The next day we motored down the 15 or so miles in light winds to Kastos which was our favourite location last season. We got a good spot on the quay but the anchor didn't dig in well and we ended up with only 20m of chain out in 3m of water. This isn't awful as its still around 7 times the depth but we know the holding to be poor here and there were some stronger winds forecast.

We relaxed and wandered about, helping a few more boats to moor up as they arrived. About 16.00 the winds did come up and at 16.45 our anchor dragged out and we were being pushed back against the quay.

Our plan had been to head to Kalamos the next morning anyway so we made an emergency exit and headed around the island to the more protected and better holding in Kalamos. George the Harbour Master was there to greet us as normal and directed us to a berth stern to the main quay. This is both well protected from the west where the strong winds were forecast and allowed us to put all 60m of our chain out in 3 m of water - the skipper was much happier.

There's not much here, a taverna run by George and a small shop and a couple of bakeries. As there was bad weather forecast for 4 days we planned to stop and carry on with the maintenance tasks.
We do now however have another problem in that our starboard engine will not start normally, it refuses to turn over on its normal battery even though that is only one year old. We have been able to jump start it easily from the port battery and in running we don't get any alarms to say the alternator is not charging it so we assume its just a duff battery. If that's the case, it's annoying as we only bought it this time last year in Italy, but at least its not a major problem. We will have to return to Nidri or a similar larger town to replace it!

Dodging the rain showers and protecting the boat with extra lines in the gusts has been intersperced with winch servicing, bits of silicone work, checking the outboard and running it up with fresh fuel after the winter. We are almost a properly organised cruising boat again!

There are only around ten boats in here each night at present, in the summer it can be over 100 boats so its quiet. We have chatted to a few other cruisers including the German owner of another Broadblue, a BB385 called Lady Soul who is on his way from Crete to Sicily for a friends birthday party, its as good an excuse to go sailing as any!

Main photo: Kalamos harbour from near the entrance, Splice is moored on the quay to starboard