Peros the local sparky identified the blown capacitor in his root cause analysis of the desalinator. Easy? No. A new one had to be ordered from Athens, so we decided to head over to the nearby Arki island for a few days. The recommended anchorages were windy with poor holding so Diomedea went down to the southern tip of the island into a beautiful spot for a stern-tie up. As David drove the dinghy toward the rocky shore with the tie up line he managed to spear the front pontoon on a tiny but razor-sharp rock spike. A big whoosh of air and the dinghy now had only 2 out of 3 pontoons. Amazingly it still drove quite well and continued to plane even. Surely there were no more dramas, right? No. With two lines ashore our anchor still dragged as wind built on the beam overnight and Diomedea was pushed inexorably toward the limestone as the new day dawned. Disappointingly, dropping our previously reliable 36kg Manson Supreme anchor into sand is no guarantee of good holding in these parts. Our belief, although as yet unconfirmed, is that the sand is only a thin layer over rock. The anchor will dig in somewhat but go no further. Visual inspections shows a lot of the anchor exposed. Other boat anchors perform no better. We have now experienced this in many bays and have become super cautious about "good holding" as stated in the pilot. Big winds are also common adding to the problem.
Chastened, Diomedea did the short hop over to Marathi island with its taverna on the beach and sunset bar on the hill. (Father and son team) There, we stern tied but used a mooring on the bow rather than the anchor. Marathi is a nice little hideaway and was justifiably popular with yachts. And gulets. An 80 footer anchored more or less on top of us with stern lines running close along our port side. As the wind built on the beam overnight .... well you will never guess. They started to drag their anchor onto poor little Diomedea at zero dark thirty. Eventually they did the right thing and took off. Marathi has a resident population of about 20 in summer and 3 in winter. Many people in the Aegean islands head back to Athens for winter.
After a very enjoyable stay at Marathi it was back to Grikos bay on Patmos for the new capacitor and the desalinator was once again in action. We picked up a mooring again there.
Our next destination was the large boatyard at Partheni harbour, Leros, about 25nm SE. We had put a patch on the 30mm cut in the dinghy with some success but it was still leaking. The boatyard confirmed they could fix it and so we had an excellent beam reach before gybing around an off-lying island into flat water. Partheni is an all-weather harbour and one could ride out a storm here. Holding is absolutely solid in thick mud. We had trouble getting the anchor out of it! Not overly scenic, and with an airport close by it is a working harbour with fishing boats coming and going. The boatyard has a huge hardstand, a well stocked chandlery, and full workshops for all repairs. We abandoned the dinghy to their care and hired a car for some tiki touring on Leros. (We have an inflatable kayak for getting to and from the boat, sans dinghy. See, you have to have two of everything.) We also enjoyed a day anchored at Nisos Arkhangelos. Pristine.
Leros has a fairly intense history. If you look at Google Earth you will see that the island is blessed, or cursed, with excellent indented bays making quality harbours. I have already mentioned Partheni in the north. This fluke of geography did not pass unnoticed by anyone bent on conquering. The island has been fought over by all players for this exact reason. The island was seized in 1309 by the Knights of St John. Now, the more attentive readers will remember that we jokingly referred to Knight architect Heinrich Schlegelholt being awarded castle designer of the year in 1422. Well, we now suspect that this was in fact the case, as he was employed to consult on the castle that now sits magnificently above the village of Pantelis on the east side of Leros. An impregnable fortress with multiple layers of defence, it is in very good condition. We were given a two hour lesson in history of the region by the museum curator. An American born Greek islander, with the looks and mannerisms of John Malkovich, his father had become Italianized during that country's occupation of Leros, before moving to the USA. Confusing isn't it? Anyway, like the castles at Bodrum and Rhodos, the castle at Leros was handed over to Suleiman II in 1522 for the beginning of the Ottoman occupation. In 1912, the island was siezed by Italians and held for over 30 years. The forced Italianization programme occurred under fascist rule with Mussolini, who even had a mansion at Lakki. Lakki is the township on the large harbour toward the SW part of the island. Nazi Germany attacked the island in 1943 in operation Taifun, using amphibious and paratrooper assaults, backed up by intense aerial bombardment, and held it until the end of the war. In 1948, the island, along with others of the Dodecanese, was reunited with Greece, 700 years after the end of the Byzantine Empire.
The photo above is the castle at Leros.
Pix in Photo Gallery link RHS of this page