We left Serifos early on Tuesday morning and had a brilliant sail all the way to Paros. We had to call a container ship up at one point as he was heading straight for us and not showing any signs of altering course to avoid us. Unusually he answered our radio call very rapidly (you can call ships 'til you're blue in the face sometimes!) and altered to go across our stern. We made an average of 5.5 knots on our journey to Paros and arrived just after lunch time. We anchored outside the town of Paroikia and are now sheltering from more northerly winds! On the approach to Paroikia there are a load of very jagged looking rocks - some above sea level and some just below - that have caused a few problems for shipping in the past. The most recent being a ferry that ran aground on the rocks and sank losing 80 lives. Hence our early start, we didn't want to arrive in the dark.

Paroikia is a lovely town, typically Greek, lots of white houses with blue doors and windows and loads of tiny alleys to get lost in. Marble from Paros used to be very sought after, apparently Napoleon's tomb was made out of it. As usual there is marble everywhere you look, a massive skating rink when it rains! We explored the town and visited the 'Church of the 100 doors', really three churches in one. We've managed to replenish our fresh food supplies and get some water to top up the tanks and now we're just waiting for the wind to calm a little so that we can move on again. The weather forecast is looking favourable for the weekend so we should be on the move again soon.