We were very sad to leave Ikaria, our hearts just weren't into sailing to Leros.

We decided to split the 40 mile passage in 2, stopping off at our favourite place – Marathos – for the night. We knew that the winds would be light but hadn't bargained for NO wind. As a result, the sea was like olive oil and we had to motor the 22 miles.
When we arrived, we picked up a buoy, took the dinghy ashore to stretch our legs and realised everything was closed up and the only remaining residents were Minolis and his wife who run the Pirate Taverna. With us being the only visitors, that made 4 of us on the whole island ( and a very large herd of goats).

The next day couldn't have been more different . Plenty of wind but completely the wrong direction -bang on our nose- so we motored and we made good headway until half way through our engine decided to take early retirement and we lost all revs. After the initial “oh bloody hell “ moment we checked virtually everything, but couldn't find an obvious problem and therefore assumed it was a fuel blockage as we were still moving, albeit painfully slowly, on tickover.

And that is how we arrived at Leros - on tickover! Total journey time ..........11 hours ........to achieve 22 miles!!! Painful is an understatement!!!

When we eventually got to top of the bay, a marinero came out of the marina in his rib to escort us to our allocated winter berth which I have to say is perfect. We are a couple of boats along from the ramp which leads to the loos, showers and laundry.
No matter what the weather, Stiletto will be safe and secure and we know that we will be happy here.

Muse for this post: Well, the morning started out like a galloping golden retriever on a freshly waxed hardwood floor!!!!