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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

It was fun in Sigri to catch up with Ron, Matty, and their two Jack Russells, Captain Jack, and Sammy the Sailor. After a visit to the Museum of the Petrified Forest the next morning, we set off again round the south side of the island. He sailed into the large Kalpos Kalloni, heading for Apotheke Bay. You dont see too many channel markers when sailing in Greece Captain Dick had to do proper pilotage to get Missy Bear up the shallow entrance. Basically, this means detailed,

Greek-speaking refugees from Turkey Imagine, if you will, being five years old. Your father and older brother are still locked up in an internment camp. Your house has been burned down. Your mother has been crushed in the quayside throng, fallen into the water and drowned. Men are now fishing for her body with hooked poles, to try and loot any personal possession she might have been carrying. You are effectively an orphan (as your father and brother will probably soon die of

Shipping passing Lemnos by Today, the world passes Lemnos by. The Marine Traffic app shows how the cargo vessels and container ships spewing from the Dardanelles, ride the maritime highway, passing between the island and Türkiye enroute to Athens, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Gibraltar, and beyond. Although there’s an airport, this sleepy island is still not that touristy, despite its nature, history, wonderful beaches and water-sports. And not so many yachts arrive here, p