The next passage was to Lesbos another 50 miles and again we were waiting for a favourable weather window.

So the next week was spent going into Khios town, the dreaded supermarket shop and all the usual restocking requirements.

    

I love shopping (not) but happily Louise does

 

Tapas in wee taverna in old town was very nice and good value

I mentioned earlier that there was no water – well in fact I traced a water pipe to a manhole on another pontoon, we had moved further in by now, and I quite happily filled up our 3 x 25 litre containers and ferried them back to fill our tank. It was only afterword when I mentioned to George (of whom more later) I discovered this was a private supply someone had installed for themselves, oops. What this meant was we had to walk along to the nearby small fishing harbour to use their tap which was switched on for an hour in the morning and evening. Oh the luxury of sailing the Med eh?

The fishing harbour well at least I could get a beer during the water run

We met an older couple from New Zealand who were trying to sell their boat as the man had unfortunately had a stroke and was attending the local hospital, which luckily was very close. They had been here for 3 years; goodness knows how they managed without facilities, such a shame. However they were happy with their lot. Tough bunch these world cruisers.

 

The Kiwi’s boat                and …          Our new berth further in

  

The Marina

Harking back to Nicolas’s shirt in a previous post. He had picked up a stowaway – Roland the Rat. The next few days were spent finding and poisoning it. Thankfully after about 4 days the rat was indeed despatched, toes turned up on his chart cushion one morning.

This rat is no more ( I thought he was quite cute myself)

Luckily no lasting damage, a rat can make a terrible mess of electric cables, wood work, upholstery etc.

It was a good night’s celebration (a few days) after that ….. once the boat was sqeaky clean (Sorry).

  

Calamari on Nicolas’s boat – Well I think it was calamari , where’s Roland ?

Louise however was now anxious with Camira being alongside the harbour wall so we were keen to leave asap, in case there was “The return of the rodent”

My contribution was to stuff the bilge pump outlets with brillo wire … good eh?

It’s a nice walk into town, but the 1^st day we got the bus.

The walk in start (and bus stop)

It does have a more Asian feel than some of the other islands presumably due to its closeness and shared history with Turkey.

The illustrious ancient history of Khios has been overwhelmed by the tragedy of contemporary history. The name of the island was possibly derived from Phoenician meaning mastic, which is a chewy substance from the mastic tree cultivated here. It’s found in lots of products and sold by itself as confectionary. Along with Samos and Smyrna (Izmir) Khios became part of the Ionic Confederacy and enjoyed a considerable amount of affluence. After the Romans, Saracens and Genoese the Turks took it in 1566 and occupied it until 1912. The Greek war of independence began in 1821 and in 1822 the Khians joined the revolt. The Turks took a terrible revenge, the towns on Khios were razed 25,000 were massacred and 47,000 enslaved. The Greek Admiral Kanaris archived a small revenge when he destroyed the Turkish flagship and its commander but the real effect of the massacre was to awaken the world to the Greek struggle.

    

Near the main square

     

The inevitable Cafe stop (at the harbour front)

   

The harbourside and old town

    

The castle and walkback past the windmills

 

Nicolas discovered some unwanted holes in his polo today …………. (more later !!!)

Did I mention we had no electricity – have lamp will travel for aperitif time

It was an early start.
We left Samos at 03:00. Khios is 60 miles to the North and an estimated 12 hour passage. It was a downwind sail and a lot of rocking and rolling in the aft cabin when trying to get some sleep  off watch.
In the end we sailed for just under 4 hours until the wind died and had to resort to burning diesel. We arrived at Khios “Marina” just after 15:00. You are not far from Turkey here, and we saw quite a lot of large ships transiting North / South just off the Turkish coast.

Traffic just off the coast of Turkey
 
Approaching Khios
Khios Marina is yet again one of the EU grant jobs i.e. it has been half finished. It has no toilet or showering facilities, water or electricity, but it is free! and there is a good supermarket just 10 minutes away with the town centre another 10 further on. So all in all OK for a few days or 15 in our case.
We initially moored up alongside in a workboat space for a couple of days then moved further in later in the week.
 
An early night, after a glass of wine of course, and plans to explore the town the next day.

We had a good sail to Patmos in 10-18 kts on a beam reach most of the way and almost right into  Ayios Yeoryios bay, but not quite.
We had a nice relaxing  week here with Nicolas enjoying our usual swims,aperitifs coffees etc. A taxi into town a couple of times for dinner and for Gordon to have his last pizza in Patmos.

Final aperitifs Patmos 

14th Sept we made our way back to Samos, Gordon got the fishing rods out but not much luck, he caught one but it was small so we put it back. Maybe we’ll get it next year when it’s a bit bigger.

   
The only fish of the season         Cats waiting on same in Samos.

We went into the bay in Pythigorion which was very busy for September, so we moved into the harbour after a couple of days. Susan is out in the Ionian just now on a flotilla holiday. She’s skippering the boat which I know she’ll do a great job of, It’s just  a pity it’s too far to meet up.

Skipper Susan

We left Pythagorion on 21 September after fuelling up in the marina. This is us now trying to head North to Chios then Lesvos for the winter.  We moved up to Posidonion as as our starting off point waiting for a weather window to go North. No easy task in the Aegean where the prevailing winds are from the North. On the 28th September we had to move back to Samos and go into the marina to avoid Medicane “Sara.”  Trip to Chios is cancelled  for obvious reasons.
Brian and Sara have moved into the marina and that’s them settled for the winter. Bob and Andrea are also going there for winter, we just thought it might be a bit quiet as Pythagorion is a holiday town and more or less closes down over winter. 
We put our time in the marina to good use, we got the thermostat on the fridge replaced and resealed the windows before the winter sets in

 

Rubbing shoulders with Danny Craig in Pythagorion…well his lookalike anyway – and didn’t he know it ! lol.

On 1st October after Medicaine Sarah bypassed Samos, thankfully, we moved up to Posidonion as our starting off place for Chios. There was only us and Nicolas, not the usual mayhem  you can encounter there with the Turkish boats. It was lovely and allowed us to have a few farewell aperitifs to Samos.

     
          
Medicaine “Sara” delayed our planned departure a while .

 

Final visit to Klima 22nd Sept

“Winter is coming” Monday 1st Oct. Posidonia big difference from 3 weeks ago !

Final aperitifs before heading North to Xios & then Lesvos

On arrival at Pythagorion anchorage there was an alien spaceship waiting for us.

 

Next morning we moved around to Samos Marina so Dave could have access to resonable wifi and electricity.

The boys arrived on the Thursday morning. As usual were bearing gifts and a few things requested by us. Dave had one change of clothes due to his luggage allowance being taken up by these and his work gear but his sacrifice was very much appreciated by us. However, I do think Iain could have given Dave a wee corner of his bag, lol

   

Unfortunately, Dave was still working so we had our first day in the marina just chilling and catching up with all their news.

  

We had a nice dinner in Daphne’s in Pythogorio the first night. The next day we sailed up to Posidonio, tacking all the way to give them a nice gentle sail and the opportunity to get a bit hands on if they wanted, which Iain did. Dave was still below deck working, poor soul. 

   

 

We were due to meet up with Nicolas here so he could meet the boys and join in on Dave’s Birthday celebrations. We had dinner ashore in the taverna in Pythogorion, again along with copious amounts of alcohol. In fact, the night ended in a blur as usual. Next morning ………

Gordon took the boys ashore in the dinghy, but not before going for a swim getting into the dinghy, enough said…. not a pretty sight but one that just had to be documented.

  

The outward voyage

  

and the return.

Another one of these moments was the big reveal by Dave….. That must have been some size of budgie to cause that splash!

 

Next night we had aperitif’s on Nicolas boat and gave Dave his presents.

             

He got a lovely scarf from Nicolas which was very sweet of him and an anchor bracelet form us.  I think the boys were quite taken by Nicolas boat, it’s quite a bit bigger than ours.   We walked round to the taverna at Klima Bay for dinner. It’s a lovely setting and the meal was very nice, then back to Camira for nightcaps and more shenanigans.

Originally, we were going to sail back to Pythagorion for the boys to go to the airport but we decided just to have a lazy morning recovering and phoned a taxi from Posidonio.  It’s always great to see the boys and sad to see them go.

We sailed for a few hours Northwards towards Lipsi but it was hard going with the wind on the nose. However, it was good to put a bit of effort into it. We knew Bob and Andrea were there, they were anchored farther in towards the village, but the water wasn’t just as clear there so we dropped anchor in the bay further South, Ormos Sokora, beside the wee chapel. It meant a 20 minute walk into the town but it was a nice walk past a couple of beaches.

         

We met up with Bob and Andrea in the village. Brian and Sarah from Kalamata were here as well, although Sarah had gone home as her mum is very ill. After picking Brian up we headed off for a beer and a catch up. While sitting there Margaret and Patrick, friends more of Bob and Andrea, but we’d met them also in Leros came by so it was quite a wee gathering which went on for a few hours. It’s always good to meet up with people and find out where and what they’ve been up to.

    

Lipso, or Lipsi as most people call it is very nice. I’d imagine it could be quite busy earlier in summer but it was very quiet while we were there. It has a small harbour which you can moor up at, we didn’t bother as the anchorage was safe and very quiet. The village is built up into the hillside which we climbed up and you can see all the way over to the other small bays where you can anchor in. They, however, were quite full and much further to walk to the village.

             

We were supposed to have met up with Nicolas somewhere for out full moon midnight swim but it didn’t happen for one reason or another. However, some of us, me, still kept up the tradition, Gordon backed out.

 

What a beautiful full moon it was!

We left Lipso on 27 August for Samos where we were meeting Dave and Iain. We had a great sail after we passed Agathonisi all the way to Samos,the wind as usual just came from nowhere, great though.

We had a few days in Pythagorion harbour, met the new Harbour Master – Giorghos, seems like a very nice guy. I think he’ll run a tighter ship than Diamontes did though, lol.

 

Louise sporting her new hairdo

We then headed up to Posidonia which was as busy as ever with the Turks causing the usual havoc anchoring.

 

We walked around to Klima bay for sea food linguini

      

Views from the taverna.

Turns out the yacht in the middle right picture had found a stowaway, Roland the rat and were trying to get rid.

We heard on the way back to the boat from Nicolas that Mao had disappeared in Pythagorion. Nicolas had friends out for a week and had to leave without finding Mao. We offered to go back the next day and try to find him. However, when we arrived back Giorghos informed us that he had found a dead cat in the bay the day before. It took me until night time to tell Nicolas the terrible news. He has been Nicolas companion on the boat for 15 years, it’s so sad.

   

Last pic of Mau in Pythagorion     Better days getting his morning drink from Louise in Syracuse

All in all it was a pretty awful day, we had moored up beside this motor boat, the parents went to stay in a hotel leaving the kids to party all night long, no sleep at all so left that morning for Agathonisi. We anchored in the first bay called Ayios Yeoriyiou…..heaven!

Totally alone and not a sound. We had three days here without another soul, then a few boats came. After five days we headed for Leros Marina.

Turned out Leros Marina have changed their charging structure making it quite a bit more expensive for boats of our size, so we only graced them with one night of our company, However, it did allow us to go to the wee chicken taverna across the road from it, that Gordon loves.

Then it was off to Xerocambos on the South of the island, where we picked up a mooring buoy again  for the night. The script is that you eat in the respective taverna that provides the buoys, not everybody does , but we do. Tokyma is a very picturesque but unfortunately the last time it wasn’t very good (in fact it was awful). So this time we just went in for a wee meze and drink and went on to another taverna later for dinner.

      

The next days plan was to sail to  Nisos Lipsi  –  which would be a new island for us.

Sunday night saw us anchor in Ay Yeoryious, Patmos a favourite anchorage and very peaceful. It had been a hard beat to windward.

We were running short of water and Camira needed a good clean so we headed for Samos Marina the next day. It always seems to be a good sail between Samos & Patmos a 30 odd mile passage. We were seeing speeds of 7 knots plus at times. The dolphins that visted us loved that !

After two nights in the marina cleaning up, fueling up etc we headed round to Pythagorion and anchored in the bay.

This was to be our mini cruising ground for near enough a month. Pythagorion (Samos) – Ay Yeoryious (Patmos), Agriolivadhia (Patmos), Scala (Patmos).

There are loads of pics from last year so wont repeat any views. Going into Scala , the main town on Patmos was a 1st by boat as the meltemi makes the harbour wall uncomfortable but we had a little lull in the usually strong winds. The Cyclades & Aegean weather is very strange this year.

     

Pythagorion 17th July

   

Nicolas & Mario on Camira and Agriolivadhia, Patmos 21st July

      

Georgio Armani’s boat & view from taverna later in day I’m wearing my  white Armani T  Shirt

Ay Yeoryious, Patmos 23rd July

Whilst in Ay Yeoryious we invited an English couple Alison & Dave from White Sands over for a drink “before tea”.

They arrived at 6:30PM and left at 03:30AM ! Literally drank us out of booze, lol.

   

Ay Yeoryious, Patmos 24th July

We also met up with Jon & Angie the couple who sold up everything and bought an Oyster 56 for their 1st boat, day skipper qualification certs ,ink not yet yet dried. Good on them. I think Jon is enjoying more than Angie though, not surprising he was in the Paras.

Scala Patmos 26th July

There have been a few as Nicolas would call “James Bond “ incidents:

1. Gordon swam to recover someone’s dinghy let loose in Pythagorion by a child hooligan and was heading out to sea. He towed it back in swimming!  I can hear Diane shouting “He done a Noel”. He did get a bottle of wine for his good deed.

2. Nicolas pulled a yacht off the rocks that had lost engine power and was letting in water and got it the to the safety of the coastguard boat when it arrived.  He got nuthin , lol

   

Pythagorion celebrating the defeat of the Turks 6th August

A couple of days after Diane left we headed North up past Kalymnos to Leros and a bay on the South coast called Xerocambos. We had been there last year on a bike but not by boat. The script is you take a mooring buoy and are expected to eat in the Taverna whose name is on it. Ours was To Kyma.

The people were very nice but I think new to the Taverna game, my meal was terrible , Louise’s was OK. That’s life as Esther would say. It was only after however we noted not everyone followed protocol and ate in whatever restaurant they wanted, trust us,lol. However felt morally holier than thou.

       

The next day was a nosey ashore and stocking up at the local minimarket. Its getting hot now and the market was up a hill ! We passed a hotel whose pool looked very inviting.

   

After two nights here we headed round to Lakki. We had intended going into the marina but spotted Bob & Andrea our pals from Kalamata who had been stuck here for 4 weeks with engine problems. They were on the harbour wall so we moored up stern to with our anchor next to them.

We had missed (and so had they) Andreas birthday celebrations so Louise invited them on board for a birthday curry and prezzies.

   

The harbour wall was quite noisy with the local boy racers. A couple of days was enough and we headed Northward again.

On Friday we had a nice wee sail back 21 miles to Kos marina. Diane helmed most of the way.

 

I told Diane we had an option of dropping her off by rubber dinghy nearer the airport at Kardamena or hiring a scooter and taking her on the back.

She wasn’t impressed  at being:

“ Put ashore in a rowing boat or hanging on the back of a scooter, after all everyone back home thinks i’m here in the lap of luxury”

After chilling on the boat we headed out for our last meal of her wee break.

   

Bye Bye until next time