Lakki, Leros Sunday 15th May 2016

We arrived on Leros early Tuesday morning on the little 36-seater plane that (due to strong and wrong wind direction) had to land from the land side to the south rather than from seaward. Over the hills to drop steeply down to the miniscule runway, and hard stop before going plop into the sea. Phew! A fire engine races up and down the runway, sirens blaring, before every take-off and landing - a unique form of bird-scaring!

You meet all sorts in boatyards. A young Swiss chap was having various problems with bits of his boat and was patiently working through his long list of jobs. He had a bird's nest in his boom. Not wanting to disturb it too much, he built a bird box with perch, gently removed the nest and moved nest and box away a metre a day, to allow mother bird to acclimatise to the move. He was rewarded by the fact that she did not abandon her nest but noisily and happily took up residence. Our own jobs got done; engine elbow and exhaust fitted, the boat is polished and antifouled - all systems checked and ready to go. Is Friday the 13th an auspicious day to be launching a boat, one asks?

All was done without mishap, except that soon it was blowing a F7 and we couldn't yet get the sails on. We were stuck in the north of Leros in Partheni by the boatyard - very nice, but it was Richard's birthday the next day, there is nothing but beautiful scenery and goats here, we can't get back on land, and I was a bit stymied! Plus ça change. He had a few presents to open however, and we managed to get both the sails on, dodging the rain showers. (Rain? - this is Greece, where has the sun gone?). I decided to make a cake. My vacuum container of flour from last year seemed to have black specks, which when put under a loupe, showed they could wriggle. Flour weevils - yuck. No cake with them. Found some Greek bread flour that seemed lacking in added protein and managed to bake a cinnamon cake - couldn't find the candles so had to make do with one rather large citronella candle perched precariously on top. It did the trick temporarily.

Friends Colin and Shirley on Silent Wings are back in Lakki on Leros with a gearbox problem, so today (wind has temporarily eased), we have made our way south to have a belated birthday celebration dinner with them (last time we saw them was in New Zealand in February). Catch up time.

We can start now. Soon off to explore unknown bits….

A postscript - we hired a car for the first two days here. I do love the Greeks and their honesty. Our man left the car unlocked at the airport for us (as we were arriving early), told us where the keys would be and said we could come down to Alindi and sign the contract / pay him later in the day at our leisure. And to leave the car at the airport (200m from the boatyard) on Wednesday, again unlocked, keys in usual place. Nice.