Photo: St John’s Monastery. Patmos
Pandeli is a very picturesque anchorage, with the castle and windmills on the hill. We went ashore for walks and dinner and enjoyed the laid back style of the village. However, with a Meltimi in the forecast in a couple of days and having watched numerous boats trying 3 or 4 times to get their anchors to hold in 8 – 10 meters of water, and still dragging, we decided to go back around to Lakki on Sunday which has shallower water and hopefully less boats to worry about. How wrong can you be? The harbour was packed with a hundred plus boats in the Aegean Yacht regatta taking up the space on the town wharf, forcing all the other boats to anchor in the harbour away from the ferry wharf, it was certainly close quarters that night. However we had drinks on Dol with Erin and John, Zee Kiwi and Ness and Paul, Paradise, and then headed out to dinner at the very nice restaurant next door to the Post Office. Monday morning as the race boats left the town wharf, we watched the mad scramble to see who could get their anchor up first and claim a place on the town wharf, certainly cleared the anchorage. The Meltimi blew through on Monday and on Tuesday we walked to the Merika Underground War Museum. The museum is in a tunnel system used by the Greeks during the Second World War, it was an interesting place to visit, with lots of war memorabilia and a video of the Battle for Leros 1945 between the Germans against the English and Italians. With the breeze down we moved around to Pandeli again, Brian helped Paul “Paradise” by going up their mast to assess a couple of issues, we went ashore for walks and dinner and generally just chilled out for a while. After a wonderful evening ashore with Paul and Ness Paradise, Erin and John Zee Kiwi and their friends, Cameron and Robyn, we upped anchor and motored 10nm to Lipso, seeing dolphins for the first time playing ahead of us and anchored off the taverna in Lero Lipso. We stayed a couple of days, enjoyed an evening in town with Zee Kiwi and each day watched the shepherd herd his goats and sheep, bells clanging, across the hill.
Monday 25th August, we motored across to Patmos, primarily to visit the Monastery of St John which we missed when we were here in June. Arriving in the port there wasn’t anywhere to anchor and not wanting to go stern to on the town wall, we tried two other bays, failing to get our anchor to hold through the weed (a first for us) so motored around to Kambos where we knew it was a nice sandy bottom. It took us 4 attempts to get the anchor to hold due to plastic bags and other rubbish on the bottom.
The following morning we took the local bus to Skala, the port, and walked up the hill to visit the Monastery of St John and the Cave of the Apocalypse. What a treat. Patmos is known as the Holy Island; the monastery dates back to 1088 and is a very special holy place to Orthodox Greeks. The paintings on the walls, the wood carvings and other decorations are superb, in the museum are documents and artifacts dating as far back as 1st Century AD, it was well worth the entrance fee and the visit. The Cave of the Apocalypse is a church built into the hillside and is regarded as a very sacred place and is a listed World Heritage site along with the Monastery and Hora, town.
For a change of scenery we moved around to the next bay, Nisos Ay Yeoris for Wednesday and left Thursday morning, heading back to Pandeli, Leros, anchoring at 11:45. We went ashore for dinner and had intended to stay for a couple of days, however the wind picked up in the night and with several boats dragging anchors and causing problems for other boats, we moved around to Lakki mid morning Friday. Lakki was a lot calmer than Pandeli, which made for a relaxing day; Brian even managed to dive on the hull to clean it. Saturday we headed off to Pserimos, motor sailing in bigger than expected seas, anchoring in Vathi in time for lunch. Vathi was a secluded bay with a sandy bottom and two fish farms which did not restrict the anchoring area. It was a pleasant stop for the night before sailing down to Kos to refuel and anchor off the marina. We went ashore to watch Liverpool play Tottenham, good result, and then had sundowners on Zee Kiwi with Cameron playing his bagpipes and drawing an audience on the quay. Monday 1st September we moved into Kos Marina at 09:00 and started the task of cleaning the exterior of Dol. With no rain since May, the boat rigging, halyards, boom, mast and everything else was covered in a fine coating of sand; we could barely distinguish the colour of some of the sheets (ropes). Task completed, we relaxed and then went out to dinner with Erin, John, Robyn and Cameron, “Zee Kiwi” to a lovely Italian restaurant in the old town. Tuesday was engine servicing day with Brian in the engine room for the morning. Evening meal was again ashore, this time with Paul and Ness, Paradise. We decided to hire a car on Wednesday and toured the island, there was more to it than we thought, we visited the hillside village of Zia, castle at Pyli, salt lake at Tigaki, a working windmill in Antimahia where we watched the sails turn the millstones and wheat being milled into flour and the beach at Stefanos, before stopping at the grocery store on the way back to reprovision the Dol.
Our final day in Greece for 2014 was spent walking around Kos, the Fortress and Bath House, clearing out and doing last minute shopping. We have loved our time in Greece, the people have been wonderful, the stone fruit, olives and feta cheese superb and the weather unbelievable. Tomorrow we head back to Turkey.