the Dodecanese
24th July - 5th August Agathonisi, Marathos, Patmos, Leros, Kalimnos, Kos
Wrighteau's birthday yesterday, a big 7 year old now
This Wrighteau rant takes us from Pethagorian, Samos, down through the Dodecanese to Kos. Pathegorian was lovely, but it was well time to leave there, it is nice now to have smaller hops in the day, Agathonisi was only 16 miles, and we mostly sailed it, another big plus. It is a tiny little harbor, very narrow, but we found the plum position beside a big launch on one side, and little fishing boats on the other, we anchored and backed up to the shore and tied astern. The water was enough to just dissolve me, the anchor well dug in so nothing for it but to settle back for a relaxing and celebratory beer. But there is always someone to mess up a perfectly good party, an enormous Cat hovered around looking dangerously keen to try and squash in between the launch and us. Fortunately our eagle glare finally penetrated their small psyche and they hovered off. After that we could really settle back and enjoy the ambience and beauty of this little hamlet on the shore. This is the bay were we were first noticed by a beautiful Italian couple and their delightful children, but more on that later.
From there another little hop to Marathos, where we picked up the pick of the mooring buoys, which meant, oh bother, we must eat at the taverna belonging to it, which happened to be a delightfully entertaining “pirate” All a complete gimmick of course, and as quaint as he was there was a dose of arrogance also. And not in the slightest bit as handsome as Johnny Depp!!! This was obviously elected to be a 2 night stay, again the water was more than I can describe. All the comings and goings of other yachts antics and maneuvers kept us from complete rest and relaxation, but all very entertaining and pleasant. This little island provided a wonderful wildlife walk around the goats, who existed on such meager pickings, poor little chaps, and a stunning sunset to cap it all off. So dining to follow, this evening it was very busy, and as usual we would try to pick where they all came from, we found out the big table beside was made up of Dutch, Turkish and Russian, what a cocktail, then I took it upon myself to do my own little survey, and before Joe could grab my cuff, I was off, I found more Dutch, Spanish, (but his grandfather was New Zealand, so he was particularly excited), English, American, and Swedish, and to top them all off, a girl working in LangYear, the most northern inhabited piece of earth, where she lives in 9 months of complete darkness and 3 daylight months.
Next stop, Patmos. Like Alonissos held a special place in our heart because of Andrew, this was very special because our good mates Di and Trev adopted this place two years ago, and long for a return. It was indeed a lovely town, with a wiggly taxi ride up to the world heritage Monestary, and a cobbled walkway down, stopping at the caves where St John wrote his letters. For us it quite busy, the quay where yachts parked up was not as pretty as some, and quite noisy, so we mosied on after two nights, imagining our two friends sitting on their balcony supping Mythos watching boats like us coming and going.
After Patmos we hopped over to Lakki on the island of Leros we had a particularly sloppy journey as the sea was very confused and quite big for this region after the meltemi, but not enough wind for the sails to fill with air and keep us steady. Lakki had a lovely little marina, more of a quay really, but the town didn’t excite, and then the Greek equivalent of boy racer, usually on manic scooters, bombarded us in the early evening. However we did manage a repeat of Brindisi in Italy a few years ago, listened to Newstalk ZB whilst having pizza delivered to the boat from the restaurant in the marina. From there we ducked around the corner to Xerokambos. Not such a beautiful bay, but gorgeous crystal blue water, and lovely swimming. We took a walk in the evening around to the little church built into the rock, the myth has it that a fisherman was bitten by a crab, he rubbed it with an icon he found on the rock, and it cured it, so he took it home, but that night woke to a terrible dream and a lady dressed in black told him to return it to the rock, and so a church was built on the spot. It was quite enchanting, couldn’t swing a cat inside, hard pressed to fit Joe and me together inside.
While we were here we met up with Zeta again. When we stopped at Psara, one of the only high points was meeting Danny and Lydia from Italy. While I was on his boat helping him to persuade his internet stick to respond his phone rang, it turned out to be this Deta, who now we met also. He is German, one would have to suggest slightly deranged, he spends 7 months a year paddling a canoe around the Aegean. He certainly has had to get a good understanding of the currents. He starts from Crete, this year his 90 mile first leg took 3 efforts to make it across. His canoe, which is not even a sea kayak, is called Palabos, a Greek word which translates into Crazy, he claims to be crazy, not stupid, the jury may still be out on that one. He swung by our boat to give us 3 tomatoes as he has not fridge of course, and paddled his lonely looking way into oblivion, until our next bay, Emborios where we encountered him again. This was a very special bay, where we bumped into the Italian family I mentioned before. I suppose with children flags are part of the overall education, and our big black kiwi flag does rather stand out. When we left our table, they gave us a hearty welcome, when I addressed the wee boy he gave me a big hug, well I nearly melted of course. We left there very early in the morning, after our two night stay, my mother has not been so terribly chipper, which at the sturdy age of nearly 88 might be expected, but my sister was up with her at the time, and with the most incredible measure of technology, as we motored along between islands I was speaking with them on Skype on the computer, in fact with video turned on, I could show them the sunrise, the village we passed, the blue sky and temperature which resulted in a smidgeon of envy I think. After that we turned a very churned up point on the island with washing machine water, then could raise the sails and had a splendid sail, in fact we even nudged 8 knots a few times. It was like playing dodgems as we approached Kos, we counted 14 gullets bearing down on us. The rules of the sea are that sail power rules over motor power, but nobody had thought to inform these cowboy skippers of that, it was fend for ourselves at all costs. We came to Kos a day early because Mr Meltemi was paying a visit again, we checked ourselves into a lovely marina, and had an embarrassingly lazy day yesterday, we got some chores done, and some computer work done, some correspondence from home to attend to. So today we shook ourselves off, and got stuck into a bit of sightseeing. Kos is a lovely little town, made famous by Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. We visited a super theatre, which has been restored a lot, and looks to have concerts etc in it nowadays. Various other excavated historic sites, and the old part of the town. We hopped onto a little train, which took us up into the hills to a forest, and wandered along the promenade, watching all the chez lounges lined up like soldiers looking out to the rough and not madly attractive beach.
So that brings us to the end of this Rant, tomorrow we are off to Simi, which we have not heard a single bad word about, just extremely enthusiastic reviews from anyone who wants to share it. So you can await that one for next time.
Yassu
From there another little hop to Marathos, where we picked up the pick of the mooring buoys, which meant, oh bother, we must eat at the taverna belonging to it, which happened to be a delightfully entertaining “pirate” All a complete gimmick of course, and as quaint as he was there was a dose of arrogance also. And not in the slightest bit as handsome as Johnny Depp!!! This was obviously elected to be a 2 night stay, again the water was more than I can describe. All the comings and goings of other yachts antics and maneuvers kept us from complete rest and relaxation, but all very entertaining and pleasant. This little island provided a wonderful wildlife walk around the goats, who existed on such meager pickings, poor little chaps, and a stunning sunset to cap it all off. So dining to follow, this evening it was very busy, and as usual we would try to pick where they all came from, we found out the big table beside was made up of Dutch, Turkish and Russian, what a cocktail, then I took it upon myself to do my own little survey, and before Joe could grab my cuff, I was off, I found more Dutch, Spanish, (but his grandfather was New Zealand, so he was particularly excited), English, American, and Swedish, and to top them all off, a girl working in LangYear, the most northern inhabited piece of earth, where she lives in 9 months of complete darkness and 3 daylight months.
Next stop, Patmos. Like Alonissos held a special place in our heart because of Andrew, this was very special because our good mates Di and Trev adopted this place two years ago, and long for a return. It was indeed a lovely town, with a wiggly taxi ride up to the world heritage Monestary, and a cobbled walkway down, stopping at the caves where St John wrote his letters. For us it quite busy, the quay where yachts parked up was not as pretty as some, and quite noisy, so we mosied on after two nights, imagining our two friends sitting on their balcony supping Mythos watching boats like us coming and going.
After Patmos we hopped over to Lakki on the island of Leros we had a particularly sloppy journey as the sea was very confused and quite big for this region after the meltemi, but not enough wind for the sails to fill with air and keep us steady. Lakki had a lovely little marina, more of a quay really, but the town didn’t excite, and then the Greek equivalent of boy racer, usually on manic scooters, bombarded us in the early evening. However we did manage a repeat of Brindisi in Italy a few years ago, listened to Newstalk ZB whilst having pizza delivered to the boat from the restaurant in the marina. From there we ducked around the corner to Xerokambos. Not such a beautiful bay, but gorgeous crystal blue water, and lovely swimming. We took a walk in the evening around to the little church built into the rock, the myth has it that a fisherman was bitten by a crab, he rubbed it with an icon he found on the rock, and it cured it, so he took it home, but that night woke to a terrible dream and a lady dressed in black told him to return it to the rock, and so a church was built on the spot. It was quite enchanting, couldn’t swing a cat inside, hard pressed to fit Joe and me together inside.
While we were here we met up with Zeta again. When we stopped at Psara, one of the only high points was meeting Danny and Lydia from Italy. While I was on his boat helping him to persuade his internet stick to respond his phone rang, it turned out to be this Deta, who now we met also. He is German, one would have to suggest slightly deranged, he spends 7 months a year paddling a canoe around the Aegean. He certainly has had to get a good understanding of the currents. He starts from Crete, this year his 90 mile first leg took 3 efforts to make it across. His canoe, which is not even a sea kayak, is called Palabos, a Greek word which translates into Crazy, he claims to be crazy, not stupid, the jury may still be out on that one. He swung by our boat to give us 3 tomatoes as he has not fridge of course, and paddled his lonely looking way into oblivion, until our next bay, Emborios where we encountered him again. This was a very special bay, where we bumped into the Italian family I mentioned before. I suppose with children flags are part of the overall education, and our big black kiwi flag does rather stand out. When we left our table, they gave us a hearty welcome, when I addressed the wee boy he gave me a big hug, well I nearly melted of course. We left there very early in the morning, after our two night stay, my mother has not been so terribly chipper, which at the sturdy age of nearly 88 might be expected, but my sister was up with her at the time, and with the most incredible measure of technology, as we motored along between islands I was speaking with them on Skype on the computer, in fact with video turned on, I could show them the sunrise, the village we passed, the blue sky and temperature which resulted in a smidgeon of envy I think. After that we turned a very churned up point on the island with washing machine water, then could raise the sails and had a splendid sail, in fact we even nudged 8 knots a few times. It was like playing dodgems as we approached Kos, we counted 14 gullets bearing down on us. The rules of the sea are that sail power rules over motor power, but nobody had thought to inform these cowboy skippers of that, it was fend for ourselves at all costs. We came to Kos a day early because Mr Meltemi was paying a visit again, we checked ourselves into a lovely marina, and had an embarrassingly lazy day yesterday, we got some chores done, and some computer work done, some correspondence from home to attend to. So today we shook ourselves off, and got stuck into a bit of sightseeing. Kos is a lovely little town, made famous by Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. We visited a super theatre, which has been restored a lot, and looks to have concerts etc in it nowadays. Various other excavated historic sites, and the old part of the town. We hopped onto a little train, which took us up into the hills to a forest, and wandered along the promenade, watching all the chez lounges lined up like soldiers looking out to the rough and not madly attractive beach.
So that brings us to the end of this Rant, tomorrow we are off to Simi, which we have not heard a single bad word about, just extremely enthusiastic reviews from anyone who wants to share it. So you can await that one for next time.
Yassu
