After Nisis Makronisi, we had a nice sail to Patmos. It is Meltimi weather currently. That means between 15 and 25 knots from the North or Northwest all the time, even at night. This throws up an award sea between the islands which is difficult to punch through. So the boat is acquiring a nice coating of salt everywhere on deck!

We had a great day exploring Patmos. The island isn't described very favorably in Rod Heikel's cruising guide but we much enjoyed exploring it a bit by rental car. The monastery of the Apocalypse in Patmos apparently is the second most sacred place of the Greek Orthodox church and it is an interesting one. Located in a commanding position on top of a high hill, the monastery is very well maintained and photogenic. The amount of silver and gold and paintings inside the church has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited like in many more important churches in Greece.

From Patmos we sailed, upwind of course, to the island group called Fournoi. It is between Ikaria and Samos and makes a nice stop on a the way to Ikaria. The conditions were sporty with a dead stopping sea on port tack in particular. So I was running around trying to make the boat go faster and then disaster stuck when I was tightening the main halyard. With a bang, the car which is used to tighten the main halyard catapulted overboard, after leaving a ding in the deck. Kincsem's main halyard ends on a car on a track at the mast. A short line is used to pull the car down and thereby the halyard. The eye at the end of the line gave way which meant the tensioned halyard pulled the car upwards with great force. The car took the end stopper for the track clean off and sailed overboard after hitting the deck! I guess those winches can do damage .... Next time, better ease that mainsheet more .... With the halyard now unattached, the mainsail started coming down. Luckily, I managed to furl the sail quickly, which stopped its descent down the mast but created a bit of a "messy furl".

With some 100 miles to go mostly upwind until next Friday, this had the appearance of a problem. Luckily, Kincsem sails very well under genoa and mizzen and things started looking up later that day at anchor in a large bay in Fournoi. I was able to fish the halyard from inside the mast since the sail had not come down more than about one meter, leaving the end dangling actually below the opening in the mast. Next day, however, it took us about an hour to unfurl the sail and get the halyard tightening line run to a winch. The "messy furl" was difficult to get out.

Next on the list of islands for us was Ikaria. It is a very high, gorgeous looking island but there are few harbors or anchorages protected against the Meltimi. Punching to windward again yesterday got us to Ag. Kirykos on the South East side of the island, but unfortunately, there was no room in the harbor. The last place was taken by a large motor yacht which had moored alongside smack in the middle of the remaining quai, leaving insufficient space for Kincsem on either side. The next harbor that was a potential looked a lot better on paper than in actuality so we decided to head back to Fournoi and try a different anchorage there. The difficulty in Fournoi is that most anchorages are very deep up to very close to the shore. The need to put out a lot of chain then makes it difficult to anchor without risk that the boat would hit the shore in a wind shift. Here in the Kampi bay, we are moored with the bow anchor and two long stern lines to the shore, which avoids this issue. It was a lengthy job to squeeze Kincsem, stern upwind, into the hole between two other boats moored this way. It's worth the extra work though because we're pulled in under a steep mountain side and the Meltimi gusts aren't as fierce as they are just 50 meters further away from the shore.

There are a few people on the beach here and the Kampi beach bar is open. But restaurants aren't open yet for dinner without making reservations ahead of time! It seems that with these out of the way smaller islands, the season is really July and August only.