This week we spent a lovely few days in a deserted bay while a Southerly blow passed through, we then had one night before a 40knt northerly buster arrived. Nigel felt that we didn't really have the snubbing gear to cope with those winds so we decided to spend a couple of nights back in Lakki marina, two nights turned into 4 as the wind just blew and blew. Being a northerly, it was pretty cold and not conducive to going for a walk beyond Lakki town and the cabin fever was quite strong by the end of the 4 nights! It did give us the opportunity to make up an improved snubbing set up for the future and we feel we can cope with anything thrown at us now.
What we had vs what we have now
Chief Splicer
As the wind dropped we did get the chance to go for a walk to Xerokampos bay where we stopped for a lunch on the boat as few days previously. This took us past the psychiatric hospital exposed by the BBC years ago for the treatment of patients. Even the pilot book for the nearby anchorage mentions hearing screams from there in days gone by. Thankfully it's better managed and silent nowadays.
We left Lakki early the next morning, headed for Patmos, and had the best sail this year, powered up in 10knts upwind in bright sunshine and flat water. The wind was a little shifty and setting the autopilot onto wind hold mode revealed that there were some adjustments needed to the settings. Which ones and by how much remain unknown at the moment but the boat was hunting the wind through quite large angles, resulting in several luffing incidents, especially in the lighter wind strengths. Another boat job to add to the list.
We spent one night anchored in a bay close to Skala, the main town on Patmos, then moved to the town quay mainly because we wanted to leave the boat for several hours to visit the monastery of St John and visit the Cave of the Apocalypse. This was the place where John wrote the book of Revelations. both the monastery and the cave were spectacular, interesting yet frustrating. Frustrating because, St Thomas' skull aside, there were few indications or signs of what we were looking at, either in English or Greek. This is a Unesco world heritage site so was a little disappointing. Nigel made his own Revelation that it "wouldn't be worth walking up the steep hill for 90mins to see this". We had got a taxi up.
Cave of the Apocalypse
We had a walk around the Chora with its alleyways and small squares dotted with churches. We came across one which obviously had a service in progress with the doors open and chanting priests could be heard. Nigel stood at the doorway to watch and it was some time before Amanda yanked him away saying, "it's a funeral, can't you see the open casket?" He hadnt noticed it but sure enough there was an open coffin there with a body in it, we quickly left.
The walk back was lovely, through pine trees with spring flowers carpeting the route.
We remain in Skala as we write, continuing to head North tomorrow.
