16th September to 12th October 2019
Return to lands of Pythagoras, St. John & his revelations, windmills and goat heaven

Shame on us, we have abandoned writing for a bit, so it's a round-up of the last weeks of the season, with apologies in advance for the length! We hopped south to Kalymnos, all craggy mountains and extreme climbers, but changed our minds the following day to head back north to the Fournoi archipelago, a spread-out rocky collection of islets, and then on to home of Pythagoras, Samos. Here in Marathokambo we found a motley selection of cruisers, from Austrians (who we had met before and been honoured with examples of their native "apfel knödel") to Turkish, Italians, Germans and one other British. We also found that Banksy's alter egos (a couple of different artists) had been at work in the town - mural upon mural had been beautifully painted on the sides of both crumbling and new walls and doors, all depicting aspects of local life past and present. Wandering around the town now became fun!

We hired a car - 2 reasons. Firstly to explore, of course! And we were sitting out another blast of 40kn winds. Secondly, Richard had been suffering with pains in his leg that we thought might be worth checking out at the one hospital on the other side of the island. We struck out over the hills to the north of the island where the full force of the storm was crashing onto the shore and smashing into the Ferry Port - good to watch from the safety of land…. From here we took the coastal road to the principal town of Vathi, with its great little museum and cafés in the square. We found the hospital. It was ghostly, few lights on and we couldn't find anyone at first. Reception desks were unmanned. We finally found the ambulance station around the back and a few people there. We explained what we wanted and then prepared to wait. Most of the other people wandering in and out and waiting to be seen or to have x-rays seemed to be migrants, whether from Syria or elsewhere we were not sure. Richard was called and whilst they did not do anything to remedy the situation (apart from a prescription), it was reassuring that they did not think it was anything serious enough that it could not wait to get it investigated when we returned home. Good. But if we thought the NHS (our health service) was suffering from lack of funding, staff and facilities, Greece's problems exceed ours by a wide margin.

We set off to complete our circuit of Samos by going to Pythagorio (home of mathematician of same name) which is pretty and vibrant, full of boats and interesting shops and eateries as well as museums and archaeological sites. We wandered up by the castle from where we had a perfect view of the little airport and runway. We watched as a plane came in to land, only to do a lot of wing-waggling just before touchdown and powering up to abort and lift up again. It tried a couple of times before heading off to who knows where. The winds were strong and this is a notoriously difficult island to land on apparently. One other plane had two goes at it also, before finally succeeding by approaching (bizarrely) with the wind behind it from the land and aiming for open water. It did manage to stop without falling off the edge into the sea.

Down to the nature reserve archipelagos and islets of Lipsi and Arki. There are lovely coves there and we spent some days exploring, swimming & snorkelling, walking and hoping to see some of the wildlife that hides in these reserves. No monk seals this time, only a few soaring falcons, spectacular sunsets and black, glittering star-filled nights to be had. Thence to Patmos, with its white hill-top chora that is visible for miles, monastery and cave of St John. Patmos is also very smart and attracts cruise ships and excursion boats as well as folk like us. We anchored first in lovely Meloy (donkey bay; the braying donkeys are a feature) as it is just a nice walk up and over a saddle of a hill to the main town. The anchoring is slightly variable here, it took us a few tries to get ourselves securely dug it. Eventually we moved on to yet another, to us new, anchorage, which turned out to be lovely with a good beach, strewn with deck chairs and little beach bar. Everything packed up at dusk and we had the place to ourselves at night. We wanted to go on to Astypalaia, an island shaped like a butterfly with lots of indentations. En-route we stopped at Levitha. It has one family living on it, with fishing, goat herding and farming for their living. They have put down some mooring buoys and in season, run a small restaurant. It is about a 10 minute walk from the tiny jetty up through scrub to the restaurant, following a sort of path marked by white painted rocks. A torch is vital for the return journey - it would be lethal in the dark. We met up here with our friends on Silent Wings and enjoyed our meal and ankle twisting walk back with them.

We decided to go together to Astypalaia, firstly to an almost perfectly enclosed lagoon that would work well as a hurricane hole. It turned out to be exactly as we had pictured and we spent a lovely quiet night there together before working our way around to the other side of the island and the main port. We started off motoring, but as we turned to follow the contours of the island, we had a good, favourable wind and ended up having a stormingly fast sail that enabled us to catch up with Silent Wings who were still motoring a couple of miles ahead. The little port is delightful with a quay that can accommodate about 10 boats. It is a bit of a climb up the steep hill to the chora, but once up, you are rewarded with spectacular views, pretty windmills, some useful shops, twisty little roads with cafés and tavernas and the castle and churches perched on top. Silent Wings needed to head back to Leros, so we said our farewells; they headed back to Levitha, while we wanted to explore some of the indentations and bays we had not yet visited. Eventually, we too, needed to start heading back, but first there was the small matter of another big blast of wind to be endured. We went back around to the "hurricane hole", to be joined by about 6 other boats (including another HR, a French 342) that were all clearly coming in to shelter from the blast due the next day. We stayed 2 nights and managed to get ashore before the wind got too strong for a walk around the lagoon, through the sheep and goat farms and up to a lovely little chapel perched on a hill that did double duty it seemed as an animal (& human) refuge. A good stop.

Time to bring things to a close. We set off for "home", again via little Levitha. Shirley from Silent Wings was flying home the next day. They had a hire car, so picked us up and we all went for a last meal to a lovely little place right on the beach at Gourna on Leros - here we had the most perfect sunset - a fitting end to the season.

Almost. We had the small matter of deciding on upholstery. We finally tossed a coin and made a decision. We went back to Sotiris and Yannis to order the fabric and pay a deposit for the work. We stripped out the boat of all the cushions, backrests, after cabin bed and put them on the pontoon, for Sotiris to come and collect them. They will do the work over the winter, a good option as they can take their time and do a good job. At the moment they are so busy with last minute demands from cruisers as they prepare to leave their boats, I would not want them to rush ours. We have only kept back the forepeak cushions (our bed) so we have somewhere to sleep - they can do those next spring.

The usual end of term activity…. We sailed north, had lunch and one last swim in glorious sunshine at Archangelos, before heading over to the boatyard buoy. We were lifted out next morning and managed to get our sails washed and strung up to dry that afternoon. We ticked off the jobs on the long list that is putting the boat to bed over the next couple of days. And so it ends once more - a final goodbye to little boat, a call to Gate 1 (the only gate) at the little airport and it is back to life as lived in an old house between moor and cold sea. Until next spring - μέχρι την επόμενη άνοιξη!