Panormitis was a lovely bay with a large monastery and that is all. They had a bakery where we could buy fresh bread, there was also a restaurant and a cafe. It was a really nice bay with good anchoring so we were happy. We went ashore to visit the monastery and brought some fresh bread for lunch. While we were there 2 Ferry loads of tourists from Rhodes arrived so we joined the hoards queuing to get into the monastery. As we were going into the Monastery we saw 2 ladies dressed in black standing either side of the entrance and thought you had to make a donation to the church to enter so I put some coins in one ladies basket next thing the other lady was shoving her basket under my nose so I put some more coins in her basket as we went inside there were more ladies dressed in black with their little baskets and I realized that the church obviously allowed them to beg there. The monastery was very beautiful and well worth the visit they also had other women in there cutting up loaves of bread and offering to the visitors it was delicious quite sweet and spiced very usual. We went back to the boat and had a very quiet afternoon then at about 6pm it started. Over loud speakers they started their Saturday evening service, the singing was terrible and it went on for nearly 2 hours. When it stopped we had a lovely evening in the bay and retired reasonably early as we wanted to go ashore for a walk in the morning before heading back to Rhodes. Well !! the next morning around 6.30am the bells started ringing (can cope with that as you get that all the time in Croatia) but then the loud speakers came into action again the noise (and unfortunately that is all you could call it) was horrendous, no Gregorian Monks or melodic singing here by about 7.30am we had had our breakfast and decided to go ashore for a walk and check out the windmill we had seen at the head of the bay there were also some WW2 machine gun bunkers as well. The loud speakers were still in full flight so we decided enough was enough and we had to get out of there so at around 10.30am we motored out of the bay loud speakers in full voice and headed for Rhodes. We arrived around 1.30pm.

RHODES
Wow what a city, a wonderful combination of the Ancient, medieval and New. The old town as it is today is the old walled city built by the Knights of St John who ruled over Rhodes and quite a few other islands of the Dodcanese for a period of approximately 200yrs. In 1522 it became part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912 when it was seized by the Italians. In 1948 along with all the other Islands of the Dodocanese it was united with Greece. We had five nights in Rhodes, unfortunately for me most of that was spent in bed as I had managed to pick up a nasty chest infection that then proceeded to infect my inner ear. I woke up every morning for about 3 days to everything spinning couldn't even stand up some days. Poor Steve was wonderful but spent most of the time on his own as I wasn't up to much. On our 3rd day there we had planned to catch a bus to Lindos, but Steve wasn't happy about leaving Split Enz as he was worried about a couple of boats that were leaving that day and wether they had crossed our Anchor. We watched them leave and then went into old town Rhodes and explored and got lost. We found a lovely local artists shop that had some lovely door knockers that I had been admiring for some time so Steve brought me one my little piece of
Greece. The next day we caught the bus to Lindos another of the fortresses built by the Knights of St John, this was fantastic right in the middle of this medieval town was a Roman Acropolis with the temple of Athena Lindia (4th century BC) the Village below was white and typically Greece just wonderful after our walk we headed for the beach for lunch and a swim before the walk back up the hill to the bus back to Rhodes, wonderful day. The next morning we headed out for Simi.

SIMI
This time we headed to the eastern side of the island and anchored in the bay of Pethi. We had 2 very lazy days of swimming, and relaxing. Met some lovely Germans.

TILOS
Not a lot of wind so motored to TILOS anchoring in Livadhiou, there was a town pier but we had decided we wanted privacy and the weather was good. Upon entering the bay we spied a NZ flag on a Turkish Galette a large wooden sailing vessel. After a swim and lunch we went ashore for a walk and headed to the pier, turns out the Turkish boat is owned by a Kiwi and her Turkish husband. They cater to mainly NZ tourists, we were invited aboard for coffee and cake, turns out most of the Kiwis on board were from Auckland North Shore. One couple kept saying to us that we looked familiar turns out that they used to own a business in Northcote shopping centre when we were there with Northcote Cycles and Mowers. Small world!!!! Bye the way Germans from Pethi, Sami were there also he spoke very enthusiastically about Nisiros which was our next destination.

NISIROS
Finally we are updated, we are on the town pier ( 2 nights). Steve has caught my bug and rather miserable, (hope he doesn't have it for the 2weeks that I had it). Yesterday we had a fairly relaxed day, caught up on some sleep took our washing to the laundry, had a walk around the village and arranged a rental car. Mike the car rental guy has very good English and told us he had lived in New York for 30 yrs but had decided to come back to the island he is very enthusiastic about his island and gave us good instructions on how to get to all the must see sights. He is heavily involved in the local politics and passionate about saving the local native eagle. Today we drove around the Island going to the village of Emboreious that had been abandoned after a big earthquake that had almost destroyed it in the 1930's it is slowly being rebuilt, this was on the top edge of the crater and had a magnificent view out over the expanse of the Crater. Then it was down to the live volcanic crater it self, lots of steam vents hot mud and sulphur walked right into the middle of this crater was quite the experience standing in the middle and looking up. Then went to another old village that was further round on the top edge of the crater, then down to Mandraki a coastal village with a monastery and fortress. Tomorrow the wind is picking up so we have decided to head out for the Island of Astypalia where we will stay for a few days as the weather is supposed to packing up with a Strong Meltimi wind pattern.
Thanks for reading.
The photo is taken of the crater at Nisiros.