As we left Fiskardho we emailed Martyn & Veronica on ‘Timeless Odyssey’ who we know were somewhere in the Kastos/Kalamos area. As we were crossing the southern end of Kalamos we got a response to say they were in Port Leone on Kalamos so we diverted there.

Port Leone is a virtually deserted bay as the town there lost its water supply in an earthquake in the 1950s and the town was abandoned; only the church is still kept in good repair and services are help there regularly. It’s very pretty if somewhat deep to anchor, we were able to drop in 12m of water near to ‘Timeless Odyssey’ and spent an hour or so swimming and chatting over coffee on board their boat.

'Timeless Odyssey' anchored next to Splice in Port Leone

Both boats then motored around the next island of Kastos to the main harbour at Kastos itself. This is one of the nicest harbours we’ve been to. It has a small quay but the holding there is suspect, there is plenty of space to anchor outside the harbour or you can drop within the harbour and tie back to the very shallow northern or western shore. This is what be both did and found a good position with very long lines to the low promenade on the western shore. This put the predicted wind on our stern so two extra lines were rigged to support the pressure on the back of the boat.

Splice and Timeless Odyssey anchored in Kastos

Kastos is small and fairly quiet so Chris was relieved when we found two places that had a TV. He watched the first of the quarter finals – France v Uruguay in a bar/taverna called ‘Il Porto’ which was friendly and very relaxed, the village children were doing craft work at one of the tables whilst we watched the game. We ate with Martyn & Veronica that night at Taverna Belos where Chris was able to keep track of the second match that day as Belgium beat Brazil. Of course this was just the test run as England played Sweden the next day. We were ensconced in ‘Il Porto’ to support the team. It was one of the few times in many years that Chris has enjoyed an England game! After the four of us had a pleasant BBQ on board Splice that evening Chris even managed to see the second half of Russia v Croatia. The patron was getting used to his new regular and gave him a beer on the house!

Main Photo: Martyn greets us on his paddleboard as we entre Port Leone