Tuesday 30th June 2015: Hemmed in on Lipsos
After a good night’s sleep tied to our secure block in Xirokampos bay, Leros island on Thursday 25th June, it was time to move. We motored around the corner to the very pretty bay of Pandelli, still on Leros. It is only 5NM away, but 20kts wind on the nose and a choppy sea still made it a one and a half hour bumpy ride. We anchored off the very sheltered swimming beach. The shelter is much appreciated while there are winds in excess of 20 knots blowing outside the bay. Last year we were on the other side on the Lakki town quay when a fair bit of swell hit us for two days, but this is so much nicer.

After a welcome swim in lovely clear water we went ashore in Cloe to check out the village. After a wander around where we saw a beautiful butterfly, the Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius, top-left photo) and had a look around the port with some very colorful fishing boats (bottom right). The port was full with mainly fishing boats (and two yachts) and between August and June the port is reserved for fishing boats only. We enjoyed coffees and omelet in one of the tavernas . Our Australian friend Simon, who we met last year is now back in Greece and here on Leros, so we have arranged to meet up with him tomorrow night.

The next day, Friday 26 June we’re trying to arrange a new freshwater pump as the current pump is starting to react slower and slower to water pressure drops (opening a tap). This piece of equipment is responsible for all our freshwater movements, so pretty crucial in everyday life. After some searching and help from Simon, we contacted a chandlery on Leros. They had to order that pump from Athens and expected it to come in next day or Monday. Luckily the people here are used to moving things between islands, and we could have it delivered to Lipsos, the next island on the program.

The Meltemi is still blowing hard so we don't mind sitting it out here for another day or two.. We are still trying to get our gas bottles filled with camping gas and our chocolate stores filled, so decided to take a taxi ride to Lakki, the most expensive taxi ride we have ever had. The driver was most helpful in taking us to a supermarket where we could finally get the elusive camping gas, be it in a very rusty bottle, not too sure we will be able to exchange that one, ever. So after going 6-8 kilometres round trip that taxi driver was 25 euro richer and we still did not find any chocolate to replenish our supplies.

We arrived back at Clio and had just finished unpacking Cloe when Chris heard a cooee from the shore. Simon was waiting for us on the beach. We jumped back into Cloe and went ashore to join him and his crew Jennifer for a drink and to catch up.

The wind is still blowing on Saturday 27 June and as the pump has not arrived we will stay here for at least one more night. Simon told us about the bus which is a much more affordable mode of transport. We walked up to the village on the hill above Pandeli and caught the bus for €1.40 each to Lakki. We had hoped to get phone and wifi credit but no such luck. The system is not working and credit is not available until Monday, maybe. So we stocked up on fresh meat, fruit and veggies, and yummy bread.
Back in Pandelli we treated ourselves to a very nice lunch at Zorbas taverna right on the beach before heading back to Clio.

Sunday 28th June was a very lazy day. After Chris’ great brekkie of bacon, tomato and eggs, we chewed through the last four episodes of a horrible tv series ‘The Fall’, a padded out psycho-detective series mainly produced to show off Gillian Anderson (X-files) pouting skills.

As the wind has settled a little on Monday 29th June, we motored across to Lipsos this morning. Coming out of the shelter of the bay, the wind was again 20 knots, and on the nose, straight from the North with a fair bit of left-over chop from the days before. We reduced speed to about 5.5 kts to prevent Clio slamming too much into the oncoming steep waves. Rounding the Northern tip of Leros, we almost ran into our Aussie friend Simon testing out his headsail and enjoying having his yacht back in the water. Lipsos is a very quaint little harbour and village. After we got Clio tied up we paid the grand sum of €4 euro to berth here. The English couple Simon and Lin from Mia Hara whom we met on Nisyros (and gave us such good info on anchorages) are tied up two boats down, sailing around with their grand daughter and her friend. Chris went off on a reconnaissance mission to find a laundry and check out supermarkets and found a traditional bakery and patisserie which was certainly worth a further visit.

After dropping off a few weeks worth of laundry to the lovely ladies at Poseidon Studio, Chris steered us discreetly to the patisserie to taste their exquisite wares and coffee. As we were leaving we bumped into Jennifer, Simon’s crew, and were easily convinced to return to the patisserie to join them for another coffee.

We keep a close eye on Greece’s fight with the Troika (IMF, EU central bank and EU commission) to get a better deal to repay their astronomical government debts. This is a much more complicated story, but here some facts (as per the internet). Greece, a country of 11 million people, has a debt of around B€360 (360 billion Euro), €33,000 for each man, woman and child in Greece, about three years average wage.

The Greek economy has never been very strong, the tax regime is not working very effectively and there are structural problems with the political system (e.g. too much sectarian influence) . The lenders are partly institutional (e.g. IMF with B€15, European Union with B€38), many banks of course (e.g. EU central bank with B€45, French bank BNP with B€5, German FMS with B€6.3, Italian Generali group with B€3.0), and lots of companies and other institutions(total 110B€), (http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_greek.html). The lenders, especially the Troika, have ‘directed’ Greece to commit to many austerity measures such as restructurings in tax, salaries, pensions etc., but the bottom line is that Greece would have to completely run down its economy for 15 to 20 years in the future to repay those debts plus interests. Lending this amount of money to such a small country does remind us of the irresponsible behavior of banks lending millions in mortgages in countries like America and Australia to people they know would default (see prime mortgage disaster).
Former center and right-winged governments always agreed to whatever terms those lenders came up with and implemented many austerity measures, e.g. big cuts in civil servants salaries, reduction in pensions, VAT increases and extensions. The current leftwing government has now put a line in the sand and says it is not willing to run down Greece’s economy even further to repay the debt and has just (30 June 2015) defaulted on the repayment of B€1.7 to the IMF. This has the lenders (especially IMF) up in arms and threatening to eject Greece from the EU (nobody knows how to do that, or if that is possible at all). To prevent a run on the banks, the Greek government imposed banking restrictions, currently €60/day per account via ATMs for one week. This is no problem for us, but we really feel for the Greek people, already in a very depressed economy for four years. All banks in Greece are meant to be closed this week until after the referendum (strategic move of the prime minister to let the people have a say whether to accept the lenders conditions or not) on the 5th. Speaking with the locals the general feeling seems to be that they want a No vote and are proud of the current government for standing its ground and defending the poor and vulnerable people of Greece (25% unemployment, 50% of youth unemployment). We hope it is a positive outcome, as this is truly a beautiful country and does not deserve to be destroyed by unrealistic demands. We can’t see how this is going to be resolved without some debt write-off for Greece’s Northern brethren. But the current lineup of Troika decision makers doesn’t indicate much compassion can be expected. There is even talk amongst the Greek people of regime change objectives in how the Troika is handling this, which reminds the older ones amongst us of the situation in Latin America in the 1980 where the IMF was heavily present too (http://www.globalresearch.ca/latin-america-growth-stability-and-inequalities-lessons-for-the-us-and-eu/26887 ).

On a lighter note: after collecting our laundry we again met up with Jennifer and Simon (top right photo) at a local Ouzeria (yes it is where you get ouzo) and grilled fresh octopus along with lots of free mezes (small portions of pickled beetroot, baby olives, hummus, boiled potato and tomato). We enjoyed a couple of drinks and good company in this very delightful place before the two of us headed to a restaurant for a nice dinner to finish off a perfect day.

Today, Tuesday 30th June, we watched with interest as we were hemmed in along with a number of other yachts by a large orange spill containment boom (bottom-left photo) and heard the quay master informing all the skippers that the port was closing for an hour and no boats would be able to enter or leave. We suspected that it might be a drill for what to do in the event of a spill in the harbour. Francis got chatting with one of the workers and it was confirmed that it indeed was a drill. Francis thought it was a great thing that they were doing (we haven’t seen much spill containment activities in any other port) and we were invited to meet with the mayor on Friday if we would like to congratulate him on the great job this community does here in caring for their environment. We would be happy to do so as Lipsos oozes good municipal management, with many activities to attract tourists with high-quality services and a beautifully maintained village with lovely people. We hope that the Troika will reconsider its hard stance on the people of Greece!