With Dee and I back in Greece, and a serious lack of blogging going on (due to numerous excuses I have to say), its well and truly time to fire up the blog and let you poor folk shivering away in the Australian winter know just how good cruising around the Med is. We got to Greece in early June, spent a couple of days recuperating in a seaside hotel close to the airport, before hopping on the plane to Leros with our five heavy bags full of boat parts and half a blow up windsurfer/SUP (as Emirates decided I couldn’t bring the sail section).
In Leros it was not all fun and cocktails. Before the play comes the work. In no time at all I had Dee scrubbing the decks, removing the effects of a Saharan red mud rainstorm. We worked through a long list of boat jobs – 60 odd jobs in total. Dale had reconditioned one of our shower sump pumps and machined up some latch locks so we gratefully fitted those. It took us a little longer than we thought to work our way through our list. After a week and a bit, the day before Kim and Jane were arriving, La Mischief was looking pretty darn good (to quote George of the Jungle) and we were getting closer to finishing when, bugger me, the fresh water pump’s pressure sensor refused to play ball!!
Never mind, it was out to the airport to pick up Kim and Jane at 7.30am (ouch) in our hire car, and we finally gave ourselves a break and spent a day being tourist – breakfast at Skippers (at the marina), lunch on Pateli Beach, looking up at the castle, a quick drink at The View to guess what, check out the view, and then back to Ostria for dinner, an old favorite. In between, I organized for someone to look at my pump, and for some fibre-glassing work to be done.
In Leros we also found time to socialize with the other yachties – a great past time given the stories and information they have. We had drinks on a Seawind 1160 from the USA and Dee keenly did the grand tour to see what Camelot was like. Also ran into a couple of Australians in Garry and Marti – Garry being the guy who set up the original Cruising Helmsman magazine and his wife.
Next day, it was time to pick up Tiki and Scott to bring us up to the full compliment of crew. Of course we needed to check out another restaurant and as the request was for live music and seafood, we headed to the Pateli Beach Bar. Logistics were somewhat of an issue, but with three slim girls and some slow and steady driving, we managed to deliver 6 people to the restaurant in the hire car. Certainly not OH and S compliant.
Being the weekend it was impossible to order a new pump until Monday, so we decided we would cruise down to Kalymnos for a couple of days, until the pump was ordered and delivered from Athens. We headed for Emporios on the NW side, and had a great reach down in 20kts of breeze, before making our way into the bay and picking up a restaurant mooring. Emporios was a cool little spot, with sugar white houses set against a pebble beach with crystal clear water. Out came the two SUPs and much swimming and paddling was done. Tiki and Scott had arrived from France with a suitcase full of wine (and a few clothes), making our pre-dinner drinks on the front of the boat a very delightful occasion.
Dinner was according to the restaurant name written on the mooring ball, so off we went in our dingy to Artistico Café, just off the beach under some tamarisk trees. The name suggested music, as did the posters and photos, and George the proprietor did not let us down with an impromptu jam session with House of the Rising Sun being the highlight.
After a windy night, we got up to find one of our front cushions blown away, due to a combination of some good French wine being spilt the night before and us forgetting to re-attach the cushion to the boat following the cleanup exercise. So off in the dingy to comb the shoreline to no avail. Meanwhile Kim had gone for a swim and a beachcomb and heroically returned with a somewhat damp cushion. Disaster averted.
Now that we were finally on the water, we’d decided that we would push on with our dodgy water pump rather than going back to Leros for a new one. So then it was off to Arki.
For photos of Leros see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202129610274664.1073741933.1620379103&type=1&l=9feb07d97f (includes photos from last year as well)
For photos of Kalymnos see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202129600234413.1073741932.1620379103&type=1&l=e7ee7e7a6b (ditto about last years photos)
A Little Bit of Mischief 