Day 13 & 14 - They think it's all over

Well here we are back in Nissiros, delivering the Corfu back to base in Kos. As always it's been unbelievable how quickly the two weeks has gone and how quickly we slipped back into boat life after two long years (we're not complaining, we know how lucky we are). The Dodecanese was not our choice, we swapped Paros and the Cyclades for Kos and the Dodecanese because we thought there was a good chance of Kos going Green.

But actually the Dodecanese has been great, Ellison has never been before and it's 9 years since I was here. Circumstances have also meant we've shared a boat with chums and that's been great too (we're lucky to have people who are such good friend that sharing is possible), having 4 people when mooring up is so much easier and as we get older it may be the way forward. Of course it's better to have your own boat but Ellison and I have already pretty much decided that we'll only be sailing in the trickier parts of Greece with others.

We've been lucky with the weather and other than getting our stay in Astipalyaia cut short by a day we've done everything we planned (Astipalyaia, Symi and Chalki) and a couple of places have been real bonuses - Vathy on Kalymnos and Tilos.

Yesterday we left Tilos early (see the sunrise picture I took from the bow) to stop in a bay on the West of Tilos for a swim and breakfast. The journey to Nissiros was a tad bumpy, into the wind and whilst sailing it would have been possible it would have been harder work than we wanted, so motor sailing made the journey much easier. Piccies of sunrise and our breakfast anchorage.

This morning we were in no hurry to leave, we don't have to be back until 5 and it's at most a 4 hour journey, so over breakfast we decided to hire a car (20 Euros for an old but functional Fiat Panda WITH working air conditioning) and see the island, 3 hours, tick box tourist style. The lovely car hire lady told us where we should visit, Mandraki the main village on the island, which turned out to be very nice, but with absolutely nowhere to park your boat. We then went to the abandoned village of Emporios, via the 'sauna' (a cave which is like a sauna with heat from the volcano on Nissiros). Emporios was abandoned after an earth quake which kind of happens when you build it on the rim of the volcano caldera. When Bill and Christine last visited the village 6 years ago it was still truly abandoned but is now rapidly being re-built. We then went onto Nikia a village which is a Unesco world heritage site and very special, we need to go back and spend more time there. Lastly and probably best of all we went to the tiny church of Elias at the top of the island with panoramic views of the caldera and Nikia. We really should treat Nirssiros more as destination rather than a stopover on our way to somewhere. A picture from the church and of the harbour on the way back.

They think it's all over should be appropriate, but it's not. Just before we left BA cancelled our flight next Tuesday (we'd planned a couple of extra days in Kos) and re-booked it for this Saturday. Obviously we weren't having that so have booked a flight out next Saturday and another boat for another week. So on Friday it's goodbye Corfu and on Saturday it's hello Evelina. Corfu has been a great boat though.

We're going North next week, the distances are shorter and we only have a week (I know, I know, we're very very lucky).

More soon,

Yamas!

P.S.

You'll notice I don't talk too much about chums by name, mainly because this is a public blog, not just shared with friends on facebook.