A relaxing ten days in Greece – report by Becky Goddard

Yacht “Imagine  ” Sun Odyssey 42 i, June 4th – June 13th 2015 

Skipper: Bob Buchanan 

Crew: Becky Goddard  , Mick Mahady  and Hugh Hayward 

Our trusty taxi man Tony took us all to Gatwick (minus Dave Winks who dropped out at the last minute)and we arrived after 2300 and took a taxi to our hotel “Yiorgos” (Euros 25 each for two nights!) which was in a quiet street near the marina and walking distance of Kos Town.

The next day we pottered around the town, had a few beers and had a ride on the little train that circles the town and the archaeological sites.

On the Thursday morning we walked over to the marina to see if we could have the boat earlier than 17.00 and arranged to have the preordered provisions delivered by 15.00. The galley was poorly equipped with cooking equipment and crockery so we made a quick visit to a local supermarket to get some more glasses and mugs! After the handover we left the mooring about 16.00 and set sail for the island of Pserimos.

Pserimos was the first of a series of lovely peaceful islands with the only sound being the bells on the sheep and a delicious smell of wild herbs from the surrounding hills.

Over the next eight days we visited Kalymnos, Leros, Lipsos, Agathonisi and Patmos before turning for home. As predicted the winds were light or nonexistent in the morning and F2 to F5 in the afternoon (our top speed 10.7 knts) so we tended to swim in the morning before setting sail for our next destination. We had some really brilliant sailing going up the east side of the islands. Anchorages were free and the mooring fees were in single figures!! Except Patmos where we stayed two nights and paid Euros 26 for two nights with electric!!

Leros threw us, as the mooring suggested in the pilot book didn’t seem to exist, the town quay was either too shallow for us to go stern to, and the deeper bit was for the ferries and merchant traffic. We went across the large bay to the north and anchored at Alindas from which we dinghied ashore and hiked for over an hour the next morning to the town!

On Patmos we hired a car and explored the island finding a mix of quiet beaches and narrow hill roads! We visited the Monastery of St John which is considered to be one of the most important places in the Orthodox world – well worth the visit with some amazing artefacts and regalia.

Our visit to Agathonisi (8 miles to the Turkish coast) was marred by the arrival about 07.30 by the local coastguard rafting in a large collapsing inflatable with about 30 men on board. The men were searched for weapons, their mixture of life jackets and flotation jerkins were binned and the men were put ashore to be locked up in the police station. We assumed they would be taken to a larger island for the authorities to deal with as this island was very small with only limited facilities.

Our last stop was an anchorage in the bay of Vlikadia on the SW of Kalymnos. This was delightful and the next morning we saw lots of local schoolchildren offloaded from buses to spend the day on the beach – it was the start of the school holidays! Three of us paddled the dinghy ashore to stretch our legs and found the most amazing museum formed by a local sponge diver from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries housing thousands of exhibits of coral,fish,sponges and photos of many of the places he had dived.

On the last day we had only a short hop back to Kos Town and marina – we had no great difficulty getting fuel and moored up about 17.00

We had booked a room at the Yiorgos hotel for the next day as our flight home was very late so we dumped our bags and hired a car (Euros 25) to explore the island. We found a ruined castle overlooking the sea to Turkey which we later found out was built by the Templar Knights in the twelfth century. The similarity to the construction of the castle and fortifications on Malta was very striking. There was no information or any sign of tourist interest except the most bonkers old man in Greek national dress sitting in an archway dancing for us – there was no-one else in sight!!

We had to make an early return to the town as I found the boat keys still in my handbag from the previous night! After a shower and repacking we got a taxi to the airport and flew home arriving to Tony’s welcome and drive back to Somerset. Another successful trip (178 n. miles) and nobody died!!