20.8.2011 After seeing off our guests we remained trapped in Naxos for a further 6 days!. We had good company in the form of Alio and girlfriend on board Crapun. Alio is Brazillian, Italian and a nice guy. We were invited to go with them to a special event where Pierre Cousteau, son of Jacque who was giving a presentation, showing one of his father's films and talking about trying to preserve the marine life in the Med. Too late we cried! We also met Peter, an Australian on a Bavaria 44. We helped him fix a major battery problem he was having and ran into him again a week later on Milos. This all helped keep our mind off the 35 kn gusts screaming through the rigging! On our last night in Naxos we had pizza with Alio. We hope to meet up with him again back in Turkey. We once again braved the crossing to Naousa, Paros. Mady felt quite sick which shows you how bad it was! We anchored in Agi Ionnis again, this time swinging at anchor with the gusts. We were going to leave the next day but had toilet blockage problem which took me most of the day to fix. The next day we sailed to Paroika, the main town on Paros however after a 2 hr stop alongside the quay so I could fill water and top up my internet account ans as there was no room inside the marina quay so we carried on to Sifnos . We had a blast sailing on a beam reach with 25 kns in up to 3.5m swells. We tried to anchor stern-to in Faros but I was not happy with the security so we carried on to Ormos Vathi on the east coast. This bay is very well protected but has huge gusts coming off the high hills and we had a pretty sleepless night. The next day we had a great 3hr sail and arrived in Adamas, the main port of Milos. Milos, like Santorini is an extinct volcano and the harbour was created by a huge eruption. The town quay provides good shelter except for the odd ferry wake. We spent 6 nights in Milos. The highlight was the day we hired a beach buggy and toured the island. The buggy was fun but had no parking brakes to speak of so we used large rocks which we carried around in the luggage rack at the back. Highlights of the day were the catacombs, (early christian burial caves) in Tripiti and Sarakiniko where the soft white volcanic rock has been sculptured by the wind and sea to create a moon-like scene. There are small inlets where you can swim and explore the caves and look for the abundant fossils. We had lunch at Pollonia on the NE tip before returning to the boat. The day trip boats seemed to go out most days even though the Meltemi continued to blow up to 35 kns outside. When they returned to dock each night all on board cheered and clapped once the gang-plank was resting on the quay! We could not tell whether it came from relief or was praise for skipper and crew for a fun day out! We had planned to explore more islands down in this area but we both felt that we had had enough of the Cyclades winds for one year and so with a day or two of light winds forecast we decided to head back towards Turkey and the relative shelter of the coast.