We spent a week on the pretty
island of Leros anchored in the very pleasant harbour of Lakki.
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The harbour of Lakki. The marina on the left is where we will keep Songster for July-August |
We had a few repairs to do and
some business arrangements to make, as well as the usual sightseeing.
The first repair was to the main sail.
The sail had ripped at one of the reefing
cringles in the big blow going to Levithia. The cringles were not well reinforced
so we had the rip repaired and the other cringles re-inforced.
It was a straight-forward repair for the
sailmaker and he charged us a very reasonable amount.
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The repaired and re-enforced reefing cringles |
Our other repair was to reattach
the outhaul cable which had come undone inside the boom. This required drilling out rivets to get
access to the boom interior, replacing the bolt that had broken, reattaching
everything then re-riveting the end of the boom to the shaft. Bob could have done this repair but we didn't
have all the equipment we needed on hand and would have had to go hunting for the
bits and pieces in the hardware stores.
So we decided to have the workshop at the marina in Lakki do the
work. They did a good job but it cost about double what we thought it
would. Such is life.
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Taking the boom by dinghy to the workshop |
Major chores done, it was time to
see some of the sights of the island. We
hired a motor scooter and set off to explore.
Like many of the islands in the Dodecanese group, Leros has a history of
occupation by the Ancient Greeks, the Knights of St John, the Ottomans,
Venetians, Italians and a strategic battlefield in World War II. The Italian influence is especially strong on
Leros. In the early 20th
Century, Mussolini injected large sums into the islands for public works,
including a naval base. Many of the
building bear the distinctive Italian Rationalist architecture that Mussolini
favoured. I have to say that I prefer
the traditional blue and white Greek Island buildings.
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One of the old, and now derelict Italian buildings |
Our first stop on the scooter was the Castle of the Virgin
Mary (Panagia Kastrou) overlooking the villages of Pandeli, Platanos and Agia
Marina which make up the capital of the island.
The castle was built in the 11th Century by the Byzantines
then taken over by the Knights of St John in the 14th Century.
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The capital of the island |
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Castle of the Virgin
Mary on the hill |
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The walls of the castle |
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Painting of the icon in the castle chapel |
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View from the castle |
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Local traffic obstacles |
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Windmills |
We passed by a Commonwealth War
Cemetery where over 100 British and Canadian servicemen are buried.
Most had died when the
HMS Intrepid was sunk by German bombs in
September 1943.
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Commonwealth War
Cemetery |
A few days after our scooter tour
of the island we thought we would explore the War Museum. Google maps had the location on the other side
of the Lakki harbour. We thought this
would be a pleasant 3.5 km walk to the museum and headed off. Past the marina we entered the grounds of the
old psychiatric hospital, apparently with a rather sordid past. Then we came to a migrant camp Last year the
island was inundated with migrants coming in on dinghies from Turkey. We noticed a few Syrians in town and here was
there temporary home. It looks as if
they have freedom of movement during the day as they were walking in and out of
the gates. The police guards seemed very
relaxed.
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Migrant Camp |
Finally we walked all the way
to the Navy base and still saw no sign of the War Museum. We asked the guard who told us the museum was
on the opposite side of the harbour near where we had started are walk! Thank you Google maps.
The next day we tried again. This time initially going to the site
indicated by Trip Advisor, which was also wrong. We asked some locals and the museum was
another kilometre further down the road.
When we got there it was closed.
This was definitely not to be.
We consoled ourselves with a cold
beer at a harbour side cafe and made plans for our next destination.
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