A
strange day today. The plan was to
leave Arki fairly early. Despite
our worries the anchor held well. But I don’t think it ever dug in
properly. When we took the anchor
up there was a huge ball of weed on the chain, but that is jumping ahead of the
game.
We
were woken fairly early by the goats.
I didn’t mention them yesterday.
There is a flock of goats that wanders around the bay. They all have bells on and as they go
back and forth they jingle. It is
an extraordinary sound.
Despite
the goats we didn’t actually get away until 10am. But we didn’t have far to go. We were recommended to go to an anchorage on the south of
Lipso. Jonnie sent us an e-mail
saying that it is lovely and has a nice restaurant. Having cooked the last of our fresh food last night, the
plan is to eat out.
The
wind has been building since yesterday.
As we leave the anchorage we find that it is blowing a good force 4 and
for a change it is in the right direction. So we are able to sail all the way to the anchorage, which
was only just over 8 miles away. The pilot book said the holding here is poor in
sand and weed. But to the contrary
we find it to be good and much better than last night. We set the anchor first time and it
digs in well into sand. We are quite close in to shore and not far from a
pontoon where you can take your dinghy to go ashore. R says it is so close that there is no need to put the motor
on the dinghy, and he can row. I
am less convinced, but we shall see how the weather progresses.
Although
the sun is out and there are not many clouds, with the wind building it still
feels cool. However most of the other people in the bay
(and there are 6 or more boats including a Gulet) seem to be swimming. So it being one of our last chances to
swim off the boat we go in before lunch.
It is cool but nice.
Richard confirms he can see that the anchor is well dug in, so we seem
fine for the night.
We
laze around a bit after lunch, but then decide to row in to the shore to make a
reservation at the restaurant and maybe to find some WIFI. But we are in for a shock. The restaurant is closed. It looks like they have given up for
the rest of the year. So, no WIFI,
and no supper! All I have on board
is pasta with the possibility of at least 4 sauces. So we won’t starve, but it is a disappointment.
Back
on the boat we decide to try R’s English phone to get some internet. He cannot download the paper or the
Archers, but he is able to get a weather forecast. Now we are in for our second shock. The forecast has deteriorated since we
last looked on Monday morning and now says that the wind will build up over
night to a force 6 with waves in the morning of over a metre. The wind will be northerly, which means
the journey to Leros will be downwind, but it could be quite uncomfortable.
So
we make a hurried decision to leave and go to Leros. It means getting there a day early, but that is preferable
to 2-3 days late! It is after 3:30
when we finally leave. It is
blowing up to the top of a force 5.
This makes for quite a good sail.
It starts out as a beam reach, and then turns into a run. But we never go much below 5 knots in
speed and usually are closer to 6.
We sail all the way up to the entrance to the harbour, where we finally
put the engine on and take down the sails. R is very pleased with this final sail of the season.
They
were not expecting us at the marina until tomorrow, so they took some time to
find us a berth. But here we are
in our temporary home. We have
sorted out the contract for leaving the boat here. Tomorrow we shall organise the work we want done on the boat
over the winter and start to pack up.
The boat comes out of the water on Monday morning and we fly home Monday
afternoon. The boat is
provisionally booked to be refloated on 4 May!
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