As usual the forecast was full of wishful thinking SW5 and we got....ESE 6 ......as we were intending to visit a small almost uninhabited island of Levitha ESE of Ios. The wind had other ideas, so we headed just slightly north to Leros, the next nearest island with a suitably lit entrance, as our change of plan meant 63 miles instead of 30 and that we would then be arriving after dark.
It was a cracking blast to windward, but arriving at the base of 2 large cliffs with breaking seas at the dark entrance with no moonlight was a bit hair-raising as it is difficult to judge distance even with GPS and radar. Matters were made worse by a large military patrol boat, which decided to hang around the narrow entrance as we tried to navigate through. He moved so slow that ultimately we turned and aimed straight at him rather as that seemed preferable to the sound of crashing sea meeting rocks. We got in and anchored without any incidents, but didn't get a rewarding nights sleep as there was a stinky big ferry at 2am, and just as you got off to sleep again, a second ferry at 4am. Its not just the sound of the engines nearby, but its the sound of them dumping hundreds of meters of anchor and chain as they manoevre onto the quay.
Of again the next morning, as the forecast was for southerlies, we decided to go north to Patmos, further away from our winter goal.
We tied on the town quay at Patmos, and joined the throngs from the two cruise ships to climb the beaten cobbled track to the monastery and church of the Apocalypse, both serving to remind us that John the Divine put his head on rock in a cave and heard the story of the end of the world. He dictated these divine words to a disciple and this is the book of Revelations. Still, its a cheerier place than this would suggest, presumably everyone is just enjoying themselves while they still can!
No comments:
Post a Comment