There be dragons

It was a bit noisy in Vathi, with the late night party running into the early morning cockerels. So we left the following morning for a short sail round to Kalymnos town.

Adopting the position

We were hovering around looking for a berthing spot when a fellow signalled to us and indicated that the berth next to him was free. Very neighbourly!

At that point a large chap appeared and started trying to wave us away with loud invective.

Nice guy however continued to quietly and calmly indicate that we should come in where he had shown us. So in we went.

Excellent museum on Kalymnos. Had wind powered directions. We got lost!

Our helper had a friendly Scottish voice and told us that the waver and shouterer was a restaurant owner who was trying to reserve space for tripper boats to feed at his restaurant, and we should pay him no attention. So we didn’t.

Aesculapius. God of surgery. Looks like an old colleague.

Came up in a fishing net!

Dean and Jan, our new neighbours were proud owners of a very handsome Amel 54, a proper long distance cruising boat. It is fully kitted out, and as Dean is an engineer, was the recipient of all manner of trick stuff. Water maker, LiFePo batteries washing machine, sauna, cinema, etc etc.

Anyway it was good to hear familiar voices, even though they had made their fortune in Australia. You can take the boy out of Clydebank ………..!

M did her magic with the Port Police without committing any crimes, other than having a face that would curdle milk when she got back. This whole Greek bureaucracy thing is getting very silly. She may well have a separate rant about it at some stage.🤐

We had a couple of days moored waiting for the Meltemi to settle and enjoyed Dean and Jan’s company. We found, rather surprisingly an excellent Japanese restaurant snuck in between the tavernas and that was a welcome change. 

Grumpy *#@

The perfect spot was only marred by a grumpy neighbour moored nearby.

 He complained to the Marinero that another boat, that had been between us, had been too close to him, and that if he brought in any other boat to that spot, to ensure that it was up against me. That I was sitting in the cockpit listening did not seem to faze him.

 I guess he felt his Oyster was more important than my lowly Beneteau, but it is still not the way Cruising Association members should go on. Definitely not cricket.

One of the really good things about sailing around the Dodecanese is that you can always find a destination that has a good point of sail. High winds blew for a couple of days as we developed a bit of cabin fever, and then as they abated settled into a nice 15-20kt NW, which would allow us to sail on a broad reach all the way to Astipalea.

Broad reach in 15kts all the way

Astipalea is a bit of an outlying island some 35 miles from everywhere, so it is visited somewhat less often than most of the others. It was a pirate sanctuary for a long time, but also has a long history of prominent roles in the rest of the convoluted history of the region.

Astipalea. Pretty town

So off we set and spanked along at a really good lick, though in a slightly lumpy sea, all the way to Astipalea. For our first night we moored up at the harbour in the small town Skala. Quite pleasant little place but architecturally much more like Cyclades islands than Dodecanese. When these islands were being planned by whoever planned these things, it must have been difficult to know which belonged where.

A brick works in the middle of nowhere!

However we moved the following morning to an enclosed lagoon at the top end of the island, which was pretty remote, and we had hoped for splendid isolation. 

This was not to be had. There was another Oyster yacht flying a Cruising Association burgee already anchored. Fortunately it was not the guy from Kalymnos, but another one. Common as muck these Oysters. It is an odd sort of place with an industrial looking brick chimney on the shore, possible a historical remnant from quarrying.

Boyd and Debbie soon dinghied over to us to welcome us and filch a beer. We joined them later at Maria’s Taverna. Having explained that she was very tired and didn’t really want to cook, Maria reluctantly agreed to serve us as long as we came on a ‘ self service ‘ basis. 

An ancient relative lay recumbent on the verandah and watched with an eagle eye. We could have food, wine, whatever, but clearing you own table and stacking the dirties in the kitchen was the expectation.  A new spin on home from home. 

We managed through the evening with no faux pas except putting the salt away on the wrong shelf. Fully reprimanded, we slunk off to the quiet dark night leaving granny to watch silently……...Not quite psycho but you get the drift.

The Meltemi had run out of puff and the wind had turned round to light breezes from the S and W. This is usually accompanied by a change in the atmosphere as the air becomes heavy with moisture and dank clouds appear. Everything becomes muggy and sticky. Even at sea this can be a bit oppressive. We set off E again but the sailing was slow and with 35 miles to go wherever we went we ended up motoring about half of they way back to Kalymnos. We left Boyd and Debbie, heading off to Amorgos , on their eventual path north to Athens.

We are at the stage now of waiting for family and friends to arrive, and need to be in a certain place on a certain date, i.e. Kos. So we are watching the weather and our position to make sure we can get there and not be storm bound somewhere else. High winds are never far away here. So we are basically drifting about aimlessly in a holding pattern. You might be forgiven for thinking the whole thing is fairly aimless, and you would be right. But at least with absolutely no agenda you can concentrate on doing the best sailing.

So in the next few days we visited Vathi on Kalymnos, Xerocampo on Leros and then back to Kalymnos town. We had a burst of southerly on our way up to Leros on the eastern shore of Kalymnos which gave us a blast with the spinnaker, and a steady northerly to blow us back on a downwind surf on the western coast.

 The wind is now consistently in the NW and varying from 15-20kts steady, more in the gusts, which is just about the most I like for enjoyable sailing. Once the colours on my Windy app get into the red zone, well that is the red zone. There be dragons.