Trekking in Tilos

The wind is with us and we shoot across to Tilos in no time flat and park outside the harbour entrance. It is another sleepy place and has abundant trekking opportunities… we will test one out tomorrow! Another blue dome day and we head off on a short walk around the headland (track is a mile wide and easy going) and then up a goat strewn dry gully bed (not so well marked or easy under foot in crocs!!). As if that wasn’t enough we then puff and pant our way up the hill to the old abandoned village along the old donkey roads. It is eerie stuff with reasonably well preserved houses and what looks like old stone flour grinding bowls. The village houses a disco in the summer… can’t imagine what it must be like to be dropped off here and stumble around in the dark over piles of rocks and rubbish… must be good though and what a great idea having it so far out of town. Muzza takes a fall looking around instead of down and leaves vast quantities of blood as trail marks for the next hikers. Back in town it is still quiet and tranquil. I choose from a menu of 32 different flavours of cold chocolate… just heaven on a stick as you would say Penelope, but now it is off to Nysiros while the wind is still behind us.

Hats off to health and safety!
Nysiros is a fabulous island that is essentially one giant volcano and still smoking! It’s another great sail across and the harbour has had a makeover so there is loads of room on the quay. As we are coming in there are various whistles and shouts. We ignore the all (including the bloke telling us we are banned!) and take up residence on the outer quay, where I eventually twig that it was Dave yelling “Bandit” at us. We stroll around for a couple of beers and catch up on all the gossip. The lowdown of the island is to hire a scooter and check out the volcano and villages, which we proceed to do. Nysiros is actually the “vespa” and “ape” (a three wheeled covered in scooter if that makes any sense!) capital of the world, not Italy, and we have hours of fun checking out all the different ways you can improve on the ape design. Top marks go to the guy that created a 3x3 version complete with roll bars! Everyone here hoons about the streets on their scooter hatless, headless and with as many people and things you can possibly get on, hang on or generally attach on in some fashion. Happy to fit in we ditch our helmets and go native for the day. We have been told not to go on the gravel roads in and out of the volcano but unfortunately this didn’t take into account the fact they are merrily ripping up the main roads and dumping a metres deep worth of loose of asphalt on them. Murray copes remarkable well for someone who hasn’t ridden a motorbike in 20 year and we zip up and down the roads with gay abandon, me clinging to Murray’s love handles and vainly trying to reach the footrests. The volcano is brilliant and Vasillis (A man in love with ACDC) gives us the safety briefing… “don’t step on anything hot”… and off we go. How nice it is to be treated like adults. No signs warning you volcanoes are hot or don’t walk here because boiling steam coming out. It is a surreal experience and we enjoy every minute of our recklessness! Back on the scooter and off around the island we go, up hill and down dale. Excellent form of travel if it wasn’t for the fact they aren’t really built for two… the old backside is pretty numb by the time we roll into the main town for an icecream hit. All those E numbers go to Murrays head and we lose some street cred when we pull away in front of a large crowd and nearly drive off the road, over a wall and into the local restaurant! I was laughing so hard (a near death experience has that effect I believe) that I was of no use what so ever but Murray recovered his dignity well and we head back to the boat before any other misadventure can befall us.
These islands are great for wildlife and we spot an Eleanors Falcon and other exotic looking birds as well as two enormous snakes. Have to say we were incredibly quiet at the time (shocked I would say even!) and they just slithered away through the nearest rock wall. Both were a good two metres long and a muscular 15cms in diameter. An awesome sight! But as much as we would like to linger it is off to Kos tomorrow to get an impellor and deal with the mundane things of life like washing and water.

The great impellor hunt
The morning starts out a little breezy and we enjoy an excellent sail across to Kos Marina. A really good marina it is too; with super friendly staff and top notch facilities. Tomorrow is a day for sights (such as they are) and the pursuit of impellors.
Kos town is a real change from the villages we have become used to and we enjoy a bit of tourist watching. We have a lead on an impellor and armed with the local bus schedule we attempt to catch the bus to it. Well, three buses later we finally get on one (in fact the same one as the first one who wouldn’t let us on the first time around for reasons know only to the grumpy driver!) and go all of five minutes up the road! You just know when Greeks say it is too far to walk they have no idea how far people can actually walk!! Impellor in hand (yay!) we walk the half an hour back to the boat via the towns historic sights. (Have to say they were pretty ruined… ha ha… by lack of preservation and not really worth a look compared with what we have seen) To celebrate the rebirth of the outboard we treat ourselves to a Chinese!

We’re going the wrong way again!!
The morning sees a slight lull in the wind so we bug out for Kalymnos. Conditions are a bit rough to say the least and we opt to keep going to a more sheltered part of the island. 5 hours later and covered in salt and slightly windblown we arrive in Emborios and opt for the easy option and pick up a restaurant buoy. Artistico café for tea tonight it is! Turns out to be a great spot but Mae falls in love with her buoy and tries to snuggle it all night long, meaning I am up and down all night trying to fender the sucker off. Tired and a little grumpy we head off to Lakki on Leros for a better nights kip. The wind has dropped considerably and we have a great sail up. Just as we are about to enter the bay we spy to military jets circling us. A fabulous display that has us entranced to the point that we don’t realise we are about to be run down be the three naval frigates they are escorting into Lakki. Quite a fright turning around to see them bearing down on us a great speed. The hullabaloo they created seemed to indicate they must have had weapons grade tzatziki on board or possible highly enriched feta. We respectfully give them right of way and proceed to the anchorage. It is a grubby little town and we soon realise we won’t get a quiet night here either with souped up mopeds giving it death up and down the main road. Still it has some redeeming qualities such as it fascist Italian art deco buildings and cold beer. The next day we head up to the uninhabited end of the island to enjoy some peace and quiet. This really is what sailing is all about getting into a bay by yourself and chilling out. Shame the charterers that were in the other bay decided we must know something they don’t and come and anchor on top of us. No sleep for anyone as the wind picks and threatens to bump us together like dodgems! Still we are going on the quay tomorrow in Lipsi and can have a nanna nap at the very least!

Tipsy Lipsi
We have a quick sail up to Lipsi in the morning and after recuperating a bit we hit the restaurant for dinner. We choose “To Pefkos”. Seems like a nice spot and food is great. Nikos the owner is a charming 40 something fellow with a scauwcer partner in the UK but tonight he is on a mission for a party and no one want to come out and play. “Ahh Nikky no mates” we tease him which results in us having to stand in… well all I can say is no one should drink that much Samos Ouzo and Murray looks great from behind talking to the great white telephone. Some serious crap was talked and loads of alcohol drunk resulting in us having to make a run for it in the morning before Nik can knobble us again… our parting mementoes are half a five euro note (apparently we all wanted to split the change fairly) and a two day hangover… ohhh Tipsi Lipsi we’ll be back! And so it was that to Arki we went to recover and quite honestly I can say we didn’t really have it in us to explore much but it looked nice from a very still horizontal position in the cockpit! (I tell a lie; the fact that they collect rainwater in huge stone and concrete basins and that the bay was like living inside a wind chime (or a Chinese health ball factory or possibly a Japanese bamboo water feature!) with all the goat bells tinkling did make it through the alcohol daze!)
Eventually we managed to pull ourselves together enough to make the run across to Agathonisi and find a prime spot in the back outside the main harbour. Straight to the front and anchor in first time… anchor angel down to reduce our swinging room thus avoiding the swimming buoys and bob’s your uncle. We kick back to watch the next boat plough the bay with not just one but two anchors before retreating to the harbour but not before we kindly point out he hadn’t taken down his Turkish courtesy flag, never looks good parking next to the coastguard in Greece with one of those up! It is not quite as off the beaten path as the pilot makes out but it certainly is a lovely spot and we take a stroll and check out the local café; definitely a place to come back to. Onward and upward to Samos and Pithagorian.