Summer 2014

Leros Marina with Lakki Town

Having an annual contract has made us lazy (or lazier!) this year, we kept returning to the marina and staying there rather than going out sailing. Its a good marina with a nice shower block with plenty of hot water, if you're lucky someone has left some credit on a pillar on the pontoon and you pick up some free water and electric for the boat. There always seems to be a breeze by the late morning making it a comfortable temperature. The downside is the distance to the town and shopping but now that we have the "Brompton's" its a lot easier and quicker, they also give us the chance to explore more of the island. We visited the Italian battlements from the second world war. Underground tunnels, gun emplacements and even a tank up on the hill in the centre of Leros giving the troops a panoramic view of the island and neighbouring islands. Very thought provoking.

light wind sailing!

Thankfully we had more visitors and so we headed back to sea eventually and picked Jane and Mark up again from Kalymnos. Its an easy place for people to get to from Kos airport with a short bus ride and ferry trip (not always on the same day though!). We planned to visit some islands that we'd not been to before and with the forecast decided to head down towards the north west coast of Rhodes to Khalki and Alimia, some 70 miles south with islands in the way! A gentle first day saw us in Pserimos for a welcome swim and the nightly BBQ after that the wind picked up and gave us bumpy rides to the islands of Yali and Tilos - how do the waves get that big in the Med? We were lucky to find  space in the small harbour of Livadhi on Tilos but not so lucky to find a sheared off bolt on the deck from the inner forstay (a wire that helps keep the mast up!).

Alimia anchorage

As the island is small with limited supplies  a temporary repair was carried out but even that consisted of headlining down in the fore peak - very messy and cutting back the lay up of the boat that was encapsulating the bolts. Two bolts replaced (all we had) and the boat put back together a few hours later. Thankfully  Livadhi has a lovely beach, clear water and trees for shade to escape to, we seriously recommend it to anyone wanting a chill out and do nothing break.

Khalki

We managed to head off the next day heading for some anchorages on Khalki and Alimia, idyllic places with very few people in them. Ashore on Alimia are some abandoned buildings used by the Italians and Germans in WW11 with some nostalgic cartoons drawn by them on the walls. No one lives on the island, there is just the few tourists who take the water taxi from Khalki to there for the day, you have the island often to yourself. Sadly there were numerous wasps when we were at anchor which were very annoying and even stung P who reacted with a very red swollen arm which needed cream, tablets and an injection from the local Dr! We spent 3 days on the quay/pontoon in Khalki due to strong winds, its not ideal shelter and the pontoon was very rickety making the boat move quite a bit. We spent more time ashore eating or swimming off the pontoon than on the boat. Finally the wind eased and allowed us to start making the trip back north stopping at Symi, Tilos and Nisiros, winds were anything from having us reefed down, motoring or the light weight cruising chute - ah the Mediterranean wind, its either no wind, too much wind or on the nose wind!!

Escapade & Crazydream in Nisiros

Jane & Mark got the ferry from Nisiros to Kos for their return trip and we stayed on in Nisiros to meet up with Svein and Caryn from Escapade. With good company, an excellent restaurant and too much wind from the north (the way we wanted to go) we stayed over a week. Finally the wind eased enough to head back to Leros in two hops, we needed reefs in the main as the wind was lighter than it had been but was still causing us to get water over the foredeck - the canals are seriously becoming a option!

Again some free electric and water saw us staying in the marina for longer than we should but there was the repair of the inner forestay to do, headlining to be stuck, water pump to be mended then subsequently replaced, the jobs are endless, we even started some internal varnishing. Then there's all the people to socialise with, we will get out there again soon - honest!!