Lina’s first day on the boat had us heading for the island of Efstratios. Again, this was driven by the forecast showing a new bout of the Meltimi, starting relatively benign and ending with gusts to 30 knots a couple of days or so later. We wanted to head from Limnos to the Northern Sporades, roughly 60 miles in a Southwesterly direction. So the plan was to head to Efstratios, a forlorn island 20 miles south from Limnos first and head over to the Northern Sporades from there the next day, hopefully avoiding the worst of the weather.

Efstratios was definitely an experience in many ways. When we got to the harbor, it was obvious that some major construction had occurred which was not reflected in our cruising guide or the electronic chart. On top of that, a pretty significant swell made its way around the dock onto the only place in the harbor where there were no large bumpers for major ferries, which made docking impossible for small boats like us. And then, there was no other yacht in sight, creating a challenge for us because nobody would take our lines. Luckily, with Lina ready to jump on the quay from the boat, a fisherman appeared and took our lines! That’s definitely a first for me in the Med - the fishermen normally don’t care about or help us yachties. The nice fisherman then recommended that we pull around to the other side of the dock where we had good protection from the swell - and helped us do so! We were now moored in the only place deep enough for Kincsem’s draft and out of the swell in the entire harbor - a place big enough for just one boat. I guess we got lucky there were no other yachts because the wind and swell got much worse during the night and when we got back from dinner, Kincsem was heeled 5 degrees from the wind and rocking around a bit - but we were safe.

Apropos dinner. We went to the only taverna in town and were delighted to find out that we could watch the Germany game against Sweden in the kitchen after dinner! The small TV was hanging over a door, next to a pile of construction material and paint pots left over from the spring renovation, and there we were with the owner of the taverna and his entire staff watching the game! The owner was very nice and the crowd was not quite as partisan as in Sigri. And the result of the game was much better. So Efstratios was great!

Unfortunately, the next day saw Kincsem rolling heavily on an almost downwind course and in sometimes quite heavy seas, again displeasing the Admiral. But then there were dolphins across our bow and things started to look up. The nice anchorage on the Island of Pelagia was well protected and had beautiful swimming so things kept improving. Pelagia is part of the Northern Sporades Marine Preserve - the first national park of sorts that we’ve come across in Greece. The area is spectacular and witness the dolphin encounter and some beautiful fish we saw under the boat in the anchorage, preservation seems to attract more marine life.

So the next day we headed to the island of Alonnisos, which is also part of the Marine Preserve. In 1968, a heavy earthquake destroyed most of the buildings on Alonnisos which may explain the many new and nice looking villas on the slopes of the steep mountains on the island. The main town here is Patitiri, another beautiful place with a shitty harbor. A few hours after we moored there, Kincsem started rolling quite a bit because some long swells were entering the harbor. After the obligatory visit to the Port Police (where I was told: “we have nothing against Americans but each of your presidents seems to start a war”), things had gotten so bad that I deployed the new “flopper stopper”, a device that is designed to create resistance against the boat rolling from side to side. Roll forward another couple of hours, however, I had had enough with a forecast of increasing wind and seas straight in to the harbor. So we departed just after getting dressed for dinner and motored to a nice bay an hour away protected from the swell. I then (belatedly) read up on Patitiri in the German online cruising guide I found the other day. Apparently, boats, including local fishing boats, get damaged in Patitiri with some regularity, with masts hitting and worse. Even in calm conditions, swells have been seen flooding the docks! So I was happy we left.

After a great moonlit night at anchor in perfectly calm water, we sailed to the place the fishermen of Patitiri built for themselves recently - one bay over from Patitiri, a place called Votsi. The town added two new breakwaters that block the swells from almost any direction, but these breakwaters are not on the electronic charts or in the Rod Heikell cruising guide. Luckily, the German online guide had a detailed description and annotated Google earth photos. So that’s where we are now and it’s one of the prettiest place we’ve been to this year. And it has a great Italian restaurant on the cliff right above Kincsem! Unfortunately, it’s raining again. There is a silver lining: a heavy thunder storm in the middle of the night left Kincsem sparkling clean in the morning light.