We complete our first sailing trip with Opua

From Leros we sailed on to Emborios on the island of Kálymnos, a tiny seaside village with a backdrop of steep mountains. The lovely round bay is partially closed off by an islet, providing good shelter from the wind and the swell. We were also happy to be moored to a buoy - albeit a crap buoy, but that's a different story - as the wind was sometimes really very howly. Maybe no-one had fed him. Or maybe the meltemi was teething.

We arrived reasonably early and had our pick of buoys. And just like with supermarket trolleys, or motorway toll stations, we chose the wrong one. Mooring was problematic. There were two ropes on the buoy but only one was functional, as I found out when I first triumphantly fished out a rope, only to find frayed ends where a loop should have been. The rope I was meant to pick up though was very short, which made it really tough for me to pull it up out and put it over the clamp. On top of that the wind was quite strong. It took me three attempts to pick up the line on the buoy, after which the next hurdle was to feed ropes from both bows through the metal hoop on the top of the buoy. This nearly ended in disaster with potential loss of the hook and/or crew member number one overboard. On the positive side, my arms got a good stretching and their attachment to the shoulder sockets was well tested and proven. After the difficult arrival everything went very smoothly – and we had cause to thank our lucky stars repeatedly that we were safely on the buoy. The crap buoy.

Emborios is a tiny village but has all essentials including restaurants, a mini-market (albeit a meagre and overpriced one with unfriendly service) and - oh joy! - a fruit and vegetable van which does his rounds not once, not twice but three times a day! And even a rental car company. The restaurant to whom our buoy belongs serves really good meals (providing you choose Greek food) and we enjoyed whiling away the windy evenings at the tables on the narrow strip of beach. Over the course of the week we had a good balance of domestic and maintenance activities, relaxation, and exploring. One day we hired a car and went for a tour of the island - a happy activity for us. This was now our third time on Kálymnos but the first time overland. We had seen the pretty Vathy port and had enjoyed sailors’ paradise at Palionisos bay. But driving round mountainous Kálymnos gave us a whole new perspective. This island reminded me of the Dolomites crossed with the Highlands of Scotland, oh and with some breathtakingly – yes you’ve guessed it – turquoise waters and little beaches thrown in.

On the last night the wind picked up to an impressive 25 knots. The boats were all twirling and bobbing like ballerinas on drugs. Sometimes they tugged so hard at the buoys it seemed quite likely they would break loose and start drifting out to sea. With this possibility in mind we decided to forego a last visit to shore, and instead cobbled together a sparse dinner from our depleted stocks. All good things come to an end, and so it was that we had to leave Emborios. We started ourt early on a very beautiful morning and headed towards Kefalos bay on Kos. As often happens, the forecasted wind did not show up, not a breath in fact, so once again we were motor-sailing, with quite choppy waves as a result of the previous day’s high winds. It was a tedious journey enlivened only by the tiny mosquitos who showed up in their hundreds from who knows where to accompany us all the way on the five hour journey to Kefalos. Very friendly.

On arriving in the wide bay of Kefalos we found a suitable spot to anchor but when I pressed the down button at the front of the boat to release the anchor chain there was no response. It transpired that the electricity had left the building. We had to let the anchor down manually and then tackle the electricity issue: at a minimum we need it for the fridges, and the water pumps both for running water and to pump salt water to flush the toilet…not to mention luxury AC appliances like the kettle, vacuum cleaner etc. Having learned a lot about electrical systems on the boat from our friends Thomas (genius electrician) and Gerhard (sailor with many years of experience), Ralph set out to identify the source of the issue and, sure enough, by the powers of logic and his systematic approach, he actually succeeded not only in identifying the issue but also in finding a workaround. Hats off! I think being a boat owner is an ideal challenge for Ralph as there are so many systems you need to be able to troubleshoot – on top of the ins and outs of sailing.  We celebrated his success with a swim. The seabed is sandy and you can anchor in shallow water, so all round the boat the water is a lovely colour, and it was also nice and warm. We swam along above the anchor chain  metres above the flounders who like to…um, flounder there on the seabed next to the chain.

It is a lazy kind of place to hang out in, Kefalos, although one day I took it upon myself to walk up to Kefalos old town. I picked a bad time of the day (what do they say about mad dogs and Englishmen, though I am neither) and a bad route so it was quite an arduous climb up several kilometres of winding roads, but I enjoyed the exercise and the views, and found a quicker route down, thank goodness, before my legs packed up in the heat. The few days in Kefalos passed very quickly - swimming, walking, practising driving the dinghy, Ralph’s helping a friend fix a leak on his boat, dinner and some local folk dancing performed for us at one of the restaurants. It got a bit windy.  Our friends had to leave, so we said goodbye …and then we too packed up and left for Gyali, where we had had our very first trip when Lois visited.

The water in the bay at Gyali was really warm, particularly in the patches where bubbles rose from the sandy bed. Gyali is semi-industrial – at least, it is all but deserted apart from a big pumice stone mine and a few shacks where the workers are housed – and the excavations are visible from the neighbouring islands. As long as you don’t look towards the quarry but in another direction, Gyali is pure heaven. On the south side the sand is yellow, and the water is calm. On the beach you can find pumice stones in all shapes and sizes. It is a bit like picking blackberries: really hard to stop once you get started, and you end up with far more than you can easily manage and have to get creative about how to use them up. Blackberrying and beachcombing bring out my greedy side. On the north side the beach looks Caribbean with its heavenly white sand, and there were some great waves to jump in. Huge quantities of debris, mostly plastic artefacts, are washed up but not removed from this beach, which gives you a lot of food for thought. I think next time I am going to take some bin bags with me and collect up some of the rubbish.

We found our stay in Gyali very relaxing. Even the gentle thrum of the machinery did not disturb us. In fact we liked it there so much it was a real wrench to leave but the island of Nisyros was calling and we had heard so many positive reports we were interested to see it. We were also running low on fresh fruit and vegetables. Nisyros is so close to Gyali we motored over in about three quarters of  an hour. In the little town harbour we moored as advised in front of the Aphrodite restaurant and fellow sailors kindly helped us with the lines.

It was majorly hot in the harbour and we were not motivated to go very far or see anything very much on the first day. We had caught the holiday bug in Kefalos and then on top of that picked up the chilled bug in Gyali. So instead we stayed on the boat with the sunshades down for most of the afternoon, venturing out only to stroll down the quay and book a car for the next day with the friendly Maria (born in Australia, brought to Nisyros as a scowling 7 year old, and still with a distinct Australian twang). Finally, dinner at the Aphrodite where we were plagued with wasps all evening, and the smoke from burning coffee beans did not provide a successful deterrent. Instead we sat in a haze of coffee bean smoke and batted away the wasps as we ate something we did not like (reminder to self: you do not like swordfish). You win some, you lose some!

The next day we won some. A lot. We set off early to visit the volcano craters before the promised busloads of tourist from 10am onwards and the anticipated heat of midday. We got there at about 9am and had the whole huge area absolutely to ourselves. It is an impressive area and the volcano performed its part well, dutifully emitting puffs of sulphurous steam from patches of vivid yellow rock. As we had started so early we were also able to take in the very picturesque town of Nikia as well as a little hilltop town Emborios which was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 1993, and has been only partially restored. We also returned to the volcanic area to circle it, driving on the dirt track on the other side, and ended up on the largely unused west coast road of the island. We only came across one other car on that road in about 30 minutes.  We returned for lunch on the boat and had intended to head out again to the main town, Mandraki, but the wind picked up and we had to watch that the anchor did not get ripped out by the wind or by new arrivals. Luckily we were moored next to a 40 foot sailboat which provided very valuable wind protection.

In the evening the church threw their annual party with trestle tables blocking the very narrow streets. After the stress of the afternoon and the heat of the day we did not feel up to participating, but it looked as though – even without our presence – everyone was having a good time. We did get to see Mandraki and all remaining island road not yet covered, the next day when we rented a moped. We were hugely impressed by the ancient castle and particularly by the sheer scale of the stones it had been built with, some 2500 years ago.

On our last sailing day, we were rewarded with wonderful sailing conditions (downwind) from Nisyros back to Kos marina and enjoyed our by far the best sailing yet, with the mainsail and the reacher (the bigger of the two foresails), and achieving quite respectable speeds of about 7 knots, Heaven! I only wish it could happen more often.

Returning to Kos marina at the end of our first sailing trip feels quite weird: it feels as though we have been away so long, and yet here life goes on exactly as it did all those many moons ago. (In fact only a few moons.). It feels like a real achievement to have completed six weeks of sailing and mastered quite a few challenges. Of course it has been very tame: we have not crossed the Atlantic or been attacked by orcas (thank goodness). But we have learned so much about handling the boat, and about the joys and the challenges of sailing in this area. We know the boat so much better and  and now that most things are fixed we feel really good about it. After a short interlude in Germany,  we start out again on a new chapter with Opua, captain Ralph and crew member number one. Let’s see where chapter two takes us!