We left Arki slightly heavy of heart, a bit worried about Billy.
However, a great sail across to Patmos soon shook out any cobwebs, and perked us all up. There was lots of room on the town quay, and we decided to park up next to a boat sporting a French tricolour. We slung the hook, and started motoring back to the quay, when a rather familiar-looking man appeared on the bow and started yelling at us. “You stupide people” he shouted. Now, there is nothing our skipper likes better than ignoring choleric sailors while we are parking up. So, we kept going.
As we got close to the quay, Richard chatted to another French sailor who had come to take our lines, and who pointed out that the prevailing wind in the harbour meant that we should drop our anchor a little more upwind.
Meanwhile, on the bow, irate Frenchman was still sounding off at me. “I don’t understand you” I said in French to him. “Yes, you do – you speak French” he replied. At that point, his sailing chum (a small, oriental man) appeared and burst into smiles and waved. It dawned on me they had been next to us in Samos. “Ah – monsieur”, I said “You were in Samos. You were the man who caught your lazy-line (ligne parasseuse) under your boat on leaving. It was stupide”. And with that, he shut up. Nevertheless, we did lift our anchor and re-park, this time further down the quay. But polite signals always work better than shouting.
Later on, we watched a motor boat try to park up. They went back out, and, in raising their anchor, picked up the anchor chain of the Italian yacht next to us, but hadn’t realised it. They motored around the harbour with the Italians’ chain hanging off the top of their own anchor. Luckily, Richard managed to get their attention, whereupon they had a look, shrugged, dropped the chain and motored off.
Meanwhile, the bow of the Italian yacht slowly drifted downwind until it rested at 45 degrees to the quay. The stern bounded back and forth onto the quay, fortunately onto a dirty black tyre chained to the wall. Richard leaped aboard and tried to secure her, but at least got some more fenders on the stern. The owners were grateful for his intervention when they returned, but had to re-park her. “Hafen kino” as the Germans say (harbour cinema).
Whilst in Patmos, a former colleague of mine passed by the boat and came aboard with his wife for coffee. We knew he was in the area and had been hoping to meet up. It’s a small world.
From Patmos, we followed our plan, and had a glorious early sail over to Lipsi. We had read reports of an unpleasant harbour-master who shouted at you while mooring up, and then charged you five euros for the privilege of taking your lines. However, Money Penny had asked him to keep us the space next to them, which he did. When I thanked him, he was all sweetness and light with us. We wanted to be there early, as it was the day of the funeral for Her Majesty, Elizabeth II. We streamed the service on a laptop in our saloon.
To recover from the sadness of the day, the crew and skipper then went on a walk up in the hills, while first mate made a salad lunch and did some admin. They came back with the pleasing news that they thought they had seen Billy amidst a herd of nanny goats. He’s obviously having a good time then.
Judith and Al from Money Penny had friends on board. They came across for aperos and we raised a glass to Queen Elizabeth II, and a long and successful reign to King Charles III. Our Red Ensign remained furled again that day.
To our joy, Lipsi had a small winery. We had already tried their white when we were in Patmos, and were pleased to see they did wine tastings. We booked for the evening of our second day. The winery was started in 2014 by two Greek men, supported by a well-known wine expert at the University of Athens.
They make four wines, including ‘Aposperitis’ a traditional sweet wine of the island made from the Fokiana grape, a traditional Aegean variety. It was not overly sweet, and would go well with cheese, or even Christmas puddings. The red, Aktaion, is a blend of Mandilaria and Syrah; the dry rose, Anthonero, is also made from the Fokania grape; and the dry white, Ageriko, is a blend of the Fokanio grape again, together with two other Aegean varieties – Assyrtiko and Athiri. They were all delicious, and we had them paired with cheese from the local dairy. In fact, the white has been chosen by Aegean Airlines as its white wine for business class in winter 2022.
Our only slightly negative comment was that the wine tasting servings weren’t generous. Not really enough to do the sniff, swill and slurp properly. We had been expecting a robust (i.e., slightly squiffy) tasting session, but in the end, we imbibed very little. Hence the 'not-so-tipsy Lipsi' of the title! We were obliged to make up for it later at dinner.
When we were learning to dive, the adage “plan your dive and dive your plan” was drummed into us. Accordingly, the following day, we set off for Leros. With the wind behind us, we gybed our way down to Lakki, our destination, congratulating ourselves on our foresight to head up to Samos while the winds had been lighter. We had a great sail, right into the harbour.
Before long, we were greasing the fenders to get onto the tightest pontoon space at the marina, where we sat out a few days of higher winds. Leros marina does have a history of getting you into the smallest space imaginable. We had to swap our fat fenders for thinner ones to fit in the space, and, even then, we needed someone each side to pull our fenders over our neighbours’. But Richard got us in, despite grumbling. The marina was full and I had actually phoned the lead secretary Maria to make sure we could get in, so I am not complaining. And quite frankly, we could have a hurricane blowing through and Missy Bear couldn’t budge!
But what is it about other sailors? The marinero was still helping take our lines when the French woman on the boat next door hopped off and interrupted him to ask about getting more credit for shore power. Richard politely but firmly asked her to wait until we had finished mooring.
Leros is an interesting island, and I’ll tell you more in a later blog.