Poros Thursday 8th May 2014

It has been almost a week and we've got off to a good start. After a day spent rummaging around in Free Spirit to see if Richard could help them resolve a problem, we left them and Kilada, and headed round to pine lined Ermioni. This is a wonderful time of year to be in Greece. There are wildflowers everywhere, vivid yellows, blues and the deep red of the local poppies. It's warm by day (mid 20's) but still cool morning and evening - and the sun shines. A favourite spot, we wandered in the town and out onto the pine-covered promontory, looking for signs of ancient remains that are there to be stumbled over.

A little tour of local islands, off the Idhra (Hydra), a completely barren rock of an island but with a busy, tiny, completely anarchic port that is mayhem. Ferries come and go, big ships that don't fit come and go; fishing boats ignore everyone as they come and go, and hapless leisure sailors find themselves squeezed like sardines in columns 2 to 3 deep from the quay. Not like rafting alongside. This is nose to stern stuff with crossed anchors and chain everywhere. Horrendous when you are in the throes, good spectator sport when you are safely watching from a café. The town is built up the steep sides of a hill, with smart shops cheek by jowl with rather more rustic joints. With donkeys to serve as taxis.

We are now on Poros island, on the town's western town quay. It's a lovely island and really nice town. It has a terrific fish and meat market (sardines tonight), huge ice creams and most of what else you need to stock up. We have been here 2 days and are now watching weather forecasts to do a longer haul to get us to the Cyclades. There are sixes and sevens further east from us and they build up a big sea. It's about 50 miles to Kithnos, our next intended stop, so want the conditions to be ok for the first real hop of the season.

In the meantime, we have been trying to make sense of the new Greek boat regulations that should have come into effect in January, but haven't. They say it may be May, it may be next year. In the meantime, having been told in Kilada not to bother going to the Port Police to have our Dekpa (cruising log) stamped, others here in Poros have suggested it might be a good idea. So we dutifully went to the Port Police here, who questioned why we had not done so in Kilada, argued amongst themselves as to what should be done, and then stamped everything in sight in triplicate and said that would last us a year (last year it needed to be done every 30 days). We shall see.

Free Spirit arrived here this evening. We may or may not head off tomorrow - if not, definitely Saturday. Cyclades, here we come.