So we were up fairly early and guess what, the children were early. We were expecting them at 10, but they
came at 9:30. We have agreed
to sail to Lindos with Eva and the children while Colin drives there so they
have a car to take them home at the end of the day.
We are all anxious to get to Lindos because that is where we had a
wonderful family holiday with my sister and her family 36 years ago! Colin even remembers it even though he
was only 6 years old!
Lindos is only 5 miles from Haraki Bay, but we will have to take a
detour out to sea to empty the holding tank. Nonetheless, the journey should only take two hours.
We leave Haraki by 10am.
There is no wind, so we don’t even bother with the sails. Under engine we let Wednesday and Abi
hand steer the boat and they do a pretty good job. However by the time we get out far enough to empty the tank,
the wind has picked up a bit and we can sail. So we put the sails up and proceed at a rather stately pace
of 4 knots. It would have been a
very nice little trip if Molly hadn’t got seasick. She was all bouncy and happy and then suddenly started to
cry and wound up being sick.
Luckily we were able to get her to lie down in the cockpit and sleep, so
she wasn’t too bad. Just before we
came into harbour Abi also decided she wasn’t feeling well, but she was fine.
So we are finally back in Lindos.
We have to put the anchor down at the far end of the bay. It takes a couple of goes. We try to anchor first nearer the
beach, but there are a lot of rocks and we snag one. So we move further in and I spy what looks like a sandy
patch and put the anchor down.
Richard goes out with the snorkel to check on it and it is well dug in
to sand, so we are happy. It is a
lovely spot even if there are quite a few boats here. But we are so far from the town that we will have to put the
engine on the dinghy to get to and fro.
First we all have a swim off the boat. It really is hot.
Even Molly in her inflatable arm bands swims. Then Richard takes Eva and Molly first to the beach and then
comes back for me, Wednesday and Abi.
We find a small landing stage where it looks like we can tie up the
dinghy and Colin is waiting for us.
Well, the beach is rather different than it was 36 years ago. Then there were about two dozen wooden
beach umbrellas and one small taverna.
Now the whole bay is covered in beach umbrellas and sunbeds and it is
ringed in tavernas and cafes. It
is heaving. Colin says it took him
30 minutes to drive into the town because there is so much traffic.
It is now lunchtime so we make for a beach restaurant and have a rather
long lunch there. At nearly 3pm I
am dying from the heat. Richard
and Colin want to go and explore the town and see if they can find the house we
stayed in all those years ago. I
don’t have the energy to go and anyway, I only have bathing suits with me. So the boys go off exploring and we
girls take sun beds and spend the afternoon on the beach going into the water
every 20 minutes to manage to keep a bit cooler. There is a shower near our chairs, so that is also good. I had forgotten how good the beach is
for the children. It is sandy and
very gently shelving. The children
are having a great time.
We decide not to have dinner with the family. We are hot and tired and would like to get back to the boat,
where there is food for dinner on board.
So we leave the children at the beach and dinghy back to the boat. When we get there we find it is still
very hot even though it is after 6pm and the sun has gone from the boat. I go below and find that it is 36C in
the boat. But it is not much
cooler on deck! So we just laze in
the cockpit for the rest of the evening until I have the nerve to go below and
make us some hamburgers for dinner.
We eat in the cockpit but are still hot. So at about 10:30pm we have a
skinny dip. It is very nice and we
finish off with a cold shower on board.
Why was I so worried about hot water? I couldn’t manage a hot shower here if I tried!
This is not exactly a quiet spot.
There are a lot more boats here than there were this morning and there
is a disco or the like over the water playing music very loudly. The funniest part is they played
Saturday Night Fever, which was what was playing here 36 years ago!
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