More Dodecanese Sailing

We've covered about 280 nm since the last entry but still staying within the Dodecanese.

Friends Sally and Jonathan joined us in Kalimnos bringing an inflatable kayak with them which obviously had to be tried and tested on arrival. All was well for a while but Jonathan did take an early dip in the harbour!

The most dramatic and scariest thing to happen to us on board Crazydream since leaving the UK (well apart form 50kts when leaving Gibraltar!) happened during Sally and Jonathan's stay. We were woken to a large bang at 3am one morning after securing to a restaurant buoy the previous evening. We had T-boned a Turkish Gulet after the line of the buoy chaffed through its mooring block. We had drifted right across the bay and if we hadn't hit the gulet the rocks and shore were next, which it doesn't bear thinking about. Thankfully they were a solid boat and there was no apparent damage, we didn't even manage to wake any of the crew up! We don't appear to have any damage although the anchor pin is harder to put in nowadays!! So word of warning, check out the ground tackle of buoys in Xerokambos anchorage, south of Leros.

We were all very pleased to be heading off to Cyprus, where Sally and Jonathan had kindly invited us to stay at their villa with them for a week. We took Crazydream to Kos Marina where Jane and Mark were taking her over for a week - it saved having to leave her somewhere or get her lifted.

Cyprus was much warmer than Greece around the 40-45'C range. Thankfully the villa is in the Tsada hills north of Paphos, this meant there was a breeze most days but the swimming pool helped to keep us cool if the air conditioning didn't. We took our washing to do in the machine and P offered to wash up every day using the dishwasher! The one thing P has also missed on Crazydream is a sofa, well there were two leather ones to choose from in the villa, what a big difference to a 36ft sailing boat.We ate out numerous times enjoying the scenery and cuisine of Cyprus, trying many different fish dishes, a new thing for P&G. We had an absolutely wonderful time and can't thank Jonathan and Sally enough.


Returning to Crazydream found Jane and Mark having had a good week apart from Mark losing his glasses when diving in the water to take a line ashore but forgetting to take his glasses off first! They did look for them but couldn't find them. Thankfully, due to big seas and strong winds, when we were back on board, we ended up in the same anchorage and G, after checking the anchor, went snorkeling to look for them and surprisingly found them in one piece with no damage. No need to visit Spec Savers on their return!!
We visited numerous islands, Leros, Lipsi, Arki, Patmos and Kalimnos but the wind prevented us getting up to Samos this time. We know the area quite well now and were able to visit some beautiful bays to enjoy swims and bbq's.