ocean-pilgrim

It’s been a funny season for us.  With no fixed plans of where to go we’ve spent a lot of time going back and forth across the Aegean this year.  4 crossings so far in the last 3 months.  This has had the benefit of us putting to rest some nerves about the windiest regions of the islands.  Last year we crossed from West to East in order to haul out in October stopping part way across on Paros to sit out a Meltemi.  It was very uncomfortable with constant high winds and us tacking back and forth on anchor for several days (logging up 2 miles!) in a lonely bay at the end of the sailing season.

Given all this too-ing and fro-ing it’d be too hard to write about where we have been by dates as it’s now simply too confusing.  Even for us and we’re the ones doing it. But the broad picture is that this year we will haul no longer haul the boat out for the winter in Leros as we have done for the past few years but well west on the other side of the Aegean up near the island of Evia.

So instead of following our own timelines for this post I will stick to a bit of island hopping in island groups, starting with a few photos of our time in the Dodecanese.

People ask me where to go when they want to visit a Greek island and it’s hard to say without knowing what appeals to people. The islands are just so different to each other.  The large ones are hard to see without a car or bike and the small ones can be just too small unless you are after a holiday on a beach with one taverna to dine at each night. But what I have learned from touching base with quite a few islands now is that they all have their unique flavour, stories and history.  The islands with large deep harbours all have endured action in WW2 yet others, more remote or with nowhere to easily anchor have remained removed from the worst of it.

So, as we wave farewell to the Eastern Islands here are a few of our favourites that we managed to visit this year.

Kalymnos is directly to south of Leros separated by only a narrow strait.  Its cliffs and mountains are imposing, a haven for rock climbers. It’s fame in Greece however is for its Sponge Diving. We just went in to 2 anchorages this year as we filled in some time waiting for parts to arrive in Leros. 

Emborious is a vibrant little seaside village with mooring buoys to secure your boat if you don’t want to anchor.  The Artistico Taverna draws musicians its way with owners who perform nightly on request and host an open mic and a friendly crowd for those who like an audience to play to. We stayed a few nights along with John and Megan from Seafox 1 and spent some golden evenings at the Taverna where Rick and John played with a variety of other musicians and Eleni and George played songs from their past both from the 70’s (with the audience enthusiastically singing along) and traditional Greek folk songs.

During the hot days we swam and socialised and also climbed the near vertical path to the Hellenistic remains that look down over the anchorage and across the whole western coast of Kalymnos and out into the inky blue Aegean.

The other bay we went to was in stark contrast as it was wild and uninhabited and full of every bit of detritus that the prevailing summer northerly winds could possibly blow in there.  People walk into this place to climb but have to walk past an ocean of plastic to get there.  It was hard to see beyond the mountains of rubbish on the beach, so we decided to do just a small bit towards a clean-up. We picked up 5 garbage bags full between the crews of Seafox 1 and Intention and hardly made a dent in it. We cleaned about one quarter of the short beach yet underneath amongst the seaweed it seemed to go endlessly deeper.  At least it was slightly improved by us visiting.

We also climbed up to a cave here in this isolated bay. Many climbers had visited it before and you could see evidence of their time here from stones swirled into patterns on the cave floor to the odd rope attached here and there. For me it was another major move forward in my knee rehab. It was a slippery walk in flip flops as we had come to the beach in our dinghy and I’d not realised we were going to climb up so hadn’t brought shoes. While I was very careful the downhill slide was slow!

We parted ways with our friends, Meagan and John with plans to reconnect again in the Little Cyclades a few weeks later as they needed to remain on Leros, and we headed off in a zig zag pattern towards the azure waters of the Cyclades.

It’s been a very social year this year and we’d also had a message from friends we hadn’t seen since Barcelona in November saying they were headed to Lipsi from their home base on Samos so off we went to meet them there. We spent an afternoon over ouzo and wine at a particularly idyllic taverna overlooking the bay our boats were anchored in enjoying the musical and artistic flavour of the place as can be seen from the photos. Two fabulous days later we laughingly parted ways knowing that we would catch them later too.  Lipsi is just north of Leros and part of the Dodecanese.  It has quite a small population of friendly locals, good restaurants and lovely beaches.  Much like the rest of the Greek Islands really.

Patmos is also another local island we love.

We stopped in one of our favourite bays and launched the dinghy and walked over to Skala, the main harbour and town. The walk is about 40 minutes, but the scenery is beautiful and at the right time of year there are many opportunities for stealing figs.

As we walked along the town quay, we saw our friend’s boat Iduna 2 tied up alongside and walked along the road beyond looking out for them knowing it was likely we would find them somewhere in the town of Skala.  Of course, we spied them making friends in a Taverna and reconnected with promises to come around next to them in the harbour the following day.  Rick and Paul spent hours using Pauls rigging tension gauge to figure out what was going on with our rigging which had been playing up ever since we had some “experts” in Turkey service it last year. It was partially successful and Rick immediately ordered one of these gauges for us.

Theresa and I went to town and ran into a friend of here…shopping turned into coffee!

We had a great time with Paul and Theresa. They headed South and we went West all the happier for an unplanned get together.  Next time it’s off the the long awaited Cyclades via Levitha and Amorgos!