Leros

Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Wed 5 Oct 2011 12:12

37 07.7 N 26 51.1 E

Leros  Lakki Marina and Xerocambos Bay

We left Livitha with a brisk NW blowing and had a quick if somewhat lumpy crossing to Leros back to one of our favourite islands and the bay of Lakki. It was too busy on the marina quay so we anchored and were surprised to drag here for the first time ever! Interestingly several other boats also did the same despite having been anchored for over 24 hours! The following morning – having spoken on the phone with Lakki marina we were able to get into a place on the quay and were pleased to meet up with our friends Steve and Maggie from Rassy Lady (last met them in Monastery Bay, Simi in April!) We spent 3 nights in Lakki – visited our favourite restaurant on Jacky’s birthday, stocked up on good meat from the Australian/Greek butchers, and Jacky had a ‘treat’ for her birthday a ‘facial’ at the very good beautician.

 

 

Jacky on her birthday celebrating with Greek champagne!

We left on Tuesday morning and headed for the bay to the south of the island called Xerocambus – we had been there by car the previous year but were told that it now had good mooring buoys so thought it would be a great place to sit out the NE gale forecast for later in the week. When we arrived more than half the buoys were occupied but we managed to pick one up just behind another UK flagged yacht called Popsy. We later had a chat with them before they left and David recommended we check the strop on our mooring before the gale arrived. We duly did this – with the water so clear it was easily visible from the surface through a diving mask. Sure enough our strop was only rope with no chain so when Popsy left we moved to their mooring which had about 3 metres of very thick chain and then a strop of 5 metres. We sat out the storm very safely and even managed to get ashore for a delicious meal at the tavern Aloni (they provide for free the yellow moorings on the port side of the harbour where we were). Several boats came and went during our 5 nights in this bay including two Turkish Gulets that anchored overnight but did not disembark any passengers. We also had several boats just anchor as there were no buoys left.

With no ferries except a day trip boat that came from Kalymnos on two days, and only the odd fishing boat coming and going from the tiny quay it was a great place to stay. We did have some very strong gusts down into the bay during the ‘gale’ but nothing more than about 30 knots.

On Sunday we decided to move south to visit Kalymnos the island just north of Kos that we haven’t been to yet.