May 2016

After two wonderful weeks, catching up with family in Florida, it was back to Greece for us. We arrived in Athens on Good Friday and joined the Easter procession (essentially a funeral for The Lord),  from the church just near our hotel in the Plaka district, following the epitaphio (the flower-covered  bier, in which a tapestry of the dead Christ is carried) around the block, in the shadow of the lit-up Parthenon.  There are so many churches in Athens and we watched another two processions pass by.

Easter procession under the Parthenon.

Celebrations were in full force, with lamb on the spit throughout the Plaka district.

Lamb on the spit in the road, Plaka, Athens

We arrived in Leros on a Sunday, when the shipyard is closed.  They had left a key for  us at the local taverna and a ladder under the boat so we were all set to go.  Artemis V was not looking too bad after her winter “on the hard”.  Her woodwork needed some work and she needed polishing.  The only problem we found was that the trailing end of her rudder had delaminated during the winter (no doubt related to a whale strike some years earlier).  Fortunately the shipyard has excellent tradesmen. While they fixed the rudder, we set about stripping and varnishing the woodwork and polishing the hull and deck.  It took us ten days to get her looking shipshape.  We worked most of the day but around 6pm. it was off to the taverna for a delicious home cooked meal and a glass of local beer. One of the highlights of our stay in the shipyard was a bus trip to the main town of Lakki.  We got onto the bus and with Greek music blaring, off we went.  There were only two old ladies on the bus at that stage.   We stopped in a small village for yet another old lady. She was having difficulty climbing up the large steps, so the bus driver said “Come on dear, lift your skirt higher so I can see what you have”. She replied “It won’t make any difference as it is hidden very deep and you wouldn’t know what to do with it in any case”.  On we went, passing houses growing vegetables in their gardens, saw the occasional donkey and goat and of course, many little churches.  Leros is a very beautiful island, with high hills, complete with a large crusader castle on one, dominating the island. To the side of the castle are several old windmills standing sentry over the bays below, where the little white villages tumble down to the sea.   As with just about every island in this area, there is a church to St. Ilias on the crest of the highest hill.  St. Ilias was a fisherman who went through a very bad storm and prayed that if he survived, he would leave the sea and go to the highest mountain and build a church.  He did survive, took is oar and walked uphill until the village folk no longer recognized what an oar was and there he built a church.

When we got to Lakki, the bus driver gave me a gardenia flower and said “When you want to return, just wave me down anywhere along the route and I will stop for you”.

Although there is still a UNICEF refugee camp in Lakki, most of the refugees have left and there are now only 600 on the island.  We saw few of them wondering around.

Lakki is unusual for the Dodecanese, in that it has many Italian style buildings, built by Mussolini during the Italian occupation. The locals are proud of their uniqueness and some are still building in this style.

Artemis V went into the water with no mishaps and after getting the sails up, we set course for Leipsi. 

Artemis V going into the water

The little harbour is very sheltered and we dropped anchor in front of the delightful little village, typical of the Cyclades.  The houses are whitewashed rock with little blue shutters and rise up from the seafront to a large church at the top of the hill.  We walked up the stepped roads and found a little granny running a small bakery shop. She insisted on giving us an extra roll as a gift when we bought our loaf of bread which had been baked in her traditional wood fired oven.    She told us that she starts work at 12.30 a.m. to have her produce ready for the morning opening of her shop and she had been doing this since she was 17 years old! Leipsi is one of those places where I felt I could stay awhile and just chill out with the slow rhythm of village life.

Boats in Leipsi port

Beach taverna, Leipsi

From Leipsi we left for Patmos, the island where St. John wrote his Revelations. We saw the cave of the Apocalypse where he dictated his works. About 1km. above the cave, on the top of the hill is the heavily fortified monastery of St. John. Because of these fortifications, the monks managed to resist Ottoman occupation. The architecture of the monastery is beautiful, with little courtyards and arches everywhere.  It has a wonderful little museum with some truly valuable artifacts.  They had an El Greco painting, Icons dating from 1100 b.c. and papyrus bibles dating from 900 b.c.  Sadly, only 15 old  monks remain and over the last years, they have had no new recruits.

Surrounding the monastery is the little town of Chora, also whitewashed but with the distinctive stone window and door architraves, a feature of the island of Patmos.

View from the monastery of St. John, Patmos

Inside the monastery

On the island of Levitha, we anchored in a very sheltered little cove, waiting for some heavy weather to improve.  On this island, there is only one family.  They have occupied the island for the last 300 years and farm sheep and goats. 

Residents of Levitha

  For the last 30 years they have run a taverna in the back yard of their farmhouse and serve local goat and lamb.  The rough stone walls around the farmhouse are topped with large shell encrusted pieces of amphorae that they have found in the bays around the island and there is an ancient grave stelae leaning against a wall.  The family tell us that there used to be a pottery works here in ancient times and on our walk around we found numerous pieces of broken pottery – handles and rims of amphorae. We left them all behind as it is illegal to remove any ancient artifacts from the country. They also had a part of a column from the old Venetian castle which is situated on the top of the island.

 They have put in mooring buoys for passing yachts for which they charge a minimal fee.  Getting back to the dock after dinner is interesting. One needs a torch and you have to follow the white paint marks they have put onto the rocks to find your way back in the dark.  The goats around us did not seem to have the same problem we had walking around in the dark.

We  decided to return to Leipsi  as we knew a Meltemi was on the way.  It was a very wise decision as the wind howled and howled.  We were well tucked into the little harbour and enjoyed our time at the tavernas instead of braving the seas.

We  arrived on the island of Samos, and,  for the first time this month, we had perfect winds – 20 kn. on the quarter with small seas and Artemis V hummed along at around 8kn. She was happy and so were we. Now, further north in the Aegean and closer to Turkey, we are seeing more trees and greener hills.  The rainfall in this part of the Aegean is much better.  

We spent a lovely day, touring this beautiful island.  The views from the coastal road are pretty spectacular, from the high cliffs around us to far islands, dotted like jewels in the blue Aegean sea.  We went to the quaint, although touristy village of Manolatos and from there walked along the donkey tracks towards the next village. 

Residents of village of Manolatos, Samos

  

Walking to the waterfall, Samos

We aborted the walk when it became very steep and we realized that we would have to go down into the valley and then back up and instead drove through the forest to see a waterfall. When the road petered out, we walked, first past an extremely old church and then on to the start of a gorge.  We never got to the waterfall as we would have had to wade through the river, neck deep and we had no swimming costumes with us, so instead, we climbed a rickety set of extremely steep steps up to a taverna in the middle of the forest, on a steep cliff, where a harassed old man was trying to serve all the young backpackers who had left their packs there to wade to the waterfall.

One does anything to get to a taverna!

View from the taverna, worth the climb!

From Samos it was on to Ikaria, the island where Iccarus was supposed to have come down to earth when his wings, made of feathers and wax, melted as he flew too close to the sun! The port was tiny and we had to raft up alongside our friends, three boats next to each other. It was nerve-racking getting out the next morning, as there was very little space to manoevre and the wind had come up. The sail to Mykonos was brisk, with wind gusting to around 28kn. and at one stage, we reached 10.4kn.  We anchored in a quiet little bay, enjoying frappe in the beach taverna and a long walk along the bay to a little village with just two tavernas.

We returned to Samos today to check out of the EU so that we do not end up overstaying our Schengen visa.  Tomorrow it is off to Kusadasi, Turkey.