Samos

Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Tue 8 Sep 2009 15:19
We have been in Pithagoria harbour on the town quay for 4 days now and just love the place! Yesterday we hired a car and I drove us round the island - we did about 150 kilometres and most of it seemed to be up and down tiny lanes with very steep hills and pretty poor road surfaces. But it was worth the rather nerve wracking ride just to see the delightful hill villages set in amongst the craggy rocks and terraces of vines and olive trees. what a lush and rich island this is compared to others we have visited.We took in some of the ancient monuments including the Temple of Hera and the tunnel mentioned in the last email. Both were quite amazing. We have been so taken with this place we made enquiries as to staying here for the winter but the Marina is just too expensive double the quote we have had from Messalonghi.It is a very good place though with showers, toilets and laundry blocks (two) electricity and water to the pontoons and power if you are wintering ashore. They have a very large Travel Hoist and prop the boats in substantial looking metal props.
There is a very good chandlery on site and a sail maker. There are marine electrical and mechanical engineers on site too and a chap who does fibre glassing etc.So all in all a good place to leave a boat if you don't mind paying their rates. We also found very reasonable flight rates to London Heathrow (change in Athens) flying with Aegean airlines Euros 118 one way per head.
It has been windy again for two days so we have stayed longer than originally planned - fun and games on the quay further down last night - where Chica and Kishorn are moored as a boat left and dislodged another's anchor (but they didn't realize). As the wind got up so this 57' yacht started to lean on Chica who was then pushed across on to a small power boat. The result was dinghies had to be launched and additional anchors deployed all in 30 plus knots of wind. Then this morning when the large boat left it's propeller got tangled up in Chica's warp holding their second anchor so various folk were snorkeling trying to retrieve bits of rope and anchors etc.
We are leaving here tomorrow to head towards Kos and our rendezvous with Rob's mum at the end of the month. Hopefully we will find more Wifi facilities en route to keep the blog going.
will put some pictures on the site later