Symi to Kalymnos (11 – 15 July)
15 July 2018
When we visited Panormittas last year, the church bell at the monastery rang each hour and half hour, however this year the church bell only rang for the arrival and departure of the many tourist ferries. The 7 to 9am a church service which was played over a loudspeaker, was also missing this year. It seems like the monks have retreated and have been overrun by day trippers!
Nisyros (11 July)
Once again, the wind was not in our favour for our trip from Symi island to Nisyros island however we got there eventually. Really looking forward to some downwind sailing on the return trip!
It is almost 12 months to the day that we visited Nisyros last year. When we arrived, the owner of one of the cafes that lined to water front recognised us from last year. He owns a chicken shop in Port Melbourne. George was born in Nisyros and returns each summer to run the family restaurant Taverna Ellenis. On further discussion we discovered that he once owned a chicken shop in Horsham for 9 years (1995 to 2004). We later enjoyed a beautiful meal there of saginaki and lamb slow cooked in the oven wrapped in baking paper, utterly delicious!
Nisyros island was a large volcano and still has some activity in the huge crater in the centre of the island. It is a popular tourist attraction however although the harbour of Palon we were in was almost full of yachts, the town was otherwise very quiet. The rental cars and bikes would have outnumbered the people by about four to one….
In the small harbour of Palon, which had approximately 12 or 14 boats, 3 carried the Australian flag – us, another group from Melbourne and a yacht from Queensland.
Nisyros to Kos (12 July)
The weather reports were forecasting strong winds (locally called the meltimi) for the end of the week. We decided to do a run for Kos island rather than be holed up in Nisyros for several days.
Despite several weather forecasts, the trip from Symi to Kos islands proved much windier than expected. We were hoping for a following wind of about 20 knots but although we started out ok the wind at one point dropped to nothing. This proved to be the “calm before the storm” as the wind then fairly quickly started to build again – of course almost coming from where we wanted to go. Although we had only about half the mainsail out and about 20 knots of wind, our mainsail decided to fail on us – the stitching at the leech (the back corner) let go with a loud crack. We had to furl the then wildly flapping sail. The rest of the trip to the top of Kos island was done under motor – it was very windy and very wet!
Kos (12 July)
We had pre-booked at Kos marina, so had no trouble getting in. After one phone call we had a team of three guys within an hour on the boat to take off the mainsail. It is a sail that furls inside the mast so to take it off it has to be pulled right out, the battens pulled out and then the sail slid down the mast. Not an easy job on a windy day! It was repaired and back on the boat by later in the afternoon. It was refitted the following morning as it was way too windy to deal with that day. We were lucky in a way that the sail failed at that time as there are not many places we could have had it repaired as easily. Excellent service from CM Service / Istion yachting and at a less than expected cost.
The marina is a 15-minute walk to the old town of Kos. So, while the sail was being repaired we went exploring. About a year ago, Kos experienced a major earth quake and the damage can still be seen around the harbour (see the photo in the gallery) and in many of the buildings, sadly with the Greek economy, there is no money for repairs including the medieval castle which remains closed.
We decided that we would dine in one of the cafes near the marina, while the location on the beach was very picturesque, the food tended to cater for the mainly British tourists (pasta, pizza, chips etc). Of the extensive menu, disappointingly only one page was devoted to Greek food! So we dined on Tzatziki, Greek salad, souvlaki and kalamari.
Pserimos, (13 July)
As the marina was fully booked out for the following days we had to move on – despite the forecast for strong winds. We anchored in a bay on the east side of the island of Pserimos. It was not as sheltered as we hoped with occasional strong gusts coming over the hills so only one night was spent there.
Kalymnos (14 July)
We left Pserimos early to avoid the strongest winds and make our way to the island of Kalymnos. Our Greek pilot guide suggested that there are a number of spots that are sheltered from the meltimi. We attempted to stop in a very small little cove called Vathi but this quickly proved too difficult in the cross-wind conditions so went on to the main harbour on the island, which was very sheltered from the wind. We were lucky to get a place there for two nights as many people had gone in to shelter from the strong winds.
Kalymnos has a large harbour with a mix of yachts, fishing boats, tour boats, ferries and small ships so is quite busy. The is quite a large town with very narrow streets between the houses which sprawl up the hillsides. Must be quite a few churches as well as there were lots of different bells on Saturday (probably for weddings) and Sunday morning. There are also churches built way up on top of the surrounding hills – it would be quite an effort to walk up to them!