One of life’s special memories
07 July 2012 | Halkidiki to the Sporades
Antonis Samaras?
Not martyn's meagre fish. Seriously that's the name of the fish - A meagre. First fish this year!
But even better, the special memory was on our way from Halkidiki to the Sporades Islands. We set off in a force 6 with big rollers and soon turned into force 7 but was in our direction (and hey it was sunny!) so we carried on surfing the waves. Suddenly we had incoming dolphins, four of them, common dolphins, that stayed with us for nearly an hour and gave such a phenomenal display of back flips, jumps, belly flops, wave smacking that we were mesmerised. If we had bucket lists (how middle class!ha ha) it would go straight to the top in hindsight?!
The first Sporadic island we came to was Pelagos (deserted except for a lonesome monk in a monastery) with a wonderful sheltered anchorage on the south side. The next day or so the wind dropped to nothing and we sailed very slowly and then not at all from Pelagos to Peristeri to a beautiful bay. From there over to Alonissos and a pod of 50 or so bottlenoses tried our bow but got bored cos we weren't travelling fast enough.
In to Patriti Harbour. A small port but with two high speed Catamarans and a large ferry coming in every night.. Very hot and still so moved around the corner to another wonderful dramatic rocky and pine clad anchorage and hung out for a couple of days swimming and watching a full harvest moon listening to the Scops owls at night etc etc....
Can see why this area is popular for flotillas. We prefer it to the Ionians.
Only got another 10 miles to go to Skiathos and my flight home for Louis graduation... Very very very proud mummy.