There was no wind a when we left Kos, so up with the iron sails, the engine. We were headed to Vathys on Kalymnos with a planned lunch stop at Pserimnos, apparently a place so nice it's packed out with day trippers in the season, but when we entered the bay it looked quite grim and so we turned around and continued on to Vathy. This small and narrow bay has a village at the end and stern to mooring for about 15 yachts apparently, but they must be very crammed in! The approach is like a narrow fjord with cliffs either side separated by about 2 boatlengths. As we prepared to moor we dropped the anchor about 2 feet from one cliff and reversed towards the quay. It's hard to tell the water depth in such clear water but Nigel bailed out of the manoeuvre worried about the depth for the rudder. We eventually berthed slightly up the quay alongside and later measured the depth where we were initially headed. Good call! It was only a meter, we need at least 1.8m at the rudder.
Berthed in Vathy
Vathy was beautiful, we took long walks through the orange and lemon groves up the valley, stopped at a church, found a ruined Christian church and scrumped Clemantine oranges straight off the tree.
The obligatory post walk taverna beer found us chatting to an Australian guy who ran the bar and had lived there for years (seems to be a few in the northern Dedocanse islands) Dinner at Poppy's taverna next to the boat was lovely and we slept well. Sadly the bay there, although very well sheltered in the main, is open to the south easterlies which were forecast. With our slightly dodgy berthing position (a rock about 2 feet off the stern) we didnt feel comfortable sitting out any significant wind and so we had to go.
Vathy residents welcome the fisherman back to port...
Leros was the next destination on our trek North and we stopped in a lovely bay for lunch, Xirokampos. Very quiet again at this time of year but a place we want to return to to explore further.With the South Easterly wind now forecast to strengthen we decided to head into a marina at Lakki, a main town on Leros which was developed by the Italians under Mussolini. The bay is well protected and the Italians built it into a military base with an town built in art Deco style, very at odds with the usual Greek architecture but very interesting to walk around. The main buildings need a coat of paint to look their best, but the art Deco style extended from the seafront inland and included residential houses on wide tree lined roads.
Lakki town cinema
Lakki town church
Its said that Lakki was the inspiration for the book "Guns of Navarone" as the largest guns in the Agean area were installed in the cliffs by the Italians to protect the military base. When the Italians conceded, the British moved in to the strategic base but were pushed back quickly by the Germans. There is a military museum in Lakki inside some tunnels, sadly for us it was closed at this time of year.
Provisioning was good in Lakki and included 2 chandleries which clearly means we spent more money than intended! We left the town to anchor in a quiet bay for a few days around the weekend, not wanting to stray too far from the protection of Lakki bay due to the forecast of 40knt northerly winds heading our way. We haven't decided yet if we will return to the marina or stay at anchor. Nigel feels that we need improved snubber/bridle equipment to cope with that windstrength so we will see.
