The wind was directly behind us so we headed up and gybed our way down. We anchored in Emborios bay. Kalymnos is the centre of sponge fishing although the sponges sold today are mostly sold to tourists. We spent one day in Emborios bay eating at Captain kostas restaurant, walking and trying to find the ancient baths. We finally found them but they were so overgrown that you couldn’t recognised the site as an ancient site of archaeological interest. 

We left Kalymnos on the 15th for a 25nm sail to Pserimos, although most of the time we were motoring due to lack of wind. For the first time in our two years in Greece we were accompanied by a pod of dolphins for a short while. We anchored in Vathy, a lovely quiet anchorage with clear blue water. We were very tempted to have a swim but the wind chill factor put us off. The sea temperature in the bay got up to 20’c during the day but the chilly wind is still off putting.

With a forecast of a gale on its way we contacted Kos marina for a berth for 3 nights to ride out gusts of 50+knts. Luckily they had space despite the marina being full of charter boats. So on the 16th we left Pserimos and motored and then managed to sail tacking backwards and forwards between shallow water on the Greek side and the boundary to turkey, that we didn’t want to cross, just yet anyway, on the other, down to Kos marina. We were not allowed in until 1500 when they had some space for us. A man in a rib eventually came out and waved us in. The space they had was in the middle of a marina full to bursting of charter yachts being got ready for the season to start on the 1st May. Chris managed to squeeze into the space we were directed to quite literally bouncing the other yachts off our topsides as we squeezed in. At least for the forecast gale we are not going to move around at all. While the gale goes through we will do some site seeing in Kos.

The Dubarry Boots at the end of their life.

A sponge fishing diver in Captain Kostas restaurant 

Where is Muskie? Somewhere amongst the charter yachts!