Our first stop in week two of our sailing holiday in Greece is Livadhia on Tilos, reached after a long motor trip from Syrna (very little wind). It is different again from the islands we have already visited, more of a resort town. There are groups of umbrellas all along the beach in front of the various hotels, studio apartments and tavernas. There are signs of sophistication like an ATM, the first we've seen since we left Kos, and a postbox. There are a number of mini markets, and little boutiques selling items for the tourists to buy, like jewellery, beach wear, hand made soaps, etc in interesting back streets up behind the harbour. We ate a wonderful meal for €35, two vege starters which we shared then roast goat with chick peas. And as usual there was complimentary cake, which you feel you should eat and it's delicious anyway. So once more we stagger back to the dinghy, return to the boat and fall down exhausted by a surfeit of sun, wind, food and drink.
Finally the supposedly prevailing NW wind does actually prevail, and we have a good sail to Khalkhi, slightly marred by jamming the main in the in-mast furler, but there is enough wind to make good speed under headsail alone. Khalki augments its limited mooring space with a pontoon jetty in summer and we are whistled in by the harbour master, instructed to moor stern-to on the outside. After three attempts at getting holding, he gives up on us and we moor alongside. Next boat in, properly moored at right angles, contains a bunch of young public school Poms, friendly and interesting. One is sluicing down the deck of their boat with a bucket that has too short a line, so he loses hold of it on one dip into the water. He goes over the side hanging on to the gunwales, catches the bucket with his foot, heaves it back on deck, then pulls himself back on board over the scuppers, no mean feat. Watching amazed, we were joined by an older, moustachioed, very proper English chap who'd walked the length of the jetty to say to them, "Jolly good to see the flag flying chaps, but you're flying it upside down - would you mind reversing it, please!" whereupon they took down their very large Union Jack courtesy flag and put it back right way up. Unlike all the other harbourside towns, Khalkhi has stone houses with terracotta tiled roofs, and plastered houses painted all colours, yellow, pink, blue, lavender, olive, giving it a quite different character. It also has two tall towers, one a church, very different from the standard blue dome. The area along the harbour in front of the tavernas is also wide, rather than being just a narrow road, but seems to be pedestrian only, giving the place the feeling of an elongated plaza. About half way along there are primary school kids practising their Greek dancing, with tourists enjoying the music, taking pictures, and some of the locals (and tourists?) joining in towards the end. When they finish we eat at a restaurant specialising in Cretan dishes. We chat to the Cretan proprietor and learn enough Greek so that at least we can give and return greetings. The moon is full and the sight of it rising is stunningly beautiful. As we return to the boat a brass band (live? recorded?) strikes up with, of all things, "That's amore", followed by a couple more Italian numbers and finishing with the Mexican Hat Dance. Very strange choice. Khalkhi is a pedestrian town whose narrow passages don't permit even a motorbike, so it has a medieval feel.
Next morning we enjoy exploring the town and patronise the cafes again before heading off on a beam reach to Palon on Nisiros. We stop at Tilos again on the way, but only to break up the journey and don't go ashore. We need to get to Palon early in the day as there is nowhere to anchor, you have to do a Mediterranean stern-to moor in the harbour. But the wind is kind and there is plenty of room, and this time we berth without difficulty, with a bit of help from the guy on the next boat who takes our lines. In contrast to Khalkhi, Palon is full of vehicles, with four car/motorbike hire places in between the tavern on the harbour front, and tourists on rented motorscooters everywhere. We opt for the safer option of a very small car, and drive around the island, visiting the other harbour town Mandraki, then driving inland to the crater of a dormant volcano, then up to Nisia, a town perched high on a ridge with the sea on one side, the crater on the other. There is a parking area just outside the town, then you walk through passageways designed for people and goats. We eat in the village square, or more properly circle, a tiny space with a church, two tavernas and not much else clustered around a stone mosaic circle.
We explore Palon itself next morning, before heading out on our last leg from Nisiros to Kos and the marina. It is blowing hard for the first time, and once we get the sail set right we fly along at 6-7kt, reefing progressively as the wind rises to over 35kt. Inevitably once we round the end of Kos and head toward the marina we have the best part of an hour of motoring into a headwind, but there are windsurfers and kite surfers moving at amazing speeds to watch as we slog through the chop to the fuel jetty, where we come alongside easily with an on shore wind. Getting into the marina berth in the wind is trickier, but the pilot boat is there to assist with advice and a push at the critical moments, and we are finally safely berthed. We are here a day early so that we can see something of Kos before we leave Greece, and because we hope to catch up with a Greek friend from Tasmania, Dionissis. We've found his boat Hector on the hard stand here, but no sign of him yet.
We unwisely leave starting our exploration of Kos until about 11am next morning so much of it is done in the heat. Kos was razed by an earthquake in 1933 which gave archeologists the opportunity to start digging in the ruins. As a result Kos is a town of consistent modern and rather boring architecture wrapped around about seven archeological sites, one or two quite large. The only ancient monument that appears to have survived the earthquake is the castle built on the point by the knights of St John which is large and impressive, but is more ruined and less well cared for than Bodrum Castle. In the evening we drink our last gin and tonics aboard Astraea, go ashore for our last dinner in Greece. Tomorrow at 5pm we catch the ferry back to Bodrum, the start of our 24 hour transit to Millepetit in France.
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