SCII is on the move, as we make our way from Samos to Paros. We have left the Dodecanese islands behind and we are now in the Cyclades.

Thank you for your comments on the blog. We love reading them. We ended up spending four days in Pythagorian harbour on Samos. Matt asked how we sleep when we are in ports such as Pythagorian? Even though the harbour is busy with tavernas and lots of people, it is very quiet once we go down into the cabin. Even when tavernas are playing music, we tend not to hear it in the front cabin, so we sleep well.

On leaving Samos we spent a couple of nights anchored out at the islands of Agathonisi and Arki (there is drone footage of the bay at Arki in video below). When we anchor out, all cooking is done on board. If the weather is not too windy, we will use our charcoal barbeque on the back of the boat, otherwise we cook inside. We roasted a chicken roll and vegetables in the Remoska, which gave us left over chicken for salad for a couple of days. This was good given the weather was starting to warm up.



We have only had one night in a harbour since our last blog post and that was in Lipsi. Lipsi is not the prettiest Greek islands but it has a lot of Greek character. Quaint little fishing boats, octopus hanging outside restaurants and a multitude of small churches (see the video). The town has a wonderful bakery and a well stocked mini-market for reprovisioning. We also managed to get washing done. We dined at an ouzeria on the harbour. Our meal consisted of grilled octopus, eggplant dip and fried muscles. We ordered zucchini fritters but were informed 'due to technical issues they were unavailable'. We were not sure what the technical issues were but ordered tomato fritters instead. The meal was delicious and washed down with local Lipsi red wine.









The next morning, we were up early and left Lipsi harbour at 6.15am as there was a good weather window to travel the nearly 50 miles to Amorgos. We had a good sail, although the winds were a bit variable, arriving at about 1pm. We even spotted dolphins off Amorgos, but were unable to capture them on video.

The weather forecast was telling us that the strong wind called the Meltemi was about to blow in a few days' time. So, we headed for Naxos or Paros, via Skhinousa. Naxos and Paros tend to be in a wind shadow, therefore provide a more protected anchorage when the Meltemi blows. We tried to get into Naxos harbour, with no luck, but at the northern end of Paros there is a big bay which provides good protection. We are anchored in 6m water depth, with 40 m of anchor chain, which is well dug in. The Meltemi is predicted to blow for about five days, so we will probably be here until Sunday. With the 20 to 30 knots of wind, the seas here can get very rough so we would rather wait the weather out. This has given us time to catch up on boat chores as well as catch up on the blog. Probably a fair bit of reading too.....

With the Meltemi has come cooler temperatures of about 30 degrees during the day and 22 degrees as the overnight low.
When we leave Paros, we will be going to islands that we have not visited before. So, hopefully many new adventures.