BLOG 9: Platamonas to Leros – 2 to 14 Nov 2018

This Blog covers the last leg of our Autumn Cruise from Platamonas back to Leros – a distance of 350 miles.  It was mostly a ‘downwind’ sail in strong northerlies. 

Platamonas 

After an enjoyable stay in Platamonas [Blog 8], near the area under Mount Olympus where we drove to and camped in 1970, we left at dusk for SKOPELOS in the Western Sporades – 80 miles south.

Route taken on our Autumn Cruise

Soon after we departed Platamonas at dusk, we looked back at Mount Olympus and forwards to the southern mountain range of Pindus, which together dominate the western coast and skyline of the Gulf of Thermaikos.

 

Looking back at Mount Olympus 
as we left Platamonas at dusk

SKOPELOS

We sailed overnight to SKOPELOS to ensure that we arrived in daylight on Friday thereby giving ourselves a full day to address a number of issues including enabling Helen to have a maintenance session on her neck with the physio who had sorted out her trapped nerve in June; to purchase more Greek data at a sensible price rather than paying an extortionate ‘over-usage’ charge to “3”, our UK internet provider; and to watch the Rugby Union match between England and South Africa (which “we” won).

We’d visited Skopelos town in May with Max and Sue and in June with Peter Coy.  We all liked it then and while this time we were, as far as we could see, the only “tourists in town”, we also liked it out of season even though most shops and tavernas were closed.  It is a most attractive town: its colourful well-maintained houses are arranged like an amphitheatre on the hill overlooking the port and harbour.  On closer investigation, the labyrinthine narrow stone lanes add to the town’s charm.

Skopelos town viewed from the port

SKYROS

After a bumpy exit from Skopelos port and bay we were soon able to lay a course directly to Skyros, our next port of call.

 

Island Drifter leaving Skopelos port into wind with two reefs in the main to stabilise the boat 
(photo courtesy of Koen Lindner on SY Pimpinella)

We’d missed out the island of SKYROS on our previous cruise [Blog 4] of the Sporades islands in the summer – it was just too far (50 miles) off our track, particularly since we at that time wanted to return south via the Evia Channel.   We always intended, however, to visit during this autumn cruise. 

A brisk 50-mile day sail south from Skopelos port to SKYROS

SKYROS has more in common with EVIA, although administratively it is part of the Western Sporades.  Historically the island was important because of its position in the middle of the Aegean making it a prime location on the maritime trade route to the east.

Today the island is well off the main tourist route. It’s an isolated and windy place with independent but very helpful people.   Their principal tavernas do not close for the winter and the inhabitants even own their own ferry.

Mike enjoying fish soup in Taverna Marigo, Linaria Port. The fish and vegetables served on a
separate plate had been cooked in the broth

While the marina can only currently take 11 boats moored bow- or stern-to with lazy lines, it must rate as one of the best, if not the best, little ports we’ve been to. Everything a marina should be but usually isn't. 

Sakis, the harbour master, came out into the bay in a RIB to assist us berthing, given the limited manoeuvring space within the port.  He provided us with a clear one-page guide to the marina rules and regs and spent time showing us around.  The marina even has a cruisers’ room containing an industrial-sized washing machine and two dryers, a computer and printer, and a wide-screen satellite TV.   In season, between 7 and 8 pm, the showers have disco lights and a bubble machine! 

Sakis and Mike pose for a formal shot

Sakis had even provided steps and a mock red carpet to allow Helen to get off the boat in style.  The last time this happened was when she – unwittingly and without authorisation – alighted on to the brand-new Royal Steps in Norway, placed there a day ahead of a visit by the King and Queen in their Royal Yacht!  

Helen on HER Royal steps in Linaria

We went to SKYROS to visit the grave of the poet Rupert Brooke. At the time he died he was a 27-year-old Sub Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Infantry. He had already seen action in France before he was posted with his regiment to take part in the Gallipoli Campaign.  En route he died from blood poisoning as a result of an infected mosquito bite and was buried at night by fellow officers in an olive grove above the bay of Tris Boukes in the south of the island.  

Subsequently the wooden cross erected by his fellow officers was brought back to England (where it is now at his old school – Rugby) and was replaced with a marble tomb on the instructions and the expense of his mother.  It is immaculately maintained to this day by the Anglo-Greek Society in London.  

The poet Rupert Brooke’s tomb

in a peaceful olive grove on SKYROS

His gravestone is inscribed with his famous sonnet “The Soldier”, beginning with the following particularly well-known epitaph:

       If I should die, think only this of me
      That there is some corner of a foreign field
      That is forever England... 

These lines match the equally moving ones of Major John McCrae, a Canadian physician and artillery officer, following the death in May 1915 of a friend and fellow officer:


       In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
     That mark our place; and in the sky
     The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
     Scarce heard amid the guns below... 

Suffice to say that while appreciative of the poetry, Mike was never over-enthusiastic about either ending up in a foreign field or surrounded by poppies.

Since we had hired a car to get to RB’s grave, we also had the means to visit the excavated site of Palamari, a Bronze Age village at the north end of the island.  The video presentation supported by wall charts was extremely useful in helping us understand what we subsequently saw and walked round.  We were also fortunate to see an Eleonora’s Falcon (which breed on the island) on the drive back to the port.

Excavated site of Bronze Age village at Palamira

PSARA

We had bypassed PSARA, a barren island ten miles off the northwest coast of CHIOS, on our previous cruise of the Eastern Sporades islands, due to lack of time.   This time we bypassed it again, since we would have had to sail there on a beam reach with high seas and strong winds.  We still intend to visit one day!

Together with SPETSAI and HYDRA, PSARA was one of the first islands to revolt against the Turks.   The Psara clans became wealthy through shipping and their subsequent participation in the 1821–29 War of Independence is etched into modern Greek history, particularly the daring exploits of Konstantinos Canaris. A native of PSARA, his heroic status as a freedom fighter, later as an Admiral and then politician, propelled him five times to the position of Prime Minister. 

Canaris’s most famous operation occurred on the night of 6 June 1822.   In revenge for the Turkish massacre of the population on CHIOS, the Psariots destroyed the Turkish Admiral’s flagship by detonating the ship’s powder keg, thereby blowing up 2000 sailors and the Admiral himself. 

The Turks subsequently mounted expeditions to quash the small island’s community but were unable to land until 1824.  In that year, Husrev Pasha succeeded in landing a large force and massacred almost the entire population.   The island has never recovered.  Only 400 people live there today.

ANDROS

With time beginning to run out and increasingly strong northerly winds forecast, we decided it was safer to sail south 50 miles downwind to ANDROS, rather than go to PSARA.

Once in ANDROS we were confident that we would then be able to sail southeast in the lee of both that island and TINOS to Tinos Port where we could remain until the front passed – leaving us with a final passage to LEROS of 100 miles.

We therefore sailed overnight from SKYROS in order to get through the notorious Strait of Kafirevs between the south of EVIA and north of ANDROS in daylight and before the stronger winds being forecast caught up with us.

Wind turbines (often an indication of regular strong winds!) on the southern tip of EVIA

viewed from ID in the windy Strait of Kafirevs

Having negotiated the Strait with comparatively little difficulty, we pulled into the bay of Batsí. After a recce of the town’s port we decided to moor alongside on the ferry dock on the outside of the new outer breakwater (built with EU financial support but as yet unused by any ferry).  This afforded us with better protection from the northerly wind than in the harbour itself which was open to it.   

ID on quay viewed from the town's beach

On our last visit to Batsí we’d anchored in the bay and in similar windy conditions it had been fine.  The only problem then was that we couldn’t get ashore. This time we were able to do so and explore the village, which had been given glowing reports by a couple of travel writers.   It did not disappoint.

TINOS

We had sailed down the lee coast of ANDROS and TINOS to Tinos harbour in June in similar conditions as those we were currently experiencing.  We were therefore confident we could do the same again and maintain our momentum south. 

The wind-swept rocky uninhabited mountainous

northern end of TINOS

We kept close to the coast to avoid the worst of the fetch and sailed with two reefs in the main and three in the genoa.  In katabatic winds of Force 7–8 ID ‘enjoyed’ a fast and furious sleighride.

ID enjoying a sleighride in a F8

When we arrived outside Tinos Harbour we were delayed by the Port Authority until a large ferry had arrived, taken on passengers and left (which, to their credit, took only 15 minutes).  Meanwhile, we simply hove to and waited.  

Once the ferry departed we were given permission to enter the harbour.  The conditions outside were so rough that we chose to sail through its narrow entrance and only take down our sails once we were in the outer harbour’s comparative shelter.  The Visitors’ Quay was empty so we were able to negotiate a berth on the quay inside the inner harbour breakwater and were helped to moor up by a local marinero.  

Tinos town viewed from the inner breakwater on which we moored overnight

Next morning we were faced with an example of Greek logic, no doubt brought about by the country’s financial crisis. Having arrived in the port at 1600 hours and being in the process of leaving at 0800 hours the next morning, local bureaucracy decreed that we owed them for two days – being double what is normally charged for what is in effect an overnight stay.   

As so often happens, our delayed departure actually proved advantageous in that by total chance, after failing to do so in the last five ports, we found and purchased a replacement HP304 colour cartridge for our new HP printer and also watched a procession in honour of St Michael’s Day in this centre of Greek Orthodoxy.

Bishop and dignitaries speaking

at the St Michael’s Day parade

What struck us was that every school child in the procession (well, most) was able to march in step – totally different from the groups we watched in Thessaloniki on Oxi Day!

School children marching in step on parade

MYKONOS

Once again, we gave MYKONOS a miss.  While we hear on the cruisers’ grapevine that there have been some improvements in the marina (which one is forced to stay in), the Municipality, who run it, clearly have not responded to other perfectly reasonable suggestions.   

Mykonos town, in the summer at least, is famous for the yacht set, the jet set, celebrities/pseudo-celebrities, artists (real and pseudo), nudists, and the gay set, together with ordinary holidaymakers.   It is bright and breezy by day and by night the hum of the bars and throb of the discos into the early hours is all part of the scene.  But not ours!

LEROS

After our negotiations with bureaucracy and enjoying the St Michael’s Day procession, we left TINOS for LEROS in a northeasterly F4–5, ideal conditions for our final 90-mile passage.

Sunset in mid Aegean on our way back to Leros with all three sails working – perfect conditions for ID

We arrived in Agmar Marine’s marina after midnight and temporarily moored alongside on the quay before moving to a more permanent berth in the morning.

A major priority for any cruiser arriving in port after a long passage is to sort out the laundry!

We had a number of decommissioning jobs and tasks that can only be done while afloat, such as the removal of the sails and servicing the watermaker.  The other advantage of stopping in Lakki is that the town has excellent shops – and if they haven't got something in stock, they will happily order it. They all will deliver to the boat.  (The nearest shop to the boatyard is three miles away, although they too will deliver.)

Getting UK gas bottles filled in Greece is at best difficult. Fortunately the enterprising entrepreneur Takis, who with his wife Marieta owns the excellent Greek deli-cum-bistro in Lakki, offered to get ours refilled during the winter

Our Number One priority in Lakki was to watch the International Rugby match between England and New Zealand – on our iPad, not in a bar, as Sky TV is not available in Leros and the WiFi coverage in the boatyard is not totally reliable.  The atmosphere of the occasion was enhanced by the presence of Nichola and Louis Jones from New Zealand on their yacht Yolo and our German friend Frank (SY Poseidon) who sat between the two nationalities and acted as referee!  A great match which England lost by one point.

Partheni Boatyard

We are now back in Agmar Marine’s boatyard in Partheni at the north of Leros, having been lifted out after the weekend in Lakki.  Here we’ll complete the decommissioning process.  We find that it’s better to work in a boatyard, albeit in the middle of nowhere, since there’s always somebody to talk to if we come up against an unexpected problem.

Agmar Marine’s boatyard and the adjacent airstrip 

viewed from a waiting buoy

We have booked flights back to the UK from the adjacent airstrip via Athens with Aegean Air for 20 November.