Last days in Greece Sunday 12th October 2014

The gods have smiled. We had a very sporty sail up and over Kos to anchor off the little island of Pserimos, speeding on to Kalymnos town, then halfway up the island to Emborios Bay and finally to Leros - the bottom end, first in Xerokambo bay, then into the Marina at Lakki. One load of washing down and chit chats with various others doing similar "homeward" trips, and on up to the north of the island where the Agmar Boatyard is at Partheni.

But first, the weather is still set fair and the sun shone, so we just had to stop en-route off the island of Arkangelos for lunch and a last swim. Daytime temperatures are still in the high 20's, but the water is cooling down fast. Late afternoon we picked up one of the boatyard's buoys for the night, ready for a lift first thing Friday morning.

There is nothing here apart from the boatyard (with good chandlery), a little boatyard for small fry, Leros airport so close you can spit at it (and we will walk to it tomorrow from the boat), and a naval institution somewhere further into the bay. We have enjoyed watching the three daily flights landing and taking off literally past our bow. We will be on one of those small planes to Athens tomorrow morning.

We get woken in the morning by reveille, reminded to furl flags by bugle at dusk, quite entertaining really. The timings are a bit variable though. Yesterday morning was 06.55 and the bugle sounded about every 23 minutes for half the morning. Today (Sunday lie-in?) it was 07.25 (not dawn I hasten to add) and sounded again about every 16 minutes for a while. Perhaps our RNSA friends can enlighten us?

The boat is pretty well stripped of sails & running rigging, winterised, cleaned and generally put to bed. They have a tiled area here for washing sails and a "mast" for hoisting them in the breeze to dry. The natives seem friendly. Our Greek neighbour (lives half the year in Washington DC and half here) had a problem with a bird's nest in his boom and was unable to pull his lines through. Richard helped solve the problem and so Yacht Thetis has offered to drive our luggage to the airport tomorrow - all of 500 yards. It all helps (especially as our main bag consists solely of our genoa, being taken home for either a re-cut or replacement). That means of course, yours truly is yet again not allowed to pack anything….. Given the other luggage seems to be full of wires and pcs and cameras and gadgets - methinks I am too easy a pushover!

It's been another fabulous and very different year. From volcanoes (Santorini, Nisyros, etc) to Lycian rock tombs in Turkey, vast ancient cities (Ephesus) and the beautiful inlets, bays and fjords of the Turkish Med and Turquoise coasts. It's been good, but it's time to go. Bye bye, little Myrica - back to wash the winter dust off you next spring.