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View from Marathakampos village After our lovely night in the quiet anchorage on northern Samos, we sailed around to the small marina at Ormos (Marathakampos). The wind had picked up early morning, and was still blowing southerly, stronger than we had anticipated. We put a reef in, and set off. We had an excellent sail down through the windy channel between Samos and Fournoi. We knew it would be windy as it’s marked as such in our pilot guide. The wind funnelled and squeezed

The time had come to leave Lesvos and to continue our way southwards. The forecast was still looking good for a Monday morning departure, and a trip of 48 NM, for which we would allow just over 9 hours. Normally, with these longer voyages, we would be on our way by 06:00, but as we were in a Mytilene marina, we had to wait for the marineros who start work at 07:00. But it turns out that the marina would let us leave unassisted, and we were already slipping our lines when a f

We were up early on Friday morning to make use of our hired car.  I needed to call into the marina office before we left, and Richard waited for me outside. He wasn’t hard to find as he had used the time to pair his iPhone to the car's media system. Alongside Google Maps, he had “ Bla Bla Bla Cha Cha Cha ” blaring out. I suggested we put the music off until we were outside the town, as it’s easier to navigate in a bit of peace. Unfortunately, this was impossible. We would clo

Missy Bear was heading home on the last leg of her spring adventure clockwise around the northern Aegean. We were sailing southwards just off the Turkish coast from Lesbos. After Samos we would leave the Eastern Sporades and arrive back in the Dodecanese. Missy Bear 'Coming Home' After spending a delightful, few days on the tiny and charming island of Oinousses, we sailed south to Samos, and anchored in a beautiful sandy bay on the north-west corner. This beach is a gem, but

Lesbos is the third largest island in Greece (after Crete and Evia), and the eighth largest in the Mediterranean; there’s a good pub-quiz question in the making. But Lesbos wasn’t always an island. It was linked to what is now Asia Minor, and it had a sub-tropical climate, so perhaps it lay much closer to the equator? The land was covered in forest, which included species such as pre-historic conifers, giant redwoods, palms, large deciduous varieties, and even cinnamon (which