Sat 15^th May

No sailing today so we had a chance to press on with more jobs around the boat as well as explore this wonderful village.

The immediate area is swamped with historical features varying from a castle and endless random tombs and sarcophagi to a complete sunken city which is a protected area and can only be visited in special boats.

There is just one road leading to the village from the outside world and they have a regular daily bus service - which runs just once a day! The end result has been that until the new pontoon was built late last year, the village was routed firmly in the middle of the last century and apart from the trip boats based here would have seen few visitors.

Sarah and Lesley spent part of the morning polishing the stainless whilst Trevor was sewing leather chafe patches onto the solar arch to house the stern anchor. After lunch we all went for a walk up to inspect the nearest tombs etc, but given a temperature today of 37 degrees we were not too energetic and were soon back enjoying ice creams.

In the early evening there was a drinks party and presentation event in the village square attended of course by all the rally which has grown now to 50 boats with 20 still to join us over the next few stops. They had laid on a live band who were great and after copious amounts of wine had been consumed the dancing began and before long the entire town seemed to be involved with the locals happily joining in. Things liven up still further as they introduced hand held fireworks which were little short of lethal. Finally things began to die down as most crews set off looking to have their supper either in one of the very few tavernas along the front or back on board their boats. We joined up with the Australians Trevor and Sasha and enjoyed a very different experience as we had found a family that were preparing and cooking Gozleme on their front porch next door to a carpet shop. The owner of the carpet shop insisted on providing all refreshments for free and we sat at the only table and enjoyed the spectacle of the smiley matriarch skilfully making and cooking these wonderful flatbread wraps cooked on what appeared to be an upturned wok. These were then filled with feta, yoghurt and spinach and tasted great, feeding all six of us for just over £1 per person.

Finally wended our way back to Serafina and turned in as we have an early start tomorrow.