After leaving the marina in Athens we headed east to Sounion where we anchored for the night. A temple dominated the skyline, built in 444BC to Poseidon, the God of the Seas, and was lit up at night. We had a quiet night in the anchorage before sailing to Kea the next morning.

We anchored off the village of Vourkari and rowed ashore (yes rowed - we don't do that very often!) to get provisions. We walked around to Korissia and did some shopping, watched one of this year's last flotillas coming in and then wandered back to Vourkari where we stopped for a drink before the long row home! Kea is the nearest Cycladic island to the mainland, only 12 miles from Sounion, and is very busy during the summer months with Athenians visiting at weekends. At this time of year it is a little quieter so not so crowded in the anchorage.

The next morning we decided to head to Kithnos, the next island south. We left fairly early and had a good sail down the coast of Kea until we came to an abrupt halt with an almighty bang. We'd hit a reef that was marked on our gps plotter as having 20 metres of water over it. Andy managed to get Norna off the reef and we went into the nearest anchorage and dived to check for damage. Thankfully the only evidence of us hitting anything (apart from the state of our nerves) was a few scratches down the keel - not even a dent. Thank god for steel hulls and cast iron keels!

We headed off again and arrived at Ormos Fikiadha on Kithnos at about 6ish. We anchored just to the right of the sand bar in the picture and we've been here since. There are strong northerly winds blowing at the moment so we're sat waiting for it all to die down a bit before we move on. We did attempt to leave on Monday morning but after an hour of motoring into 2.5 metre waves with the wind on our nose we gave up and came back. We'll probably be here for a few more days before we can move on again. We've been for a few walks and have found a thermal spring, lovely for a paddle.

There have been quite a few charter boats coming in and sheltering overnight, lots of Russians who are on a time limit so are keeping moving even with this horrible wind. One guy we spoke to had brought his wife sailing for the first time, don't think she'll be coming again after experiencing the weather we're having at the moment! We've spent the time here doing chores and maintenance, reading and making use of all the power that we're getting from the wind gen. We've also been doing a bit of guitar practice, we're not quite at concert hall stage yet!