobody knows why, but we will miss him.

Before Lin could decide which dentist to go to, Anna’s mum had booked her an appointment with her dentist for 12.15. We went along to the dentist in good time, but his receptionist/nurse told us that he was fetching his daughter from school. About half an hour late a shiny bronze BMW drew up – it could only be the dentist. He summoned Lin in and told her that she had a broken tooth that would eventually need a crown, but could be fixed for now. He fixed the tooth and charged 30 euros. We then went for lunch at Poppy’s where we met Mike and Ann, and came back to the boat for siesta and reading.

To Arki and back

On Sunday May 22^nd we set off on a bike ride, but Simon’s Brompton pinged twice – two more broken spokes. He dismantled the wheel, took out the old spokes and threaded the new ones through, only to find that they were two or three millimetres too long. The wheel had obviously gone out of shape – a job for the bike shop.

On Monday 23 May there was no school because Anna had a cold and a temperature, so Lin went over to offer English conversation to any of the kids who wanted it. She talked to Mohammed, who had been sent to Patras, which he hated – they were more or less locked up in a building with dreadful food. Some of them had been there for eight months, but Mohammed managed to get back to Leros. Then she talked to Nagm, thirteen years old, who is here with her two younger brothers and her parents. They had fled from Deraa to Jordan four years ago. (Deraa was the original centre of demonstrations against Assad and was then besieged by the army with the first large scale loss of civilian lives). They had then gone to Istanbul, through Syria, and come across to Chios by boat before being transferred to Leros, first at the hot spot and now in Pikpa.

At four o’clock we went up to Pikpa to say goodbye to Antoinette, who is leaving tomorrow morning, but she was not there. The kids were at a bit of a loose end – they begged us to take them to the sea. Simon went to pick up the bike wheel, and met Antoinette on the way. She was looking for basil because she had got some of the women organized to cook a Syrian meal. 

Simon promised to bring some basil up to Pikpa. At the bike shop the wheel was fixed. ‘How much is that?’ ‘Nothing’. At first the bike shop man refused to take any money, then grudgingly said ‘two or three euros’, so I gave his wife five.

Coming back we met Avida, Mohammed and his grandad fishing on the quay, between very expensive yachts and a rusting freighter. They had caught loads of fish! 

We went for pizza in the evening and on the way back met Avida and a group of refugees coming back from their fish barbecue on the beach. They gave us one little barbecued fish.

On Tuesday morning Simon fitted the new connection to the hot water tank and it did not leak! We left for Arkhangelos about 11 but there was absolutely no wind so we motored all the way, anchoring behind Frank and Lin who had come up before us. We rowed over to Stigma tavern to have a beer and see Dmitra and her family. Our Christmas card and photos had eventually arrived and they had put them up on the board. As they had no postal address we had addressed the card to them in Partheni. The post office had phoned them to say they thought this was for them, otherwise they were going to return it. They now have a PO Box in Partheni. Maybe this will make it easier for us to put them on Trip Advisor! Will and Ann-Marie were there having lunch, having come up from Lakki the day before. They had given Dmitra four Scots Pine seedlings last year, which were doing well in their pots, waiting to be planted out. Lin had her first swim of the year – a short one as the water was still cold.

After dinner at Stigma we had a roly night with a bit of swell creeping into the anchorage.

We set off for Arki on Wednesday morning. After getting the anchor up we hoisted the main, then unrolled the genoa in a nice westerly wind. Simon immediately noticed that the genoa was falling down. He rushed forward to get it under control before it fell in the water, then tied it up so that it would not blow away. When he had hoisted the genoa he had obviously not done the snap shackle at the head of the sail up securely enough so it had come undone, releasing the sail. Although there was a decent wind, at a solid Force 4, with only the main sail on a close reach we did not have enough to power through the waves, so we motorsailed up to Arki, arriving about 11. We were greeted warmly by Nikolas and all the family – they had come back from Poland the week before Easter. They have done a lot of painting in the taverna, fitted new table cloths and replaced an old tree with new sunshades, so it is even more attractive. Nikolas played football with his kids, Alexandros and Eleni – he had been a very keen footballer in his youth, playing for Patmos. Eleni is only fifteen months but already becoming confident with the ball.

In the afternoon we walked round to the town beach but did not swim. When we got back the wind had fallen enough for Simon to go up the mast and retrieve the genoa halyard and then for us to hoist the genoa, making sure the snap shackle was properly attached this time. We then had drinks with Frank and Lin and dinner at Nikolas’s, the two Lins having kalamari that we had watched Nikolas preparing in the afternoon. The next evening we complimented Nikolas on the excellent kalamari and he revealed that this was not fresh – his dad caught loads of Kalamari in the winter. They froze it in 4 kilo bags and defrosted it in water and cleaned it when it was needed. He told us that if anyone claimed their kalamari was fresh at this time of year they were lying – you could not catch kalamari before the end of June.

On Thursday morning we walked round to Tiganaki and had a swim – Simon’s first. It was freezing when we first got in, but lovely when we got used to it. Frank phoned later to ask where we were – they had gone the wrong way. They came for a swim then we walked back and had a beer at the taverna by the anchorage. The old couple who ran it were in Leros for dentists and opticians, but their son served us with beer and very generous mezes. In the afternoon Simon replaced some of the old MC4 connectors on the solar panels, one of which had come apart. The net result was that the panels showed no output at all. Simon  thought at first that a fuse must have blown so set about searching for the fuses, taking everything out of the deep aft locker and failing to find a fuse anywhere, the conclusion being that the panels are not fused. The only other sensible conclusion was that the new connectors were not connecting. On Friday morning Simon dismantled the connectors, botched up the connections and all worked once more. On Friday afternoon we went over to the town beach for a swim – not quite as cold as at Tiganaki the day before. In the evening we went for dinner at Nikolas and Simon and Lin (Frank’s partner Lin) shared a large Lavraki (sea bass) that Nikolas had caught with rod and line at the end of the harbour a couple of nights before.

We planned to sail down to Lipsi on Saturday 28 May. We got up early to the sound of the water pump humming, which suggested that we were out of water, which proved to be the case. This was surprising because the tanks had been at least half full the day before. The bilges were full of water because there was a leak somewhere and the tanks had emptied into the bilge. We set off for Lipsi, just after Frank and Lin, at 7.45 and ran the bilge pump, which took about half an hour to empty all the water out. We then got the sails up and had a good sail down to Lipsi, arriving just before 9. Once we were tied up Simon emptied and dried the bilges, then we filled up with water and Simon found the source of the leak – a connection had failed by the base of the hot water tank and one hose had come out. Simon managed to get the old T connector off and Frank gave him a replacement, which he fitted, but when he opened the stop cock it leaked like mad, so we still had no hot water.

In the afternoon we went for a walk round the bay to the East. On the way we encountered a man driving into town, followed by a horse, which the man was encouraging while leaning out of the window. On the way back we saw the horse cropping the grass in a field on the edge of town. In the evening we went for dinner at Manolis’s new restaurant. His old restaurant, in the little town square, had been rented from his uncle, but now he has bought and renovated the oldest house in Lipsi, a large neoclassical building on the side of a steep hill which in the past has variously been a home, a prison and a post office. Manolis has restored it beautifully, taking four years over it, and it now looks like a very posh restaurant on three floors down the hillside, with two terraces, but the menu and the prices have not changed (yet??). We had a very good meal.

On Sunday morning we left Lipsi a bit after 9 to sail down to Lakki. On the way Lin practiced her man overboard routine so as to be able to recover Simon if (when?) he falls in. We got to Lakki at midday and tied up in the marina, in time to go for lunch at Poppy’s. In the afternoon Simon did various little repairs and in the evening Argiris came to look at the leaking T connection. It turned out that Simon had fitted it correctly, but the connection was faulty. Argiris promised to order us a new one on Monday morning.

On Monday morning, May 30, Lin went off to help Anna in the school for refugee children. Simon mended the puncture on the Brompton, but when he put the wheel back on the tyre went down again – the puncture was a small hole on a seam – so he took the wheel to the bike shop to get the bike man to fix it. In the afternoon we put the outboard on the dinghy. It started, but immediately stalled – another thing to fix!

While the wheel was in the bike shop the new T connector arrived. Simon fitted it and it worked, so we now have hot water! It turned out that one of the O-rings in the connector that Frank had given us was displaced, which was why it leaked. Having fixed the water system Simon cycled off to get the wheel back, but the bike shop was still closed for siesta. When Simon got back he reached in his pocket for the purse and it was not there. It must have fallen out of his pocket as he cycled along. He immediately retraced his route, not more than a minute or two after he had lost the purse, but there was no sign of it. Someone must have seen it fall and immediately picked it up. It is very unlikely that it was a local, indeed there were few if any locals about, just two groups of tourists sitting in cafes. Fortunately Simon had taken the cards, driving license and some money out of the purse just that morning, but still we had lost 200 euros. Not so bad if it had gone to an impoverished local or refugee, but it almost certainly was appropriated by a tourist. When he went back to get the wheel a little later the bike man had repaired the punctured tube but had also put in a new tube – ‘a new tube is better’ he said. He wanted three euros, but Simon insisted on giving him five.

On Tuesday morning Simon took the carburetor off the outboard and checked it, but it all appeared to be clean, so he went to the outboard man who agreed to come and fetch it at 4 o’clock, if we moved the dinghy out of the marina, since he is not allowed to work in the marina (Lefteris later said it would be no problem, but we moved it anyway). When he fetched it the outboard man asked if we had drained the carburetor for the winter – of course we hadn’t, so maybe that was the problem.

Before lunch we cycled along the coast to a beach beyond Merikhia to swim. In the afternoon we met Omar coming back from the beach. He said he had not been able to swim because of the waves (no more than ripples!) and warned the younger children who passed on their way to the beach not to swim. In the evening we had an excellent meal at Ostria – the first time we had eaten out without anybody else!

The situation in both Pikpa and the hotspot is getting increasingly tense. There have been thefts in Pikpa – two young Afghans had 120 euros, their last money, stolen and the kitchen had been broken into twice and all the baby milk taken. On Tuesday evening about 100 refugees, from babies to old people, came into town from the hotspot (a good half hour walk) and milled around for an hour or so before going back.

The swallows have arrived - they seem to love perching on out genoa sheets!

We are still waiting for our new instruments to arrive. They were due to be delivered on May 27, but we are now Wednesday 1 June and according to the tracking there is a ‘connection delay, recovery actions underway’, which presumably means they have lost them. Eventually we found that they are in Rhodes and should come tomorrow. Lin had school in the morning while Simon pottered around doing jobs on the boat – drying the bilges to find any more water leaks, derusting and painting the nuts on the keel boats and the engine mounts, patching up the storm hood and so on. The problem with the outboard is a mystery – the outboard man has cleaned it all up and it still does not work. He suspects there is a faulty valve somewhere at the heart of the carburetor. If that is the problem we will have to get a replacement part from Athens. In the evening he called to say it was fixed – the problem turned out to be a bit of dirt causing the float in the carburetor to stick.

At midday Argiris came down to the marina with his wife to say goodbye – it turns out that the family are off to Rhodes where Argiris has been offered a job in his old profession as a plumber – his old employer even came to Leros to look for him to offer him the job, so they are off to Rhodes where they have rented a house in a village inland – all they can afford at 300 euros a month.

After lunch and siesta we set off to cycle to Merikhia for a swim. Simon was pedaling sedately up the hill when Lin shot past, legs spinning like a dervish. For the first time the sea was not cold so we had a really enjoyable swim before cycling back for tea.

Life in Lakki

On Sunday 15 May we had planned to have lunch on the beach at Pandeli with Simon and Christiana, but it was grey and windy and raining in and off, so we abandoned that plan, pottering about the boat, catching up TV and going for dinner at To Petrino with Simon and Christiana, where we both shared the superb as usual bon filet. In the morning the electricity blew. It turned out that our immersion heater had shorted – probably because the element had overheated when we ran out of water. The problem with fitting a new element is that the tank is squashed tight in behind the batteries, so will probably have to remove all the batteries and the battery box to get at it.

After many hours repeatedly checking connections and testing voltages, on Sunday afternoon Simon finally diagnosed the problem with the wind instruments – we haven’t got any. Simon thought he should check that the cups are spinning properly, looked up the mast and saw that there was nothing there. It had obviously blown away in the winter. As we have had trouble with all the instruments, which are very old, we have decided to take the plunge and get a complete new wireless system.

One drama I forgot to report last week – two port police were looking in the water at the end of the quay. Later everyone was told to leave the marina because two World War II bombs had been found in the water. Soon everyone was allowed back. The bombs were taken away a bit later and detonated on a hillside, apparently with a large explosion. Apparently they had been dug up during the building works in the neighbouring naval officers’ quarters and had been dumped there.

On Sunday night two of the refugees from Pikpa left for Patras, nobody knows why and they did not want to go. We did not see them off, but there was a very emotional leave-taking as they have been here two months (https://www.facebook.com/lerossn/posts/898900713570937 ).

On Monday morning Lin went off to teach the children, who are getting better at timekeeping. She has got into a routine of getting to Pikpa before nine, gathering the children and walking them across to the school. 

While we are here, she is helping Anna with the school when it operates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Although this is only the second week of school, the children are settling in to a routine and Lin and Anna are able to identify particular needs. Anna uses computer based English language programmes that she uses to teach Greek children and is able to pick relevant bits. Most of the children are very eager to learn and some of them came already able to read and write Roman script. There are obviously some very able children who are learning very fast. There is some unsettled behavior from some of the younger boys, who have been through pretty distressing experiences. Many of the kids, boys and girls, young and old, throw themselves on the volunteers, even strangers, for kisses and cuddles, whether in Pikpa or when we meet them out on the street.

After school Lin helps prepare and distribute the lunch before coming back for her own lunch.

Simon tried to sort out how to get at the hot water tank to replace the element and noticed a small leak at the outlet. After an hour or so working on it, he failed to stop the leak. He also tried to get the materials to put a stopcock in the pipe to the tank, so that we can isolate the hot water tank and drain it, but the old British water system uses non-standard pipes so he could not find suitable connectors and gave up, ready to get a plumber in. He did do various repairs and treated the stains on the deck, ready to wash it down, which we did after lunch at Poppy’s.

Nobody has come from the yard to fix the immersion heater, so on Wednesday (May 18^th), while Lin went off to school, Simon got down to it again. He found enough fittings in his plumbing bag to fit a new stop cock and drain hose, so he could empty the hot water tank.

On Wednesday evening we met a couple of young Syrian Kurdish guys, one from Pikpa and one from the hot spot, who were shocked to see a Turkish flagged boat. “We thought Greece and Turkey were enemies, I want to stamp on that flag”. We suggested that might not be a very good idea”!

On Thursday Simon cycled up to Partheni to get a new heater element from the chandlers. He then went to the engineering shop from which Frank had borrowed a big socket to remove the old element, but they had lent their socket to Agmar in Partheni, expecting it back in the afternoon. After a beer and lunch Simon struggled to remove the screws that prevented him from lifting the tank to get access to the element. He got two out, but two more were inaccessible, so he had to remove the batteries to get at the tank. He went back to the engineering shop, but Agmar had not returned the socket, leaving the owner fuming, but he found an old socket that worked, so the new element was fitted and the batteries replaced and connected in time for dinner. Although the old heater element was only three years old, the huge sacrificial anode had been completely eaten away. The hot water outlet is leaking, but Argiris has promised to get us a fitting from Agmar.

On Friday morning Lin went to help Anna teach the refugee children. Simon went along to take some photos, though some of the older ones did not want their photos taken. One pleasant surprise was that Mohammed was back from Patras – it had not worked out and somehow he and the other guy had been able to get back here. Anna gave Lin a little basil plant as a thank you for her help in school. Her contract has been renewed for another month and she has been asked to provide classes for the adults too. Some local people had warned her that she would have trouble from Lerians for helping the refugees, though in our experience the majority are very sympathetic to refugees and it is only a small, if vocal, minority who back the mayor. Anna gave Lin a beautifully wrapped plant as a thank you for her help. Anna came back from Australia and her English school is in her beautiful house, built for a senior Italian naval officer, which she showed us round.

After school we talked to Antoinette, an Irish volunteer, who is only here for ten days but has done fantastic work. She has worked in mental health for thirty years and has been badgering the local doctors and psychiatrists to see those with clear mental health problems, including an old woman in a wheel chair who clearly has advanced Alzheimer’s but needs a diagnosis so that she can travel to Athens to join her family, who have settled there. The psychiatrists have given her a prescription for anti-psychotic drugs, which just keep her, and so everyone else, awake at night. Antoinette has managed to get her into a nursing home for a few days to give everybody, including her son, some relief. Antoinette has also provided counselling for some of the depressed parents, who had switched off from their kids so that the kids were starting to run wild, and that has made an amazing difference.

The biggest problem with the refugees is that everyone is slow to adjust to changing circumstances. The refugees are no longer in transit, they are probably going to be here long term. There is a big stock of clothes and shoes, but they are mostly winter clothes and shoes, appropriate for the winter trek up to Austria and Germany, not for a summer stay on an Aegean island. The food is survival food, meal after meal of pasta with tomato sauce, a bit of salad, a slice of bread and half a banana, which gets so monotonous that people lose their appetites. People are sleeping in bunks in male and female dormitories, or in Portakabins in the hot spot, which become stifling in hot weather. The children need schooling and the adults need something to keep them occupied through the day to avoid creeping institutionalisation. With the monotony, frustration and erosion of hope there are increasing mental and physical health problems. The children, especially the girls, are very vulnerable to every sort of exploitation. These problems are very apparent even in Pikpa, which is a paradise compared to the hot spots and mainland camps.

On Saturday morning we went shopping to stock up ready to go to Arki on Sunday. We had a coffee with Marietta and Sheila, an Irish volunteer at Pikpa joined us. She and Antoinette have been doing fantastic work with the refugees, but they are going back home. Two guys from UNHCR sat at the next table. They have just upgraded the wifi in Pikpa, but Sheila asked them if they can restrict it because the children are running wild while their parents spend all the time on Facebook!

We had been hoping to get new connectors to cure the leaking hot water outlet pipe. Argiris kept phoning the yard, who thought they had some but were not sure and had still not come up with them when they closed at 1. Argiris hoped to get them on Monday, but if not they would have to order them from Athens, which takes a day or two. After mulling it over we decided to stay until we have fixed the hot water system, using the time to do lots of other jobs that we have constantly put off.

Back to Leros

We flew to Athens on Sunday, May 1^st, to spend a couple of nights with Lena, before flying to Leros on Tuesday. It was lovely to see Lena, but she is really feeling the pinch, with her pension slashed and taxes increasing. She is very worried about what will happen when pensions are cut again next month. She can barely survive as it is. Meanwhile the government continues with the absurd programme of spending cuts, tax increases and privatisations that cost more than they bring in.

We had planned to take Lena and Margarita to dinner in their local Italian restaurant. Lena said there was no need to book, but when we got there it was full. The only alternatives in the area now are grill places – a sign of the times, when a prosperous district can only support one decent restaurant, so we went to one of the grills for a cheap and just about edible meal instead.

We flew to Leros on Tuesday morning. There were only a dozen people on the flight – surprising as it was the end of the Easter holiday. The flight was early and there was no sign of Costas with our hire car. I phoned him and it turned out he thought we were coming tomorrow. He arrived with a car fifteen minutes later and we went down to the yard to find our boat. Apart from the cover, which we knew had flogged to death and disintegrated, everything looked in surprisingly good condition. We had booked to launch on Monday so got straight down to work preparing the boat, doing all the jobs that had to be done before launching, though we did go in to Lakki later in the afternoon to go round seeing old friends and to meet Frank and Lin for a drink on their boat and then dinner at Ostria.

Frank had offered to come and help with polishing the hull, with his powerful electric polisher, so on Wednesday Simon gave the hull a good wash, ready for polishing on Thursday. Frank came up on the bus on Thursday and we set to work polishing. With Simon putting the polish on and Frank buffing it with his polisher we got the job done in three hours and went off in the car for a very good light lunch at Blefouti, where Lina works as the waitress in the taverna. After lunch Frank helped us get the main sail up and put it on. Simon then took Frank back to Lakki.

On Friday Simon derusted the keel and polished the propeller, while Lin went on sorting everything out and polishing below. In the evening we met Frank and Lin and two other couples for Frank’s birthday dinner at Dimitri’s.

On Saturday we drove in to Lakki for lunch at Poppy’s with Frank and Lin and Mike and Ann. Frank and Lin had decided not to leave for Levitha until Sunday.

On Sunday Simon anti-fouled the keel and anointed the propeller with udder cream (to keep the barnacles at bay). The wind was very light so we managed to hoist the genoa (strictly forbidden in the yard, but it was Sunday so who was to know -  sails were going up all over the place). In the evening we went to dinner with Jad and Julie in their old house in Planatos, just above the old Jewish quarter (the Jews were forced out at the beginning of the last century). Jad and Julie had just been up to the camp at Idomeni, on the Greek-Macedonian border, to collect some things for Leros that had been trucked out to Idomeni by an Irish charity. Needless to say, this being Greece, nothing had gone to plan – the van they had rented did not exist, so they had to make do with a people carrier stripped of its seats, and they could not get it back to Leros as planned because the big ferries have been on strike for a week. They told us that everything is far better organized and calmer than it was last autumn, but the problems faced by the refugees are at least as great. In the autumn they were just in Leros for a few days before moving on, but now they had been stuck here for months, with no idea of what is going to happen to them, so the stress and depression is much worse than it was last year.

We got up early, ready to launch, on Monday morning. Christina arrived at about 7.30 to collect the hire car. The tractor and lift arrived at 8 and we were in the water by 8.45. 

The engine started first time and there was no clunking and grinding noise, which there had been just before we lifted in the autumn (and we had paid the yard 620 euros to try to find the source of the noise. They took out the gearbox and dismantled it, inspected the shaft and engine mounts, but found nothing). We motored over to Arkhangelos, where we anchored, put the dinghy in the water and hoisted the main to rig the reefing lines. There was still very little wind, so we motored down to Lakki and were tied up in the marina by 11.30. On the way in we passed the British rescue boat, tied up on the quay, designed for the North Sea, but which has been picking up refugees for the last few months.

Lefteris, in the marina, told us that he and Kyriakos had spent three months working on the MSF rescue RIBs. He said he would never forget some of the things he had seen and done, picking bodies out of the water. He said it was nothing like you see on TV. There are almost no refugees coming over now, but whether this is because they have heard that they will not be able to go any further or whether it is because of more effective policing nobody knows.

We went straight over to Pikpa to see about helping with the refugees. There we met Jo, an English woman who has lived in Leros for eleven years, who was in charge of the morning shift and who briefed us about the situation. There are enough volunteers to provide for the basic needs of the refugees and enough money coming in from donations to pay for the food and so on. There are also some paid staff employed by various charities and agencies, most of whom seem to do nothing but sit around. Anna in the local English language school is starting this week to provide English language teaching for the kids in the mornings, so Lin arranged to come in next day to help with that. We met some charming Kurdish Iraqi boys, Reger and Rehat, who have been here with their older brother and sister for two months.

Reger and Rehat

Their parents are in Germany, but they cannot join them so they are stuck in Lakki. We then went off to have a beer and chicken club sandwich at Poppy’s. That evening Sue and Steve arrived from Crete, via Astipalea, and we went for dinner with them in Ostria.

Most of the refugees, about 850, in Leros are in the ‘hot spot’ at Lepida, a euphemistic term for a prison camp, surrounded by barbed wire. 

They include people who arrived in Leros, but mostly people shipped here from other islands and from Athens for ‘processing’. According to the EU there are 25 Frontex Officers (Screening and debriefing teams. Border Surveillance Officer and Advance Level Document Officer) and two Europol officers in the hotspot, but there is nobody from EASO (the European Asylum Support Office). Legally the refugees cannot be held for more than 28 days, but in practice they are not allowed out (and if they do get out it is a long walk into town), though we are told that for some reason the arrivals from Castelorizo are allowed out. The only people allowed in are those from the charity Ekho, founded by a woman from Patmos, who has managed to get through the barriers of registration (which includes registering staff as ‘acceptable people’). They deliver additional food every day, because the army does not provide enough, and help to distribute the food to the prisoners. Nobody knows what is happening or what the future holds for these prisoners. The volunteers describe the present situation of the camps and sites in Greece as “more desperate than before because refugees are losing hope, waiting long periods of time in limbo with no sight of any solutions”. The teams are constantly learning how to cope with stress, anxiety and a host of psychological and social problems in refugees.

Lepida was notorious first as a leper colony, then as a concentration camp in which 4000 political prisoners were held under the dictatorship (1967-74) and then as a mental hospital in which more than 3000 patients are said to have died under harsh conditions, which were denounced by an article in the Observer (and a photo-essay ). The mayor of Leros had been campaigning for the past two years to open Lepida as a prison camp for refugees to keep them away from tourists (and no doubt to get the substantial revenue to be expected to finance the construction of the camp and restoration of the buildings). The Leros Solidarity Network (http://www.lsn.gr/ ) had been campaigning against this proposal, with widespread support in favour of Pikpa, the hospital building in town converted by the volunteers of the Leros Solidarity Network. Prime Minister Tsipras came to Leros in December and visited Lepida, as well as Pikpa. He declared that ‘Pikpa brought hope’, but this did not stop the construction of a new concentration camp at Lepida, which opened on 1 March. The conditions in the hot spots are so bad that UNHCR and MSF have refused to provide assistance to them.

Pikpa now accommodates 103 people in dormitories with bunk beds, toilets and washing facilities, a TV with Arabic channels, a kitchen, a play area for young children and a yard with a covered area with tables and benches, so it has been reserved for vulnerable refugees – unaccompanied minors, families with young children and the disabled. Recently about 15 of the younger unaccompanied children were dispersed to orphanages around Greece, the group being broken up and the kids being sent in twos and threes to different orphanages – we hate to think about their fate - so now the youngest unaccompanied child is Reger, aged 12.

Lin went over to Pikpa on Tuesday morning to help in the school, but it turned out that school is only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, so she went back at 10.30 and spent the morning working with the kids in the yard and then helping to distribute lunch. Simon, meanwhile, got on with jobs on the boat.

On Wednesday Lin and Simon went over to Pikpa and this time Lin could help Anna in the school.

On the walk to school

The younger children’s lesson is from 9 to 10.30, though it is difficult to get them to turn up on time. We took them over to the school, where three people from UNHCR were there to watch the beginning of the teaching. There are eleven in the younger group, aged from 10 to 14, and they have each been given an exercise book and a pencil case, but have no course books yet. The UNHCR are trying to get permission to spend money on course books. The younger kids are enthusiastic, but some find it hard to focus, especially if they are hungry because they got up too late to have breakfast. Quite a few can read simple stuff and they can all write the Roman alphabet so they must have had some English teaching in the past. They are learning basic conversational English. Most are willing to talk, but some are shy. Quite a few are very bright and learning very fast.

The older group of 10 teenagers and young adults had been a problem on the first day because there were some who were really not bothered in the group, but once the main trouble-maker had been excluded they turned out to be a mature group, very keen to learn. Lin identified two people, Mohammed and Wavin (Reger and Rehad’s seventeen-year-old sister), who had serious eyesight problems and Lin is helping to arrange for them to see the optician. There is a very bright twenty-two year old Syrian mother, Najar, with a ten-month old baby whose husband, who has never seen the baby, is in Germany.

Simon, meanwhile, helped to prepare and distribute breakfast, a sandwich and half a banana each. 

When the younger kids came back from school they spotted our IKEA folding bike and one asked to have a ride. He took off at great speed, doing wheelies and burning tyres. The others clamoured to have a go and soon Mohammed had them organized in a queue, so they spent the rest of the morning riding around. Some were very good cyclists, some were rather wobbly and some could not manage at all. When Matina and Spiros arrived they put a stop to the cycling because of the risk of accident and consequent legal liability.

Mohammed with Jo and her dog

Reger on the IKEA bike

After an afternoon working on the boat, we went to dinner at Ostria with Richard. Just before we set off Christiana phone to suggest dinner at Ostria, and she and Simon, who had arrived at dawn on Tuesday, joined us. Adrian, a Dutch harmonica player whom we had not met before, also joined us.

On Thursday we went and had coffee with Marietta at her and Tacis’s shop and sat and talked to her. She is very worried about the situation. Like many other people, she and Tacis have mounting debts for electricity and the ever-increasing taxes and their only hope is for a good tourist season, but she is afraid that people will be put off coming because of the refugee situation, although now that the refugees are almost all in the prison camp the refugees have no impact in town. Marietta, like the majority of people here, hates the racists and is very sympathetic to the refugees, but faces a dilemma because their presence scares away the tourists. When she was a student she was teased because she came from Leros, notorious as a prison island and then for its mental hospitals. The islanders have spent twenty years overcoming that reputation, only for it all to come back. Marietta was born in Australia so the family have been preparing their papers so that, as an absolute last resort, they can go to Australia, but they dread leaving their beloved island and way of life. The crisis has bitten so deep that we are probably going to see a rerun of the 1940s and early 1950s when half the population of the Dodecanese were forced to leave for Australia and the US. Many came back when things improved and it is now their children, often born, like Marietta, in Australia or the US, who are retracing their parents’ steps. The rest of the day was spent on cleaning, maintenance and repair on the boat, though with the south wind getting up and rain forecast we put off the outside jobs. The wind blew hard overnight, peaking at about 6am. A very large Maltese registered yacht moored on the town quay left to anchor on the other side of the bay because the Norwegian yacht next to it was swinging around so much. The Norwegian then went alongside the quay – it looked as though his anchor had dragged.

On Friday Lin went to help in the school for the morning while Simon, at last, installed the new water filter, which Lin had been dreading in the expectation of leaks filling the kitchen cupboards – all went well so we now have a tap delivering filtered water. One of the young men in the English class told her that he had to say goodbye as he was being sent to Patras on Sunday. He had no idea why he was going and he didn’t want to go. We can only imagine that he has been granted asylum in Greece. There was also a crisis because Omar, a young Syrian man, had lost his mobile phone – it was not clear whether it was lost or stolen, but he was distraught, not because of the phone but because it held all his contacts and photos. Matina announced at lunch time that there would be no salad until the phone was found. We left to go back to the boat.

Saturday was gloomy, with drizzle on and off all day, and more forecast for tomorrow.

A week with Annie

We motored up to Arkhangelos after giving breakfast to the refugees on Saturday 5^th September. We found a nice spot to anchor, 

had a light lunch and swam off the boat. In the evening we put the outboard on the dinghy and motored over to the taverna, Stigma, where we were greeted warmly by Dimitra and her family.

We drank rather too much wine to get comfortably in and out of the dinghy, with Simon with his hip and Annie with her back Annie decided we should put a disabled badge on the dinghy. However, all went well and nobody fell in.

On Sunday morning we motored up to Arki, with no wind at all, arriving about 10.30 to find plenty of room on the quay, where Richard and Ron were already moored. As we backed onto the quay we saw three more yachts coming up behind us, apparently from nowhere, so we had got there just in time. Richard and Ron took our lines and we moored up. Lin and Simon immediately swam off the boat, while Annie, who was doubtful about her ability to get back on board with her rigid back, stayed on board and read. We went for lunch at Nikolas’s with Richard and Ron and after lunch Annie and Lin went to spend the afternoon on the beach.

In the evening we were entertained by a dispute between a couple in a small French yacht and some obnoxious people in an enormous motor yacht. The Frenchman thought the motor yacht had laid its anchor over his chain and wanted them to move it to let him leave, but they refused. In the event he left next morning without any problem. We went for dinner with Richard and Ron at Nikolas’s and dropped into bed.

On Monday we said goodbye to Richard and Ron, who were going up to Fourni, and walked over to Tiganakia to spend the morning on the beach. 

On the way there the path under the tree was occupied by some large goats

so we walked round!

We came back for lunch at Nikolas’s and in the afternoon Lin and Annie went round to the town beach, while Simon read and swam from the boat, having done enough walking in the morning. Late in the afternoon big groups on charter boats came in and rafted up. We went for dinner at Nikolas’s and said goodbye to everybody.

Just as were going to bed, loud music and raucous cheering came from Tripas Taverna – probably a group of charterers having a party. The loud music went on till 4 am, keeping us all awake – Annie used the time to work on her novel.

We left Arki for Arkhangelos at 8.30 on Tuesday morning, expecting strong winds, but in the event there was very little wind. We managed to anchor in our favourite spot in Arkhangelos a couple of hours later. Soon after we had anchored there was a terrible grinding noise. When Simon investigated he found that the anchor chain had wrapped itself around a wreck on the bottom. After some diving, with Lin letting the chain in and out, we managed to disentangle it and re-anchored to be clear of it. We then went in for a cooling swim. We had a delicious lunch at Stigma tavern before lazing, dozing, swimming and reading, for the afternoon. We ate aboard in the evening. Many of the boats left in the afternoon, so there were only half a dozen overnight. Arkhangelos is the perfect anchorage, sheltered, peaceful and now with a wonderful friendly taverna.

After breakfast,

we left Arkhangelos to come back to Lakki at 09.00 and moored in the marina.

We went to lunch at Poppy’s with Richard, 

who was leaving for Turkey with Ron, and after lunch went round to Merikhia to spend the afternoon on the beach. 

In the evening we took a taxi over to Pandeli to meet Bob and Lydia for dinner at Psarapoula.

On Thursday morning, 10^th September, we said goodbye to Annie, who took the 11am catamaran to Kos to catch her evening flight home.

We then had three days for shopping, cleaning the boat and getting ready to lift out. We will go to Arkhangelos on Sunday or Monday, lift out on Tuesday, fly to Athens to stay with Lena on 19^th and home, after the Greek election, on Monday 21^st.