Set off from Samos about midday for Patmos. Two reefs in the main and reefed genoa but had a brilliant sail down to Ayios Yeoryios (Georgios bay) with winds of 18 – 25 kts and speed of 6kts. Approaching Patmos the weekly cruise ship came up at the back of us, unfortunately our 6kts wasn’t enough to beat him, so here he is overtaking us.

We had about eight days here anchoring between Ayios Yeoryios, Aspri bay in front of the posh taverna and Meloyi bay where our anchor dragged at 0600. Meloyi is a deeper bay and the holding not as good as the others. This is only the second time our anchor has dragged during the whole trip, so not too bad considering the amount of anchoring we do.

Ormos Meloyi & calamari at the taverna

We went up to Chora & the Monastery. There are fantastic views down to the bays we anchor in. Gordon was on the edge of his seat , there was no way he was getting down to the boat if the anchor dragged , lol.

 

Chora & Monastery

Nicolas has his friend Marielle out just now so we met up with them in Ayios Yeoryios. We went over to his boat to an aperitif but ended up staying for pasta. Well, its the least he could do given that I took him a delivery of fruit and bread, of which he’d ran out.

From here we all motored the couple of miles over to Agriolivadi bay for coffee in the nice beach bar.

Obviously, I had to recipricate and have Nicolas and Marielle over for drinks and dinner. Oh boy! another “late”night shall we say. Dinner was a bit of a disaster, was making lasagne until I discovered I had no lasagne sheets so pasta bolognaise, except I lost time and overcooked the pasta but we ate it anyway, stodgy or not.

We were all three sheets to the wind and Nicolas lost his cigarette papers. He kept asking me where they were,as Icouldn’t see them lying around the boat I picked up his wee pouch thing he carries his tobacco in and emptied it out. Well, was I embarassed or what? He thought it was hysterical.

 

We motored on to our new anchorage Klima Bay. Somehow it got the nickname of Nicolas Bay, I think because he likes it and goes there often.

Anyway, we had a night here and while cooking dinner, Hot Chicken, the gas ran out just as I was finished. Well the chicken was cooked but no rice so it was chicken and bread. Good though!

Next day we motored back to Pythagorion, Gordon rowed ashore, bought gas then sailed back to Klima Bay . Sailing up  Stenon (Straight) Samos between Turkey and Greece is nice, we had a SW wind and had the full Genoa out. Nice sail with a knot of tide, one of very few places where there is a bit of tide, seemingly it can get to 3 kts here. The distance from Samos to Turkey here is only one mile. There are a lot of abandoned lifejackets on the shore from the refugee crisis. We haven’t seen any.

Anyway, we had another night here on anchor but with winds from the south it was quite uncomfortable.  We moved up to Posidonia to have a look but the conditions were worse so back to Pythagorion, but we’re going into the marina.

Samos marina is nice, it’s about a ten minute walk from there to Pythagorion.

   

Nice to have the basics again……walk in shower! To be honest, I don’t miss this as much as Gordon, he goes to the shower and forgets to come back.  I miss electricity more, it’s great to be able to blow dry my hair with a hairdryer and not the wind while sitting on the coachroof and to be able to use my straightners.

This always calls for a night out to a nice restaurant while we are looking like normal people.

 

We have had a few more days here, going between the harbour and anchoring out in the bay. It can get quite loud in the harbour at the weekends but on the whole Pythagorion is a nice place to be and fairly quiet other than weekends.

We decided to hire a scooter for a day and see a bit more of the island. It is quite beautiful, especially up in the mountains. More than can be said for me with that helmet on!

We headed out and stopped off at a lovely we place for a morning coffee, great views.

 

Heading clockwise round the island we visited Kampos, Ormos Marathokampos, Karlovassi in the north

Visiting the obligatory church on the hill and where Gordon was attacked by a friendly dog trying to chew his shoes off.

 

Carried on east along the north coast of the island to Vathi the capital.

We had a lunch stop here and a wander but it was so hot it was better on the scooter with the breeze. Vathi is nice enough but we felt it was a bit big and it just lacked something for me.

From there we visited a few of the smaller villages on the east of the island before heading back to Pythagorion.

We are having another day or two here then heading round the corner to anchor. 

Hopefully this helps identifying the names &  places a wee bit easier. If you click /tap on the map it should enlarge .

On the 13th July we headed back yet again to Samos. This time we anchored in the bay until our water ran out. Its far cooler and quieter on anchor and you can jump off the back of the boat when its too hot. Its also an easy row in the dinghy to the breakwater. That’s now 14 nights anchoring consecutively , a record for us.

 

Pythagorian Bay anchorage

But eventually a laundry and water stop is required and on the 16th July we returned to the harbour wall.

One man and his goat (on a tour baot in the harbour)

Yes you have guessed it 2 days later Nicolas arrived, this time with his nephew.

Remi

He has now gone until his next sailing pick up arrives next week, but not before cooking us Fillet Mignon.

 

It is now 19th July (Where is the summer going?). Its still gusting 35 knots , so we are staying put for a while. We have been approached by a young American couple asking if we would consider taking them to the next island we intend visiting and dropping them off. We’ll see ….perhaps? We may visit another part of Samos first so it might not be practicable.

Anyhow that’s the blog up to date and there follows a map of our voyage so far at the request of Fiona to save her looking up the places on the internet. Hope it helps

Bye for now

Nisos Arki is a much indented island lying six miles ENE of Patmos. It is sparsely poulated and in fact reminded us of Scotland (in the sun).

There is a small anchorage at the West end that is said to be like the Carribean. We plan to go there on our next visit perhaps on route to Leros.

This time however we were headed for Port Stretto, a small inlet with 4 moorings laid by the Taverna, so it was looking like dinner ashore tonight , yippee !

Ouzos, Calamari , then Goat

Sunday 2^nd July 2017

We headed back to Patmos. It looks like the weather patterns will dictate our cruising area until September will be Patmos, Leros, Samos, Arki. It does make a pleasant change from long passages, albeit there will be some required at the end of the summer when we return to Syracuse.

It was as expected a downwind sail under foresail only to arrive back in almost the same anchor spot we left in Ay Yeoryios. We stayed here for 7 nights with the help of our water tanker Nicolas, who arrived on the 5^th this time with his Sister’s friend, Kathy and partner on board (I think he is following us). He has a water maker on board and he fills our auxiliary plastic tanks for us which saves us the necessity of going into a harbour for water quite as often.

They were only staying one night as his visitors only had one week’s holiday.

Kathy & Michelle

The following Saturday 8^th we moved a massive 2.8 miles to another bay closer to Skala Patmos callled Ormos Aspri. We anchored just off a very chic and expensive tavern that played jazz music in the evenings. We stayed until Wednesday 12^th. We are getting used to this anchoring lark.

Windy move to Aspri Bay

Aspri Bay

The views of St John’ monastery from here were fantastic as were the views of the cruise ships that anchored about half a mile away from us. However the main reason for this anchorage was that we could walk in to Scala Patmos if we wanted. It was a bit of a hill and about 15 to 20 minutes but Scala Patmos is very pretty and bohemian, very different from what I remember in the 80’s.

   

St John’s Monastery in Chora and the cruise ships

 

Full moon rising

        

The walk in to ”town”  Scala Patmos  ……… and back !

We renewed our Dekpa here with the Greek Coastguard which theoretically will allow us to cruise Greece for a further 5 years if we wished, however it’s looking like the Brexit shambles might put paid to that well before then, we’ll see. “Cigar Cigar” (“Slowly Slowly”) as they say in Greek.

Thursday 29^th June saw us leaving Patmos for Samos.
It’s just a 27 mile or so sail to the NW, a relatively short passage but seemed to be the day for continually having to alter course:  for the superfast Patmos Ferry, a British yacht motoring with no one on watch, two LBC’s, and finally a pair of trawlers dragging a complete fish farm half a mile astern of them.
We arrived in Pythagorion mid afternoon, it was blisteringly hot anchored stern too the harbour wall. Including water and electricity very inexpensive at 10 Euros. I am writing this blog retrospectively and on our subsequent visit to Samos it had decreased to 8 Euros – a massive difference from last year in Italy where the average Dick Turpin was 50 Euros per night.
 
You are so close to the Tavernas you could almost read the menu which makes it very interesting having your evening shower, if you can imagine! I don’t want to be too graphic. However it’s great for people watching. Us watching them watching us.

Pythagorion harbour front

Gyros night
Samos is in the Eastern Sporades and is the closest Greek Island to Turkey 1 mile from Cape Mykale . The town was named Pythagorion relatively recently in 1955 in honour of Pythagoras who was born on Samos, formerly it was called Tigani meaning frying pan , which is self explanatory once you have seen the shape of the harbour.
The closeness to Turkey means quite a few boats visit and they seem to have an interesting approach to anchoring. I have never seen so many crossed anchors, its chaos, and apparently Symi is far worse, we won’t be going there.

Anchor Chaos in the morning
The French gang arrived here too and again we went out for dinner, this time they split up into Girls & Boys. Louise had to use her pigeon French, but it is getting better.

Many years ago I came to Patmos with a couple of mates, one of them, Ewan, had a pal whose sister was married to a Greek and they lived on Patmos. We visited them and the Greek husband whose name now escapes me had a Scottish / Greek accent and his favourite curse was “Diddy”. For those of you of a Southern persuasion,”Diddy” can be thought of as “Tit” for example “You’re just a couple of Diddies” As I near Patmos I can’t help remembering this.

Well, we had our first indication of the difficulty of trying to sail Northwards in the Aegean . A direct course to Patmos from Leros is roughly 17 miles, say 3 and a wee bit hours sailing. It took us 6 hours 45 minutes, we could’ve put the engine on, but it was the first short distance for ages. So we tacked back and forth.

There are a number of anchoring options in Patmos and for the first two days we chose Ormos Meloyi, although its a bit of a row in

 

Ormos Meloyi

after which we moved to Ayios Yeoryios and again met up with Nicolas. This time he had more French friends in tow – Jean Francois & Claude(ette).We had lunch with them in the taverna ashore. Louise had previously invited Nicolas for dinner on Camira and she extended it to them as well. You should have seen her face when Nicolas told her Jean Francois was a chef, who incidentally had the British Royal family stay at his hotel in the past. It’s apparently true that the Queen mum could put away the Gin! Louise’s Lasagna however was a sucess

Lunch and dinner on Camira

Funny but expensive over £1,000 wee dog in the Taverna

The next day a massive catamaran arrived with even more French pals. “C’est bon n’est pas?”

We were left to ourselves after a couple of days so we just continued to chill

This was the final push to convert Louise, who admittedly did love the place IN SUMMER.

I think I failed miserably when it took 40 minutes up and down steep hills (Past the nearest supermarket to the marina – about a mile!) to walk to Pandelli, in the blistering heat without water.

The lunch was good though, as was the setting. I am sure we will come back and anchor in this or a nearby bay later in the trip.

Shirley Valentine

  

Close but no cigar !