Up Aloft in Lakki - Kalymnos 12th May

Lakki on Leros has grown on us. Like many ramshackle, seemingly empty Greek towns, you need to scratch the surface to find the wealth of activity and variety around. There is everything here, from marine engineers to garden centres (so far Myrica has basil and mint), little greengrocers and bakers, hardware and more. And only a cycle away for a Wind shop and a new Greek Sim card for more reliable online access.

The local coastguard is 3 boats away from us. It has gone out at 4am each morning. Those who see my FB page will already have read that on Sunday morning the CG ship returned with 45 migrant refugees onboard (guess Syrian) - babies and children included. Thankfully, they seemed to have their possessions and there were no fatalities that we were aware of. A tragic problem. There was a blood donating session all weekend, to which we tried unsuccessfully as visitors to contribute…

Moored next to us was a French boat from Sête, with a lovely couple on board. In general chit-chat, we mentioned our need to go up the mast to replace our spinnaker halyard. He offered to help. By the way, he says, I too need to go up the mast and my wife cannot winch me. So we offer to help. Such is the cruising life. So Wendy was duly strapped into the bosun's chair, main halyard and topping lift (as secondary security line) attached. Tools (including a nifty mousing line dropper constructed of fishing weights and line), tape and camera all went into the toolbag. And up I was hauled. Thankfully there was little wind so Myrica wasn't swaying - much. It felt very high and exposed up there! Despite loving to ski, I don't have a particularly good head for heights, so felt very precarious at first.

But once up and set to work, all was well. Richard retrieved the line at the bottom of the mast and replaced the sheaves. The view was spectacular - one doesn't often get to view one's boat from aloft. A professional bit of taping the spreader split pins on the way down and voilà, mission accomplished! It was a harder task on our neighbouring French boat and he ultimately couldn't achieve what he wanted. C'est domage. Apologies here to the non-sailors for the boaty detail.

Morning work done, it was time to leave. The forecast had eased (F4) so we headed out. We had a steady F5/6 behind us to Kalymnos, good sailing but a lumpy sea left over from the previous winds. Still going fast though, with Richard at the bow eyeing up the tell-tales and stroking his new genoa lovingly! Oh well.

We were on Kalymnos town quay surrounded by Italians (on their own boats) and very large, very loud Poles on charter boats. It is not a pretty town, but a vibrant one (see last year's entry on Kalymnos for detail if interested). We stocked up on a few bits - sardines for tonight and treats for Richard's birthday in a couple of days' time, including baklava and steak for the BBQ.

This morning we are heading for the volcanic island of Nisyros, this time as just a stopover. It is a fantastic island, again for stunning volcanic pictures, look at last October's blog for this. We working our way south, fancied going to Rhodes. There's thunder and lightning in the area, we will try to dodge it.

Best bit though was up the mast - have the pics to prove it!