Lavrio, Greece Winter 2015 through May 10, 2016

Amante spent the winter high and dry in Lavrio, south of Athens on the Greek mainland in Attica. Work done, we left the dock at 6 p.m., the latest departure ever, and motored around the corner to Sounion, to spend one night under the Temple to Neptune, which beautifully lit at sunset.
The plan was to get to Turkey quickly to reset our VAT clock, the work our way up the Dodecanese chain, then head back across the Cyclades in time to miss Meltemi season, which starts late June. Meltemi is the name of the prevailing horrid wind in Greece from the Northeast funneling through the Cyclades islands, and from the Northwest in the Dodocanese. We had a taste of the Meltemi last year and it was bitter.
We stopped in Kea with light to spare, so we walked around the enormous harbor, lined with shops not quite ready for summer shoppers, and cafés full of empty tables. It is nice to get an early start of the season, if the weather allows. We ate at Roland’s café, and enjoyed typical Greek food: Greek salad (yes, even they call it a Greek Salad), horta, a local green like spinach, zucchini balls, which are shaped more like a mini burger than a ball, and grilled fish. Yum!
Protection was good in the harbor, even though the wind was oddly from the south and forecast to get stronger. With wind coming from the south, Scirocco, we decided to head to Mykonos, where our friends on Berkeley East were already hunkered down and enjoying sushi on the beach at one of Mykonos many fashionable restaurants.
What’s better than waiting out a Scirocco in Mykonos with friends and hardly any tourists? A drone! Larry’s new drone allowed some great shots and the fun of watching Mary play catch with a four rotor aircraft flying right at her. A brave one, that Mary!
We also celebrated Captain Mauro’s birthday. We agreed to go out for a drink at one of Mykonos’ many trendy night clubs. Thankfully Mauro had mercy and picked a tamer one in Little Venice that played exceptional music. I shazammed several songs for my summer playlist.

The good thing about Scirocco is that you get to visit bays that are normally untenable in the prevailing northerly Meltemi. We anchored in Mykonos for 4 nights in a bay with wind surfer rentals. It was perfectly calm. The bad part is with the wind, the Scirocco brings half the Sahara with it, or at least the fine dust particles, that cover every millimeter of the boat’s interior, and causes the red mud rain that is the scourge of every captain. It rained mud on us for about a week, just about every day after Mauro cleaned the boat. He wept often.