Monday 24^th October 2022

It’s a longish passage today. We are off early at 07:00 to attempt to arrive in Posidonio, the sheltered bay on the SE coast of Samos where we hope to anchor before nightfall.

I had set the boat up with the whisker pole expecting a downwind sail. In the end I had to dismantle the whisker pole & we raised the mainsail. Again a mixture of sailing and motor sailing but we did arrive in Posidonio exactly 12 hours & 60 miles after leaving Xios.

The plan this year is to take the boat out at Samos town in our friend Kleanthis’ yard. It does however bring some logistical challenges. We need to have relatively calm weather to lift the boat by crane. It’s far easier to off load the boat and the cat at the marina. We also pick up the hire car at the marina and it’s been arranged for tomorrow, Tuesday morning.

So the plan is to head to the marina, pick up the car, offload the boat with shuttle runs to the house. Louise & Lily will stay in the house and I will take the boat back that evening to anchor again in Posidonia before heading around to lift out in Samos Town on the Wednesday morning, clear? lol.

Tuesday 25^th October 2022

We reached the marina just before 09:00 and Angela in the marina office was very kind in not charging us for berthing in the fuel dock  until 15:30 when, all possible transfers completed, I set off back for my last night afloat.

Alone, dusk at anchor in Posidonio

and I see Lily has settled in already – photo sent from Louise

Wednesday 26^th October

The last passage of the season 2022-23

It took me just under three hours to get round to Vathi (Samos town) where Kleanthis & his brother Greg were waiting to lift me out.

Dawn over Turkey – leaving Posidonio

Entering Vathi – lift out will be where the ferry is

  

Safely out & sailing season 2022-23 ends with another 800 miles on her log.

At 07:00 just as it was getting light we set off back down the channel past Nicolas still presumably asleep. No sign of the fisherman.

It was a mixed bag of motor sailing and a lively 2 hours in the Xios channel (between Turkey & Greece). In the latter stages were we had a steady speed of 6 knots under sail.

During this later passage in the channel we were approached by a fast Greek Coastguard rib who took up station beside us matching our speed. All of them dressed in balaclavas and black wetsuits. They were thinking of boarding us I think, but in the end we just spoke on the VHF instead.

“Where are you headed and how many people on board? “.

We were not allowed to take any pictures but exciting all the same. Looking for refugees methinks, the political situation with Turkey being a bit hot after the latter’s coastguard recently depositing 50 refugees on an island in a river marking the border up in the north and removing their clothes to force the Greeks to rescue them!

We arrived at 16:30 after 44 miles and just over 9.5 hours which allowed some “playtime” ashore for Lily that evening. And play she did! …

Gawd knows how she got into these holes? ….I had to manhandle the passarelle between her & the stern bathing platform to get her out. We discovered later she was entering the tunnels from the boat in front of us! Game invented I had to “rescue” her a few more times.

We met up with Pakkis again and had arranged to out for lunch with him and Litsa but circumstances dictated in the end it wasn’t possible. He was currently busy both with workers on his house and also with taking his boat out the water and when he was eventually free we had a weather window for the last longish passage to Samos that we didn’t want to miss. We will see him again next time though.

It also meant that a planned dinner on Nicolas‘ boat was relegated to a “special aperitif” which must’ve taken him just as long if not longer to organise, five or six courses with lovely bottles of French wine. He was going to stay a bit longer in Xios and wait out the forecasted bad weather to come before moving south later in the month.

During our 4 day stay in Xios we visited the town a few times to catch up on laundry and had lunch in the castle courtyard and fish tavernas. Two of our usual haunts.

Castle courtyard blisteringly hot and it’s 21st October but …..

….. Christmas looms !

Friday the 30^th September saw us paying our berthing dues to the Port Police and setting off the 80 miles to Lesvos and Mytilini Marina. 

It’s been a strange summer, not least, weather wise.  Lots of wind, keeping everyone in port, interspersed with a few days of calm with little or no wind to speak of. We still had a fair distance to go and this particular passage would cross the part of the Aegean that has seen the high winds whistling out of Turkey so we had to take our opportunity to leave when we could.

Initially the weather forecast looked good with 18 to 19 knots of wind. We set out just before 3 o clock in the afternoon planning to arrive at Mytilini marina the following morning but no wind arrived and it was a long 17 hours on engine. The Navigation lights yet again were dodgy flashing on & off, lol. I had hoped to cross the busy shipping lanes just before sunset but we actually arrived slap bang in the middle just as darkness descended. I had to call up one LBC to ensure he had seen us but all was OK and another who kindly altered course for us.

This was Lily’s 1^st night sail & I was on edge. I admit I get more stressed than Louise when it comes to the cat. In the end I had been up 23 hours continuously (despite Louise offering to spell me – bad skippering in practice, I know!) until dawn saw us coming down the east coast of Lesvos & the marina being about 2 hours away I slinked off for a kip. At 08:15 we were tied up on good old C pontoon.

That night we met up with Silvain & Sandrine to go for dinner at the harbourside. Sandrine loves her restaurants & has a French culinary app that recommends places. When we saw the one she had picked we were worried as we had visited it with Nikolas a couple of years before and it was terrible! This time round however it was very good. Shared plates of meze followed by fish – maybe its forte is fish? We probably wouldn’t have gone out at that night as we were still tired but they were leaving the next morning and it would  perhaps be the last opportunity this season.

Silvain & Sandrine

We stayed 9 days in the Marina had a reunion with Nikolas, who had arrived in Skala Loutra the big lagoon just south of Mytilini. You can get the bus to and from it.

Reunion in Mytilini – Terrible pic but the best out of three ! lol

In all the times we have been in Mytilini (2 winters!!) we had never visited the castle. It’s considered one of the largest fortresses in the Mediterranean. The 1^st Byzantine phase of the fortress is estimated to date back to the 6^th Century AD.

The Fortress at Mytilini – the crypts and water storage were amazing.

Adolescents and their phones

Lunch at Ermes (a favourite)

On the 10^th October we moved around to Scala Loutra where we anchored for a further 8 days, again waiting for a fair weather window.

Mohitos at anchor on Camira in Scala Loutra courtesy of Nikolas

Lily’s 1st trip in the new dinghy – she couldn’t wait to get back on board.

While in Scala Loutra we took the ferry across to Perama before having lunch on our return at the “ferry port” taverna. We had been to Perama by car before and thought it a bit deserted but we found more facilities open this time exploring on foot.

Who pays the ferry woman?

The old tanneries now derelict

Return journey and lunch (again!)

Perama Ferry Trip

The initial planned option was to visit Psara (Option 1) before going to Chios but if the weather wasn’t playing ball then it’d be direct to Chios (Option 2)

Option #1

Option #2

Finally the weather having dictated to head straight to Chios missing out Psara (this year anyway) we motored around to Avlonas (Wpt No. 4 below) to anchor the evening before departing for Chios, this would’ve saved 5 miles / 1 hour from our passage, but after failing to set the anchor three times and then pulling up a fisherman’s net ! we scampered back to anchor at Marmaro near a fish farm (chequered flag)  – leaving Nikolas to take the brunt if any from the fisherman if he didn’t set off early enough the next morning. Had he been there I would’ve of course offered to pay for any damages.

Well bye bye Lesvos 2022.