(The blog maps feature didn't recognise some of the little islands so we look like a straight line but in fact went to the following) :

Leros: Looking at the weather we booked in to Leros Marina for 4 days, a 4 hour trip from Kos northwards. The marina is great but the town of Lekki is in sad/bad repair. Certainly not the cute well kept little old streets we have become accustomed to. Rather unattractive square buildings with lots of peeling paint and broken plaster. Strangely, the water at the marina is not potable but there seems to be plenty of it and the island is quite green with great fresh produce in the shops. We came across a really good garden centre but have yet to see any nice gardens anywhere. It wasn't just fruit and vegetables for sale either, lots of flowering plants and spring bulbs. We went by taxi to Agia Marina and had a waterfront wine and coffee but the harbour was smelly so we had dinner at Panteli (just over the hill) - beautiful food and setting. We discovered Mastika here. There are various spellings but it's a distilled spirit of some sort we have yet to find out more info on. Very nice. Horrible red rain (Sahara dust) event the second day here but Kiki worked his magic and we now ae lovely and clean again.

Lipso: Ah, our faith in pretty little towns is restored. We moored alongside on the town dock with one other catamaran. The bay is big and well protected. The harbourmaster met us as did the chef/owner of a local restaurant with his menu. Naturally we went there for dinner - very nice too. The town is all higgeldy piggeldy and cute with excellent produce. The butcher had some seriously nice lamb chops and steaks. There are 7 little churches. The restaurant owner told us that families own them, his family has two. The waterfront supermarket had bottles of Mastika so we bought a couple. There was also Mastika flavoured ice cream! It is from a tree native to the island of Chios and much nicer than Ouzo we think. We stayed two days.

Patmos: A slow trip here as we were making water ahead of maybe another few days of no dock water. This island's history is more Christian era than antiquity with the Monastery of St John as it's centrepiece. St John apparently wrote the Book of Revelations here and all the Apocalyptic verses in a cave after Emperor Domition banished him to here. Peter and I did not go there as it was at the end of the afternoon and down a hill and around a corner then back up again and frankly we couldn't be bothered - sometimes we are not very good tourists. We really liked the town, a nice mix of touristy waterfront and old town streets and buildings. the monastery was impressive. we just got there in time as we had messed around getting the cruising log stamped at the Port Police. The sign said closed at 12.00 but knowing Greece we decided to go on up anyway to find that it actually closed at 1.00. It was plenty of time to look around. Patmos has the most religious buildings per head of population of anywhere in the world. It also has a few restaurants that are part of the Worldwide Slow Food Group and are very proud of their produce. We had dinner one night of wood fired oven roast goat - yum.

Arki: There are a series of little islands just off the coast in two places. We anchored in amongst a few of the southern ones. Very sheltered and pretty, super clear turquoise water. It reminded us a bit of Tabago Cays in The Caribbean. Peter and Kiki spent some time with the scuba gear sorting out BCs and weights. I even went for a quick swim. Water temp 19. Cora made a batch of ANZAC biscuits for us all.

Agathonisi: Just an hour and a half from Arki. A tiny little town that still managed to have 2 tavernas, 3 bar/restaurants and bakery. We sat ourselves in the middle of the harbour with a stern line ashore. It was very quiet - quite lovely. Goat bells clonking and goats baa-ing. We have managed to visit 9 out of the 12 islands of the Dodecanese in our 6 weeks out from Didim.

Samos: Officially in the Eastern Sporades Islands. We were stern to on the town wall right across the road/footpath from the bars etc. Here too there is a nice balance of busy and quaint. A Polish woman yelled at us coming in even though we were at least a metre plus from them. Since then their badly tied dock line has caused them to come over on to us and they haven't even noticed…… some people. There is a tunnel here that was an ancient engineering marvel used to access water and as an escape route. I am not going near it. apparently there is no room to turn once inside for half an hour…….aaaahhhh. Funny thing I've noticed - when you are in a Greek café/bar/restaurant the music Greek seems lovely but try and play it back on the boat for some atmosphere and it's horrible.

Back to Didim, Turkey, next to get ready for our haul. May do a few day/overnights from there before that we'll we what we have to do. By the way we did have to mention very nicely to the boat next door that they were drifting on to us - she ranted and raved and waved her arms about, ran all over her boat pointing to things but the man and Peter just exchanged eye rolls over her - but he did fix his line up.