Kalimnos

Our trip from Kos to Kalimnos was a motorboat ride which culminated in a nasty beat into wind and waves, so rather than continue on to Kalimnos town, we decided to head up the leeward east coast of the island to several interesting possible anchorages. The first was idyllic – but try as we might, we were unable to get the anchor to set sufficiently – so we moved on to Vathys – which turned out to be very narrow and not very enticing! Our third choice was a sheltered anchorage with mooring balls and we made our way in and collected the first buoy we came to and settled in for the evening. Cocktails were served!

When I got up to refresh my drink, I casually observed out the window that there was a group of sailboats not far away. It then dawned on me that we were supposed to be a part of that group of sailboats! When I came up on deck I found that we were still tied to the mooring buoy, but it wasn’t attached to the sea floor anymore! We’d drifted 200-300 meters – fortunately straight out of the harbour and hadn’t hit anything.

We tied the mooring to our stern and motored back in to the harbour to find another buoy – and then set an anchor alarm!

Leros

With the westerly winds we’d been experiencing we were unable to take advantage of the west coast of Kalimnos, so instead we moved north to the next island, Leros – and stopped at Agia Marina (a town not a marina!) and anchored out. Good thing we did as when we inspected the quay where we would have med moored, we saw that for sure we would have touched bottom and risked another bent rudder!

Agia is very pretty – much more so than the main town of Lakki on the western side – which we cycled to.

We were here for Easter celebrations – and it seems the islanders like setting off the loudest fireworks (bangers) possible. The noise of some of them is just incredible! I think they use dynamite! We’d be quietly pottering around the boat and then BOOM – which echoed all through the bay.

We moved onto a secluded anchorage in the north of Leros – Blefuti which was really pretty and very quiet. Unfortunately I’d underestimated out anchor position a little and we came close to some rocks during a wind change. I shortened the scope to 3:1 to get away from them – and immediately started dragging right on to them! So we had to re-anchor (in the same bay)… After 3 or 4 attempts we succeeded… Getting quite frustrated with the performance of our anchor – or is it the challenging sea surface we’re finding in Greece?!

Patmos

Patmos is the northernmost island of the Dodecanese and an Israeli couple we met in Blefuti – Samuel and Shanne on Aurora – were heading out there and described a nice bay with well maintained moorings – so we decided to follow.

Unfortunately, on the way there, the head blocked up again – and this time it was serious! So we stopped midway in deep water and I jumped in the dinghy and started the lovely task of freeing things up with a long piece of narrow hose. Success was achieved, but it felt somewhat temporary… I’d have to look to replace hoses and diverter valves when next possible.

The recommended bay was nice indeed and protected from virtually all wind directions. A single taverna was open and we enjoyed a lunch there.

After a couple of days we moved upto to a very secluded anchorage just 4 or 5 miles north – but despite trying 6 times, we were unable to get the anchor to hold. Very frustrating! So we made our way back to the moorings and as soon as we got there, we unhooked our Spade anchor and replaced it with our spare Mason Supreme that has been sitting in the sail locker for years. We’ll see how this one does.

It was great that we came back here – because we’d been told that the marina at the bottom of this bay is actually quite capable – so we took a dinghy ride down there and found a very well organized and well stocked operation. I went there looking to buy a simple plastic handle for one of our diverter valves and ended up coming out with new diverter valves and 7mtrs of hugely expensive hose – for a cool €600! I spent the next day finally sorting out a permanent fix for the head situation!

Our visit in Patmos was also a nice social affair – we met Mal and Karen on Talisker and had drinks aboard Toodle-oo! (and the following night on Talisker) and then Ethel settled on a mooring near us and we had Mal Karen, Michael and Roseanne on Toodle-oo! again. We had previously met Ethel in Kardamaina, Kos last year – right after bending our rudder!

We got a lot of use out of our bikes on Patmos – cycling over to the main town of Skala several times – mostly to get provisions. One time we were there, Laurie managed to leave her handbag on a bench and only after we’d cycled all the way back to the dinghy (3 hilly kilometers!) did she realize… I cycled back to find that it had been (actually was still in process of being) turned in to the police. Even though I identified it – including unlocking Laurie’s phone and showing pictures of us – they insisted that Laurie had to sign for it – so I got a ride in the back of the police car back to Laurie and the dinghy! We never once feared that the bag would have been stolen – how nice is that!

Lipsi

Our final stop in the Dodecanese was Lipsi and we chose to anchor in a bay right in the south – to gain protection from more northerly Meltemi winds. The anchor set first time! Woo-hoo!

It was a very nice (if very brief) stop – though none of the tavernas around the bay were open for the season yet – so we walked over to the main town – Lipsi – to take a look. It’s pretty enough but very quiet without any tourists! Unfortunately they’ve rather messed up the charm of the place with lots of concrete parking areas around the harbor. They must have 10 times more parking spaces than cars on the island!

However, we did get an excellent lunch at a Taverna that has been open year round (sort of) and stuffed ourselves silly!

Next stop: Fournoi in the Eastern Sporades…