And south back home to Leros…
- alixtitley8
- Nov 25, 2024
- 4 min read
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 between the islands and strengthened as a result. Missy Bear heeled a little more, but behaved impeccably. She played dodgems with an oil tanker, and wondered why the other yachts going our way were motoring in such great conditions. A couple of hours later, we were entering the marina.
This was our second stay in the village of Ormos, and Stefan from Genrmany, the owner/manager, had put us facing north on the inner pontoon. We had a bit of a hiccup with a second lazy-line and got it tangled in our prop. Skipper had to dive down and cut the line free from the shaft and cutlass bearing. This took a few hours, and evolved into the focus for a multi-national, social gathering on the pontoon, with various offers of kit to help him.
His weight belt was a bit of rope, and his diving weights, for said belt, comprised a 5-litre plastic water bottle that Rinaldo had filled with pebbles! He eventually managed to cut most of the wrap free, and checked the movement of the prop which seemed ok. H&S would not have approved!
And then, on the following day, the wind turned. The north wind blasted down over the high ridges of Samos, and arrived as concentrated bullets putting pressure on both our lazy lines and the forward cleats. The lines dried and then creaked and groaned under the tension. Our friends Christa and Ronalda were a few boats along from us on the quay, and didn’t like it either. You just couldn’t relax, or even sleep, as it blew hard all night.
We decided to walk up hill to the village for lunch. And the next day we hired a car to go around the island to give ourselves a bit of peace from the wind. We’d been around the island before so we picked out our favourite places, and had a leisurely couple of days, with an overnight stay in beautiful Pithagorio. Skipper insisted on a trip to the Byzantine castle, and also to the local museum to see the local ancient Greek and Roman archaeology and artefacts.
Back on Missy Bear, the wind continued to howl. Aegean Blue decided they’d had enough and left to head south. At 04:00 on Wednesday night/morning, as we lay awake, Richard said “That’s it, we’re going tomorrow”.
We had a couple of hours of strong winds and a rolling sea until we were well clear of the island, and then, as we escaped the zone of the leeward downdrafts, the wind dropped and we ended up using the donkey, although the sea still retained a swell.
Our destination was the small island of Agathonisi, near the Turkish coast. In typical Missy Bear nomenclature, we refer to it as ‘Agatha Christie’ island. We’d anchored here before, and had a lovely stay. We stuck our noses in to the main bay, where the ferry arrives, and anchored between two other yachts, who didn’t seem very happy, even though we had plenty of space. The port police were on the quay and cheerfully waved at us to come alongside, but we didn’t fancy that either (big dirty black tyres as fenders), so turned into the next bay along, where we had anchored before, and had a prime location bang slap in the middle of the bay. We had two enjoyable nights, going ashore for lunch and swimming off the back of the boat. A few boats turned up and tried to join us, but never quite got their anchors set properly.
It was now getting late in June and the charter boats were beginning to come out in force. It was also time for us to think about returning to Leros, and flying back home. We sailed across to Lipsi and anchored in an enormous anchorage on the south side. We found a great sandy spot, and settled down to watch all the boats coming and going.
The first day was delightful. We swam, and decided to have aperos on the boat before going ashore for dinner. My sister Sari and her husband Thorne had given us slim thermal champagne cups from Australia, which we had used a few times before, and which worked very well. However, it was now so hot that the sun warmed up the metal and the wine inside also became warm. We ended up putting the whole cup into beer stubbies, coincidentally brought from Australia by a friend. It didn’t look very elegant but it kept the drinks cold!
There is a wonderful family-run taverna ashore, which plays great playlists on Spotify. Some say it has the best playlists in Greece! After an excellent night’s sleep, the next day saw more charter boats arriving from Kos. We came back from the taverna that night to find a catamaran parked quite near, but safe enough given the wind direction.
The next morning, I woke just before 06:00 and I slide my window aside, and gazed at the catamaran, just off our port bow. Skipper could have stepped onto her stern from our bowsprit without much effort. I woke him and we both hailed the catamaran in vain. In the end, Skipper resorted to a few well-directed blasts of our fog horn. Their (British) captain came into their cockpit. “Oh, bloody hell”, he said “that’s a bit close”. And obligingly he weighed anchor and re-parked further away.
We sailed down to Leros, with a Missy Bear FM playlist. Time to return to base and go home for the summer. Too hot, too windy and too many charter boats for now. But what an exciting, adventurous and interesting season it has been.
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