Tuesday 16 June 2015 - Milos

I had a terrible night’s sleep.  That is very unusual for me on the boat where I tend to fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow.  After tossing and turning for hours I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to e-mail judicial bookings for my next three months hearing dates and the deadline is tomorrow, when we will be at sea.  So at about 2am I get up, turn on the internet hub and write my e-mail.  In the end I don’t think I properly got to sleep before 3am.  That was all the more unfortunate because we have a long passage to make today and the alarm is set for 6am!

When it is time to get up I am exhausted.  Richard tells me to stay in bed, but that is not fair.  So I get up and help release the lines and do my ‘deckwork’ putting away mooring ropes and fenders.  Then I make a fruit salad for our breakfast later and finally go back to sleep for two hours waking up just before 9am.  Then we have our breakfast under way.  It is a cloudless day with the sun pouring in the cockpit.  There is very little wind.  We have over 60 miles to do, so R sets the motor to make us go at 6 knots.  We put the sails up to make what use we can of the 8knots from behind.  It therefore turns out to be a long boring day of motoring, with both of us struggling to stay awake.  We have to be a bit sharp because there is a fair amount of commercial shipping about.

The only thing of real interest really is that it was a good day for wildlife.  As we left harbour one of the resident turtles came and swam past us.  

The water is so clear that we could see him very well.  In the late afternoon 4 dolphins came to play with us.  They jumped by the side of the boat and played in our bow wave for about 5 minutes.  I think this means that every time we have been on the sea on the last three occasions we have been visited by a dolphin.  It is such a delight to see them.

So by 5pm we have arrived is Milos (from where the Venus de Milo comes).  The port is in a typical Greek village all full of whitewashed houses.  There is a lot of room for boats, so we needn’t have worried about finding a berth.  The only problem is that we are on the outside of the pontoon and it gets very rocky when other boats go by.  We may stay tomorrow night, but we will try to move to the inside, if possible.

After we arrive all wind has died and it is terribly hot.  The saloon is showing 32C on the thermostat!  We cannot move.  But after a short time we make it in to the town.  We just stop at a café to get free WIFI and a cold drink with ice!  Then I notice a sign saying that there is a laundry nearby.  We find it.  It is not self service, but the lady who runs it must have lived in the US because she speaks perfect English with an American accent.  She will do a 7kilo load washed, dried and folded for 15 euros.  So I get rid of my one set of sheets and a whole lot of tee shirts and underwear.  New rule, never pass up on the chance to do laundry.

We suss out the town, finding a fish stall, bakery, and supermarket.  We are not sure what we will do tomorrow, but we will have to collect the laundry by mid-day.

Dinner on board.  It is still too hot to do much cooking, but I had planned a very easy quick prawn dish, so that is OK.  We have showered being somewhat profligate with the water because we have water and electricity here.  The water is said not to be good for drinking.  However we understand the real problem is that it is desalinated and the pipes are old.  It is said to be fine for cooking and washing.  We usually drink bottled water any way.  The only thing is whether we now want to make coffee with bottled water.  We will check our supplies out in the morning.

It’s getting late and after last night we really need to collapse in to bed.