Exploring the Cyclades

Astipalaia
We fairly romped on a beam reach to Astipalaia via an overnight stop in a fab inlet on Amorgos after being storm bound on Sikinos for two days. Not that we were complaining about being stuck in Sikinos because it is now down as a favourite of ours. We had met a lovely young American couple Brian and Doreen there who had chartered a yacht for their honeymoon but were finding the Med slightly scary after learning to cruise in the BVI‘s. We left them with the promise of less wind by Friday so that they could return the boat and on cue the wind did die just as we approached Astipalaia.

Richard and Pippa recommended Astypalaia and the island does look intriguing from the chart. It is almost two islands attached by a narrow strip of land and has numerous inlets and mountains. From the sea it looks very bleak and is obviously very sparsely populated. We decided to make for the Hora and main port. When there are several other cruisers in port you get talking but do not always introduce yourself. This time there are an interesting variety of nationalities. Next door is a beautiful 48 foot Wiequiez with Mr and Mrs French - later we learnt he is Jean-Yves - and the other side a scruffy 34 foot Italian boat with four on board. Next door but one is Dutch and then German, Swedish and another French. You get the picture. You sort of get territorial when the wind and swell increases and last night was a case in point.

As the wind increased yesterday we all started to adjust our lines and secure the boats safely against the surges we were experiencing. Andy and I decided to go for a walk and drink before dark coincidently at the same place as Jean-Yves and his wife, and on our return had found that a 44 foot boat had squeezed in between us and the beautiful Wiequiez. We would not have minded except big 44 foot had attached himself to us - little 35 foot - relying on our stanchions! As you can imagine, we were not happy and immediately started to sort his lines out as no one was on board. At this point Jean-Yves arrived. Now he is a serious sea-dog and was aghast at the unseamanly way Mr 44 foot had tied up! Our audience grew - the four Italians were on the case too. Just then Mr 44 foot turned up - I had his untied lines in my hands and probably looked like we were about to cast him adrift with the whole quay watching!

It turned out Mr 44 foot was also French and Jean-Yves took things in hand by jumping onto said 44 footer and moved the boat for them to a place where they could tie up properly. It turns out Mr and Mrs 44 foot had only just picked up the boat and were scared of the wind and swell.
After that bit of excitement we all settled down again to our own little lives on board our boats but an hour or two later - in the dark - a 60 foot boat arrives. Heads start popping out of hatches. There is a swell and an increasing wind. The quay is comfortably full. We do not want him to disturb us but we are aware that there APPEARS to be a space next to us. We all watch as he circles, wondering where he will choose, why he plans things so badly that he arrives in the dark and willing him to go away but also feeling some sympathy that there appears to be no space for him. He goes away - probably to the ferry quay. But an hour later he is back (the next day we saw why - the swell on that quay was untenable) and this time he is determined. We all start adjusting our lines to make room - supervised by J-Y. Andy nearly fell into the water as he crossed our pasarelle - the swell and his rush after a couple of drinks did not help - and he had to be rescued as he sprawled across the length of our plank with his glasses landing on the quay, poor guy.

We all settled down until an hour later another yacht arrives. Like Meercats we all poke our heads out of our companion ways but this time keeping low, watching. The yacht circled. We waited. This time the poor yacht had to give up and anchor.

We hired a scooter for the day - we wanted to understand why P+R had recommended this island. The Chora was pretty with its 8 windmills and castle but nothing exceptional. What was exceptional was the friendly locals. What wasn’t was the EC funded “renovation” on the intriguing castle which was actually a cluster of ancient houses and was dangerously crumbling. The new buttresses were literally clinging to the old structure by the skin of their teeth and in severe danger of falling on a passer by!

The island s a maximum of 10 miles long and at its widest 5 miles, has one tarmac road and nine dirt roads. We rode every single one and had the most wonderful time. The island is very sparse - just bare rock and a few goats. In particular we loved the North Eastern tip with its well sheltered inlet where several yachts were anchored. We, embarrassingly, ran out of petrol here and had to scrounge from a Norwegian couple who carried petrol for their tender otherwise we would have had a very long and dusty walk back to Deep Blue as we were as far as we could be from the one petrol station on the island. They were very kind and wouldn’t take any money.
Driving back to the Hora we stopped at a beautiful isolated sandy beach which actually was more plastic than sand, with two couples sunbathing in among the rubbish. I could not believe that they had chosen to drive there and stay. Andy stopped me doing a beach clean - how could we carry the plastic to a bin on our little scooter? The Western “wing” of the island was more lush and we passed through several thriving villages. At one we stopped for coffee and cake before returning to DB after a very satisfying and dusty day.

Nisos Nisiros
What an amazing island Nisiros is. The whole island is an active volcano and we hired a bike and were able to climb right down into its growling and hissing crater! The volcano is about 10kms diameter and just under 700m above sea level. The crater itself is nearly 5 kms diameter and is a seriously hot place! We loved this island and had a fascinating day exploring it. The museum described how the island formed with eruption after eruption, one every 20,000 years or so. On past record the next one is due in the next 5,000 years!

We raced Jean-Yves to Nisiros, a distance of 42nm, both with our spinnakers up. He gave us a 2 hour start but didn’t catch us up until the wind died and we had swapped to our Cruising Shute and he resorted to his engine. He was even more friendly now that we had proved our sailing credentials! While we were chatting to J-Y Andy saw an old friend - Kenneth. We met Kenneth, Melanie, baby Fritzy and their two dogs in November 2008. They write German cruising pilots and we were very pleased to see each other again. Sadly one of the dogs has died and the other they decided to leave with Melanie’s mother - probably for the best as they live on a 31ft boat with a growing child. Fritzy is delightful and now 2 years old. We compared notes about the Greeks - it was a very interesting conversation especially as they agreed with us! Sad really but like us they do not have any ordinary Greek friends and miss the easy hospitality of the Turks.
Turkey again

And so we sailed back “home” to the Datca peninsula. We had a dinner date with Wilfred , Sabina and dog Don of Wisa. Amazingly we arrived at the same time in an isolated inlet, from different directions and hours earlier than the appointed time, where a naked Swiss man tried to direct us away from his motor catamaran. Really … he should have put it away before shouting at Wilfred, it is very hard to take a man seriously when he is a stranger in his birthday suit! As soon as the boats were secure we all dived into the clear water and swam to hug each other - quite funny as we all ended up spluttering!

It was a lovely sociable evening with Don joining in and behaving very well - he had a real explore of Deep Blue’s deck , having a look down below, before settling down and watching us eat. We arranged to catch up again later in the month.

So now we are in Karaca Sogut - the place where we spent winter 2008/9. We arrived on 1st October exactly one year after we left Turkey to return to the UK. Most of our friends were not here but we have never the less a stream of people passing Deep Blue to chat - including Byram who used to be our dolmus driver and has just started a new job as skipper of a Turkish style super-yacht after passing all his exams just as we left here in the spring of 2009. This is a big deal for him as his wife was very resistant to him studying as it meant he spent a lot of time away from the family but he told me things were good with his family now.