We had a four hour fairly slow sail east to the island of Antiparos, with the northerly wind varying from 4.5-8 knots we managed 3.5 to-5.5knots with the main and gennaker hoisted on a beam reach. As we neared the island the wind increased and we made the last mile at around 8 knots with the wind gusting to 15knots. The anchorage in Dhespotico Bay is huge and would take a hundred boats. There were about 10 that night so there was plenty of room.

We dinghied ashore and were reading an information plaque on the local history when we got talking to another sailor. Eric was sailing solo to Kos to pick up a friend, so we ended up eating dinner together. Whilst a pleasant evening in itself, the surprise turned out to be that he was also a gilder pilot. He knows one of Chris's old colleagues, Jon Gatfield, who also flies and Eric's son-in-law was currently with Jon on the gliding trip that Chris had seen in Jon's photos on Facebook that morning. There are some surprising connections when you are chatting to new faces!

We were starting to run out of supplies, mainly beer, so a trip to a town with a decent supermarket was due. We left in the morning with the genoa up in 20 knots of wind from behind us which was fine until we had to turn north around the headland into the gusts. The second half of the trip was a little more bouncy, but better than we'd expected and we dropped anchor in the bay off Aliki without any problems.

The wind had build to a regular 25 knots so we will probably wait until tomorrow to stock up. We then have a couple more days to find a good anchorage in the northern bays of Paros before the Meltimi comes through for up to four days of 30 knots plus from Wednesday!
Photo: Part of Dhespotico anchorage, its got a bit of space!