Greece - Dodecanese - Season End
Five hours of wind fluctuating between seven and 30+ knots saw us motor sailing across to the "butterfly island" of Astypalea, population 1,334, we were back in the Dodecanese. Expecting the NNW 30+ knot meltimi to continue over the next couple of days we chose to anchor and explore the southern coast of the island. Livadhi was a good first choice, sheltered with good holding it was only a seven minute tender to the old port town of Skala and from there, a ten minute hike up to the 13th century Querini kastro. Inhabited until the 1956 earthquake, the kastro once housed up to 4,000 people with its three story buildings and narrow one person alleys. It appeared that serious renovation work was being undertaken with the help of a donkey. Researching the past to plan the future so that we can live in the present is not an exact science, sometimes you don’t discover interesting facets of a place until you are leaving, which in the case of Astypalea is 2,500 year old erotic graffiti on the north coast (large phalluses and suggestive words carved into the rocky peninsula at Vathy) and the largest ancient infant cemetery in the world at Kylindra - 3,000 vessels spanning 1,000 years, containing the remains of new born and infants from many islands – perhaps the island was a birthing sanctuary for the wider area? So next year, if we pass this way again and the wind isn’t blowing too hard from the north…
Another five hour journey, across a very bumpy meltimi sea, took us to Kos, dropping the reefed main when the AWS hit 30 knots. The wind was predicted to lessen the further east we went over the next couple of days, so again we hugged the south coast anchoring west of and in Kefalos, Kardamena and Agios Fokas.
Kefalos is a long sandy, taverna lined beach, with 1970s hotels one street back, and plenty of English board menus and accents. With so many tavernas to choose from, we were pleased with our choice of Aphrodite Restaurant – a beautifully cooked simple meal with a salad that wasn’t Greek. Striking up a conversation with owner Michail and his chef wife Dionysia, Michail was genuinely interested in what we were doing. When we invited him to come onboard the next day, he suggested that he swim out to NOETA - it’s OK we can pick you up and take you out! So the next afternoon Michail and his children Zacharias & Evaggdia joined us for chocolate cookies and chats; it was interesting to meet other people living a life of two halves – taverna open season (May-October) and taverna closed season. His parting gift to us was an example of what he and his family do in the closed season - a bottle of home grown and processed olive oil, simply delicious. Provisioning in Kefalos was limited; there were a few small market/gift shops obviously catering to the British tourist, but nothing with real food - luckily we found a wayside stall with freshly grown fruit and vegetables from the fields behind and, as a reward for our hot and dusty provisioning, a cold beer at the cheapest bar in town.
Kardamena is slightly more upmarket, 1970s hotels replaced by Australian-looking apartment accommodation and the British accents ever so slightly more cultured. And the provisioning was better; we managed to locate a main road Spar and good butcher shop one block back from the supermarket.
The wind was easing but on the south coast you can get the katabatic effect from the north, so as we continued towards the end of the island we experienced 40 knot gusts and spray rainbows, quite beautiful and exhilarating! Therma Beach was a mere two nm tender from our anchorage in Agios Fokas and a surreal experience. Anchoring the tender 20 metres offshore, we swam to an enclosed rock pool, a hot sulphur spring at the water’s edge kept temperate by waves breaking over the rock walls. There would have been around fifty other people there, northern Europeans wallowing in the warm water while fearless goats wandered around the massage tent and along the shore, stealing food from packs and bags.
Kos town - we had called in there briefly the previous year on our way to Rhodes, stopping only to look for a cos lettuce and visit the Tree of Hippocrates. One of us was keen to visit the Asklepeion, a 3rd century BC healing temple and sanctuary, famous for its Hippocratic method of teaching medicine. It was a mere four km inland hike, an hour at the most, the captain put up a brave fight and we headed out of town. Firstly along a leafy avenue, Hellenistic and Roman ruins on each side, we soon joined the main road, up through the Christian/Muslim settlement of Plantani, before reaching our destination mid late afternoon - monumental and serene, the tiered sanctuary rests on a cypress hillside looking out over Kos and beyond to Turkey. It felt healing just to be there.
The next day we tendered back to town and were greeted on the dock by a wildly gesticulating man - what had we done wrong! Turned out he and his wife had been admiring NOETA from their waterfront hotel (they had popped over to Greece from Turkey for the weekend) and were keen to talk catamarans as they are taking a delivery in 2022. We invited them onboard, had a lovely chat and plan to reconnect with them next year in Turkey, it’s not what you know…
From Kos we headed north to Leros, the wind had finally dropped and we had five days left until we hauled out. Stopping briefly in Kalymnos the search was on for the giant Charonia tritonis (Triton’s trumpet) snail I had spied in 2019, alas to no avail, I guess it had moved on in the last two years.. but all was not lost as the WW II warship shells were still there and the rest of the morning was spent being entertained by local sponge trader Nikolas; we eventually relented and bought a sponge - just to get him to stop talking!
Five days of revisiting favourite places, starting the winterisation, and cherishing our last days on NOETA. It had been another great season; although we didn’t manage to get to Turkey (and we were now 6 weeks over our 3 month Greek visa) and had spent all our time in Greece, we had made new friends, played with old friends, been to some extraordinary places and had woken up every day with the possibility of a new adventure – exciting, scary, funny, difficult - every day is an adventure. We managed to locate the only PCR testing facility on the island (hidden in the back of the ferry cafe) and bid farewell to our steadfast crew. It’s hard to say goodbye to Greece, to our Greek friends, to NOETA, but the sea had dropped to 23 degrees, the air temperature was now 25, time to go…
Foraging success - making carob powder from Ceratonia siliqua gathered on walk to Xohori
