Sunday 27 September 2015 – Agathonisi

We spent yesterday in Vathy sightseeing.  We did get to the archaeological museum which had some wonderful statues from the temple of Hera.  Then Richard decided that it was necessary to see the old town.  It turned out to be very difficult to find and a very long walk up the hill.  When we finally go there nothing much was going on.  There were no shops or cafes.  The only two restaurants were not open.  There were a couple of general stores which had ads for ice cream outside, but none inside.  The weather had turned very hot and of course it was midday (mad dogs and Englishman time, as I call it).  We finally bought a bottle of water in one of the shops and sat in terrace in the shade in the square.  The buildings are interesting, but frankly not worth the walk in the heat of the day.

Back to the boat, did some shopping for food for the next couple of days and then eventually dinner out.

Today we have decided to start back south towards Leros where we will leave the boat.  The weather forecast is for the wind to go around to the west and then the north and be very gentle.  So we can go to the places which were exposed to southerly winds on our way up.  The plan is to go to the harbour in Agathonisi.  It is a long hop, so we start early on.

We expected to be able to sail a bit, but the wind is still in the south as we go along and is only 4-5 knots.  So it is another motoring job.  We again see dozens of life jackets strewn on every headland. 

We get here at about 2:30pm.  It is a tiny place.  There is a harbour wall and some boats are moored there, but we want to anchor, so we do.  The idea is to swim off the boat, but I am not warm enough to do so.  There has been a lot of cloud around and it is quite cool.  Richard does go in to check on the anchor, which is not dug in as well as we would hope, but seems to be OK, especially as the wind has died completely.

We should really have rowed ashore, but I was too lazy.  We just stayed on the boat and eventually lit the BBQ and cooked our steaks on it.  We will go ashore in the morning.  We seem to have run out of credit on our internet machine – or there is not a good enough signal here, which would not be surprising given the tiny size of the village.  I did suggest to R that he pop into the Vodafone shop yesterday morning, but he poo pooed the idea and now we can’t connect.  So I won’t be able to post this tonight.  Maybe in the morning.