Position 37:08.706N 24:31.124E

After a slightly nervous night at anchor in strong gusty winds we left Kithnos for Nisos Serifos a journey of about 25nm. We made good time with strong winds using just the genoa. After rounding the south of the island we tacked our way up into the entrance using a much reduced genoa to cope with gusts of up to 35kts. David had a great time helming in these conditions although he is hiding his joy well in this photo.

The photo speed does very odd things to the wind turbine blades. Approaching Livadhi, the port for Serifos

We anchored in the bay but the holding was not very good so it took two attempts as the anchor just dragged through the soft mud on the bottom. After we had settled we watched these two ferries racing each other into the port.

It looks like they might collide but they obviously knew what they were doing.

That concrete jetty is the port…..

…..this is the less substantial one provided for yachts. You can see the yacht alongside is being pressed to the jetty by the strong winds. We had gone ashore in the dinghy as I had chickened out of backing up to the quay like the boats on the right. We had a chat with an English couple who had a space next to them and they kindly offered to take our lines if we came in which we did later.

There is a little town on the hill which we are going to look at later.

Now we are securely berthed we will stay here two nights.

Later: We caught this bus up to the town

You can see some of the buildings are perched on steep rock faces.

I was fascinated by these windmills which still appeared to be in working order although I suspect all the puddings were missing as it looked like people lived in them.

Even more interesting was this one in kit form

The broken mill wheels were there…..

Which unlike the one piece ones used in the UK were built up in sections of stone and then held together by an iron hoop which presumably is fitted hot like the rim on a cart wheel. There is a tremendous amount of work in making the wooden cog wheels.

There had been 5 mills in a row. The blades face the Meltemi wind so there is no provision for them to be rotated to other directions.

The view south looking over the harbour with Nisos Sifnos in the background. Minka is on the short jetty and longer breakwater/jetty is where the ferries dock.

There are some interesting little alleyways

And you even walk under houses

…….when wandering around the town. The floor of the room above this passage appears to be made of bamboo which grows on the island. The town square where we had a beer.

The church is in superb condition but the town hall needs some love. Overall well worth the 1.60 euro bus fare.