Sunday 6^th October

Well sailing again.

We are heading 30 miles up the east coast of Lesvos and along the north to Molivos or Mithimna.

Along the way we passed inside Nsidhes Tomaria  (The island marked No. 1)  in Ormos Makris Giallos. There are many rocks fringing this bay but it was a calm day and safe enough to pass through,even so it was impossible to see some of the dangers marked on the chart.

Past Ormos Limin (No.2) a good anchorage but only in a NW, and Ormos Sikamenea (No.3) and then finally rounding Ak (Cape) Molivos to the bay and harbour of the same name.

 Views of the north coast

   The approach & harbour

We managed to squeeze in between a motor boat & a Polish Police launch. We were the only yacht there.

The lyric poet Arion (625BC) who was saved from drowning by a music loving dolphin was born here. Presumably his spirit survives as the town has developed into something of an artists’ retreat.

The town is a maze of cobbled passages winding in and out of medieval fortifications. Stone and timber houses with small wooden balconies look over the cliffs to the bay and harbour below.

We realised now we might have to review our options.

Louise spent days on the internet e-mailing properties all over Lesvos and I cycled for hours scouring lamp posts on which property to let is posted.

We got taken to a property by a lady architect, with a boat in the marina, who designed & built a lovely studio next to their house. It was brand new & never used, but just too small for 4 plus months.

In the end we narrowed our choice down to five. We were still awaiting further negotiated replies from one.

All of these bar one were in other parts of the island so transport then became an issue to be considered for travelling to /working on the boat.

So to make a day out of it we hired a car to view them.

The 1st contender discounted.

There were no shops or facilities nearby and the one couch was a knackered sofa bed. Hope it gets better?

To cut a long story short by the end of the day we had narrowed our choice down to two. One in Anaxos in the north of the island and the one just outside Mytilini that we would view in a few days.

      

We had lunch in a hill top tavern just above Petra / Anaxos with great views.

We had a lovely drive back via Molivos down the north coast to Mytilni, fairly optimistic that we at least would have a place to go to ……. assuming no more

Aaaaargh its Maria!

Well meet Marina……

Light years away from Maria.

Lovely lady, lovely parents, lovely property.

She agreed a price far less than “she who now must not be named.”

She immediately took the accommodation availability of the website.

When we met her parents the 1^st time they picked us up and showed us around the villa.

The next time when we paid our deposit they came to the marina, bought us coffee and gave us boxes of cakes & chocolates as a “Sign of our first meeting”

All in all perhaps it all turned out better.

       

Can’t wait

Addendum:

During our search, on the off chance, we visited a couple of estate agents.Both as usual said no less than 1 year options, but the 2^nd when pushed said he may have one for about 900 then came down to 700. He was sure he could broker a deal. Too much for us and when he showed us the property I started to laugh and explained we had had an agreement already with “She ……etc” which fell through.

He was not a happy bunny, probably because he had missed out on his commission as a result of greed.   Ah Yin & Yang.

To celebrate we had a night oot on the toon and Lily got a new prison gate

Glammed up

  Out with the old & in with the new

Now back to the sailing eh ?

The reason we returned to Mytilini was to see our winter accommodation and pay a deposit.

For some time now Louise has been searching for somewhere for us over the winter as Camira must come out the water for maintenance and just to dry out.

The existence of the refugee camps and NGO people means that the estate agents are not interested in short term lets. The minimum they seem to be looking for is a year. This despite none of the properties ever moving! Crazy.

In addition Booking.Com & Air B&B were still asking really stupid summer tourist rates.

Louise had contacted loads of these with a view to getting a reasonable quote off line  for our four & a half months proposed stay .

This is a feat in itself because the websites block any communication with an attempt at sending – contact details, phone numbers e-mail etc.

In the end she asked the people interested in a deal to phone Mytilini Marina who had agreed to kindly pass on our contact details. What a palaver!

In the end – success! – She negotiated a lovely 2 bed apartment, very modern and cat friendly and in an almost ideal situation.

Meet Maria……

We told her our max budget of Euros 500, (Air B&B wanted Euros 1,350 pcm).

Maria……. She couldn’t do it for that, but would for Euros 600 all inclusive of water, electricity & heating. We thought about it and although a lot more than we wanted to spend.

We agreed, OK

She had arranged for us to visit the house to view it on Wednesday, the day after our arrival back in Mytilini. We loved it; bit of a climb up a hill but so what.

Happy we had an agreement.

Maria……. She now couldn’t do it for Euros 600 inclusive but we would have to pay any fuel bills over a Euros 100 a month.

We agreed, OK

We emailed to ask if she would like a deposit?

Maria……  “before we get to that” She could not now do it all inclusive we would now have to pay all the bills.

Bye Bye Maria!!

How do you solve a problem like Maria ?

We were just about to leave on our planned sail around of Lesvos, and had literally started the engine and began casting off lines when Louise received the message.

Sailing postponed back to the drawing board.

She couldn’t understand why we were dissapointed and ditched her.

More like, lol

There is an addendum to this story ………..later

Tuesday 10th September

An early start at 05:00 saw a near perfect spring off followed by a disastrous sail hoist in front of the departing ferry! Dodging ferries and rocks in the dark was not a great start to what was to prove a long and sometimes scary passage.

Once out of the lee of Nisos Evstratatios the waves were in excess of 2 metres and on the beam. We have a video of it before it really kicked off but unfortunately I only have the cheaper subscription to Word Press that does not support video.

The little boat was fine and surprisingly so was the auto helm but it was the 1^st and only time Louise has asked “Do you think we’ll be OK?”

Half way you cross a shipping lane & I had to call up a large freighter to ask him if he had seen us? He hadn’t, but obligingly altered course for us after contact.

Originally we were going to head for Sigri on the west coast to anchor but the weather was getting worse by the hour. We thought once in the lee of Lesvos we might get some respite so we continued east along the south coast to Kolpos Kaloni the bigger of the two lagoons on Lesvos.

The entrance was pilotage by beacons just what you need at the end of a tiring day but at least once in the situation calmed a bit. At anchor 18:00 underway for 13 hours.

Incidently the beacons are not recent, they were built by the Germans in WWII to guide their warships into the bay, I am advised by the Commodore.

   

Our view at breakfast on the 2nd day in Apothekes anchorage.

After two days we headed the 31 miles along to good old favourite Scala Loutra to wait out another blow forecast soon.

The exit from Kolpos Koloni in the distance in more peaceful weather

After a further 5 days at anchor in Scala Loutra we returned to Mytilini on the 17^th September.

Lily was ecstatic and was on two other boats within 10 minutes of berthing at the marina, no doubt also looking forward to visiting her favourite lavender beds

The next day we went a walk up through the village to the church at the top of a steep hill where a plaque commemorates the political exiles (mostly communists) who died on the island.

Made me wonder if some of the remaining population were descendants. Don’t know if the prisoners were allowed to mix or were incarcerated?

      

Scenes from the village, church & harbour

 

Out for dinner before our planned 05:00 start the next day.

21 miles to the south of Lemnos is a small island called Evstratios.

While we were anchored in Myrina we met up with Christina & Stellios. Stellios is the general secretary of the Thessaloniki Yacht Club and Christina a teacher. We invited them onto Camira for a coffee and it turned out they knew the people we met in Nea Marmaris who also come from Thessaloniki.

We became quite friendly and we were going to sail in company to Evstratios.

Stellios knows the harbour well and was sure he could get both our boats in, but with ferry time vagaries Stellios was going to leave at a time that would get us in after dark but would be in time to meet his wife off the ferry. I didn’t fancy arriving in the small harbour at night so said we would catch him up the next day. But the weather was having none of that – it blew up more than forecast and all boats were stranded in Myrini and Evstratios for the next 5 days.

We eventually did make the passage on the 8^th September and when we arrived all the boats that had been stuck there had also left for their respective destinations. We still keep in touch and perhaps we will meet up somewhere again. This sailing lark is a small world.

We picked up an anchor leaving Myrina , hopefully not Steve’s. It was a downwind sail with the whisker pole and a big swell as a result of the previous 5 days winds. We passed Freya of Wight motor sailing to windward bashing towards Myrina presumably.

We tied up alongside in Evstratios at 16:00 , the only boat there. A fisherman asked us to move down the quay for a returning fishing boat a bit which we gladly did; then another visitng Greek dive boat moved into the space we had vacated. We went off for a beer and on our return the fisherman was rafted against the dive boat but ranted away at us!  We warped Camira back yet again so he could get in, Grumpy old B, lol.

Since the 1968 earthquake which destroyed many of the buildings the population has dwindled to about 300, almost all of whom live in the one fishing village.

Until recently political offenders were deported to the island.

Goosewinging with the whisker pole

     

The harbour & 1st night in Evstratios

On Sunday 1^st September we hired a car for the day to explore other parts of the island we hadn’t visited by sea.

The night before all the boats had had to move up the quay a bit to create space for a “Kontiki” like expedition boat that was arriving in on the Sunday. No sooner had we all relocated the Port Police advised they weren’t coming after all!! (more later……..)

Our route took us South from Myrini through Platy (where we had anchored earlier in the season), Thanos, Kontias (Widmills) out past the airport to Moudros.

  

Platy in the distance & Kontias windmills

Ormos Moudros is one of the finest fleet anchorages in the Northern Aegean and was from here the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign was launched.

In the plan of Moudros bay there are 4 hills irreverently identified as Yam, Yrroc, Eb and Denmad which when read from left to right shows what the British Surveyors thought of their commanding officer who was alleged to have worked them too hard and stopped all leave.

We had the most expensive and worst cup of coffee here in all of our travels. Shoulve gone to the one up the hill ! Moudros however was worth the visit. We did contemplate coming round in the boat and staying for a few days but the bay is open and quite windy, we’ll see?

     

Moudros and the worst coffee taverna ever !

From Moudros we headed east to the archaeological site of Poliochni, close to Kaminia village. It dates back to the 3^rd millennium BC , was the 1^st organised city in Europe and the 1^st Parliament. (Hope tae feck they were better than our mugs!)

     

Poliochne and an exited Louise

It was here after visiting the main site we went down to the small harbour to find the “Kontiki” like Aborah IV vessel, mentioned at the start of this blog, anchored off shore.

 

Aborah IV

Some of the multinational crew were making their way ashore in a rib. We took their lines and good humouredly berated them for us having to move our boats, the night before.

They were looking for somewhere to eat but the nearest village was a good hours walk away so we shuttled them all to a Taverna.

Some of the crew

The vessel was heading for Santorini and then finally to Antalya in Turkey.

The ancient Greek writer Herodotus said, “Egyptians sailed through the Black Sea to get materials that they could not have from the east Mediterranean,” and to prove this was a factual statement Aborah IV is going to undertake this voyage in reverse, in a specialty reconstructed Egyptian reed boat.

Having booked our dinner reservation, we set off to see Hephaestia (mentioned in an earlier blog).

    

Salt flats, Hefaistia and our earlier anchorage in the distance and that may be Dionysus bottom left ?

It was an beer meze for lunch in a wee mountain top village, Kotsinas I think it was called.

 

After lunch we headed for Propouli & Gomati where we would see fantastic rocky formations and “other worldly “sand dunes recommended the German on the boat next to us. Well the rocks were strange, granted,  but to be honest I’ve seen better dunes off the beach at Troon.

     

The rock formations

  

The dunes

However the drive & scenery itself was great and as usual on our car hire epics we took a wrong turn up an increasingly difficult off road track!

          

The beach at the dunes

On our way back we passed goatherds on donkeys who with great skill shepherded the beasts to the side of the road to let us pass.

      

Meeeeh !

Dinner itself at the highly recommended Ennia P’ochs Taverna in Lychna lived up to expectations.

     

Lychna village & the restaurant

It was then just an hour or so’s drive back to Mirina.

A lovely day

We spent quite a while at anchor in the bay which was cooler and easy to drop in for a swim off the back of the boat.

It also meant we didn’t need to watch Lily as much as we do when we are alongside. That said Myrini harbour was one of the more “safer” harbours in terms of traffic, although at night it has an extremely noisy and busy couple of hours “passagiata” which brought its own “cat dangers”

She’s now taken to napping in the hanging locker and needs to investigate everything that’s brought back on board.

 

We preferred to weather out the storm at anchor before moving into the quay for a while. The storm didn’t amount to anything near the one earlier in the season.

Now on the quay I took a turn of doing the laundry. Don’t see what all the fuss is about? It was a doddle, the laundrette even had free wifi and a coffee shop next door Pffft !

 

Talking of clean clothes Louise asked me one evening before going out how she looked? ………. and ….. I said “fresh” which I thought was acceptable no? Lol.

 

Louise looking fresh

There was a small 27ft Westerly berthed next to us which it turned out belonged to Steve, a very pucker gent from England, went to boarding school in a Bentley, though a rather sad childhood it appeared. He was a nice guy he had travelled down canals through Bulgaria & Romania to emerge onto the Black Sea then through Istanbul to the Med and Lemnos was his 1^st port of call in Greece. He didn’t have charts or a pilot of Greece so we let him copy ours.

He made good Gin & Tonics that we polished off one night on Camira and in return we went out to a taverna another.

 

Steve and a fat bloke (diet starts soon !)

Lily joined in having the sardines that would regularly jump out the water onto the boat.

 

We left Samothraki on the 19^th August to head south back down 34 miles or so to Lemnos.

This time we were planning to anchor on the north coast before sailing around to Mirini.

The passage SSW to Lemnos

The Seajet ferry leaving Samothraki didn’t half kick up a wake, all the boats lurched about straining at their  mooring ropes.

   

Wash from the Seajet Ferries

On clearing the headland outside Kamariotissa we were met with a large swell from the NE on our beam. This was to be a feature of our sailing around these parts, not dangerous, but uncomfortable.

I see from the log we were underway for over 8 hours and 3 of them motor sailing.

We anchored in Ormos Hefaistia a small inlet off the larger bay Ormos Pournias.

Picture from the pilot of  1st anchorage (top middle) and 2nd anchorage (top left).

The beach on Ormos Hefaistia was a kite surfing Mecca. Some of the surfers were fantastic, if just a little too fast and too close to the boat at times.

It was a largish inlet but shallow so we had to anchor quite far out. We didn’t bother going ashore as there seemed only to be a type of “Cantina” Taverna that shut quite early in the evening presumably after the surfers had returned to their tents and campervans. The ancient site & amphitheatre of the same name was at the south of the bay.

The pilot book said reasonable shelter from the Meltemi and that was all it was, a bit of swell crept in, but not enough to prevent us staying two nights.

All in all quite stunning.

    

Sunset Ormos Hefaistia

It was now Wednesday and we were expecting strong winds at the weekend so we started to make our way back towards Mirini.

Just past the cape (Mourtzeflos) at the NW of the island there is a small sheltered bay just under the sand bar. This was our 2^nd anchorage stop on Lemnos. There was a French boat in when we arrived but he headed off in the afternoon and helpfully pointed out the better sandy bit he had been in so we moved over a wee bit.

Wolfgang & Renate had looked in earlier before we arrived but were getting conflicting depths from their chart plotters so decided to give it a miss. We also didn’t have any detail on our plotters but just felt our way in using the depth gauge. The pilot clearly showed it as an anchorage so we thought it should be OK. There was a shallow patch but we felt it was far enough away. The holding was very good & the anchor was well in . It was completely “black” dark at night – no transits whatsoever. Good stars though.

In the morning we were woken up by a fast rib circling us with what could only be described as the Greek equivalent of the SBS armed to the teeth. Having eyeballed us they took off again, presumably looking for refugees. We heard later that it costs about 5,000 Euros a head to come across to Greece so presumably they are on the lookout for boats illegally transporting migrants?

   

The anchorage late afternoon, you can see the sandbar to the right of the wee house

  

….. and in the morning  ….. and leaving. The dip in the distance is the sandbar.

Its now Thursday 22nd August and we made our way 7 miles to Mirini where we anchored off in the harbour  at 11:00 in the morning with 30m of chain. Perhaps may need a bit more later?

Samothrace in ancient times was the island home of the mystery cult of The Great Gods, whose initiation rites promised divine protection at sea. The identity and nature of the Samothracian Great Gods remain enigmatic. Ancient writers often referred to them as the Kabeiri. The power of the Kabeiri throughout the ancient world ensured Samothraki an independent existence through the Greek struggles until late into the Roman period.

As they had a soft spot for sailors it seemed only prudent to pay the site a visit.

The ruins of the ancient temple city lie on a rocky ridge amongst wild olives and maquis. I can honestly say it was the best site I have visted even better than the Acropolis for me.

I had the place to myself and you could imagine just what it must have been like, it was fantastic.

  

The entrance & dining hall

 

The Stoa

     

The rotunda of Arsinoe & the Hall of Choral dancers and an impression of what it would have been like in the last picture

  

The site of the Sacred Stone

The afternoon I visited Profit Illios, a village high up in the hills with a view to going back there that night to a taverna that got a good write up. However there were road works and & a diversion that going back through in the dark might have proved a wee bit risky, even for the “Barry Sheene” in me. I’m now no longer in my 20’s with a Kawasaki 900.

So unfortunately Louise had to make do with pictures I took at it when I stopped for a coffee.

                

Profit Illios