Saturday, 14^th September, 2013.

After the BBQ we woke up to quite a surge as the water rushed through the channel where we were anchored.  We had breakfast and decided to head off to Lakki on Leros being the next port of call for the Cruising Association rally before the wind got any stronger.

We had a fast passage on just the genny and covered the 8.64 miles in just over an hour.  Even as we headed around the headland into the huge bay the wind was truly forceful. We took the genny down and motored up past the naval area into the small harbour by the town.  A large castle overlooks the town and unlike Lipsi there is no church to be seen.

The island was once famous as the island of Artemis but today it is known for the home of prison camps and mental hospitals which employ most of the locals.  The island was under German rule from 1943 until the Allied liberation in 1948.  When the military Junta took power in 1967 they exiled political dissidents to Leros’s prison camps. 

The town of Lakki has a art deco architecture which was Mussolini’s vision of a new Roman Empire which started to take sharp around 1923 when Italian architects and town planners turned their energies to building the new town.  The engineers were Austrian and they built their vision around wide boulevards and lots of curves.  Unfortunately, a lot of the buildings have started to crumble and there are only a few examples left.

We walked to the marina on the other side of the bay to check out the prices for the winter but only just a little cheaper than Turkey.  Jim is thinking on it.  Later we had drinks with the group and went our separate ways for dinner.