Tilos and Nisyros

We left Panormitis early Sunday morning before the church bells started ringing.  There was no wind and the sea was like glass.  So it was the iron spinnaker all the way to Tilos.  It was an easy straight 27nm motor.  We arrived at the pretty harbour of Livádia and moored alongside.  Stephanos, the harbour master, came to give us a very warm Greek greeting.  The mooring and electricity were gratis as this is still early in the season.  

Livádia, Tilos

Route from Symi

Once Songster was sorted we set off to explore the town.  It was a very sleepy place mid-afternoon.  We managed to find a bakery which was open and had a Spanakopita (spinach and cheese pie) while sitting under their grape arbour.  Afterwards we walked along the waterfront seeing only a few people.  The tourist season hasn’t started yet and there were only a few hardy souls trying to get an early start on their suntan.

The island of Tilos in pebble mosaic.  It looks like a dragon to me.

The waterfront

In the late afternoon 4 more boats came into the harbour or anchorage.  We knew three of them so had some nice catching up with them.  The town came to life in the evening and there were good crowds at the restaurants enjoying great Greek food.  We had hoped to spend a couple of days exploring this quaint island but the weather gods had different ideas.  It was either one day at Tilos or four.  Tilos is a small island of 64 square kilometres and has less than 800 people.  We opted for the shorter stay with some regret.  

The next day we were off to Nisyros in convoy with Onyx and Three Sheets.  Sadly it was another iron spinnaker run in the Motorterranean.  We moored in the tiny harbour of Pali, a charming village set up specifically to cater for the yachties.

 

Pali harbour. Songster is the blue boat on the end

Route from Tilos to Nisyros

We met up with Onyx and Three Sheets for a fun dinner at Captain’s House along with a whole flotilla of Russian sailors having a great time.

The gang having dinner

The next day we hired a scooter to explore the island.  Nisyros is a volcanic island, measuring 3 by 4 km with a population of about 1000 people.  Our first stop was Emporios, a quaint, picturesque but half deserted village perched on a steep hillside.  White washed houses with vibrant blue trip lined narrow streets.  The main attraction of this little village was a natural sauna cave.  It is a very unobtrusive, easily missed opening on the side of the road.  We went in but could stand the heat for only about 30 seconds as the walls pulsated with steam.  We stopped to have a cold drink at a little cafe overlooking the caldera of the volcano, our next stop.

Emporios

Derelict house but the TV still there!??

Sauna cave

View of the caldera

We had the volcano practically to ourselves.  We walked down into the caldera pass sulphur encrusted rocks to the bubbling mud pots in the centre.  There were two other smaller craters which we explored.  As were coming back to the car park two buses full of tourist arrived.  We had timed our visit just right.

Volcano main caldera

Mud pots

Cattle grazing in the caldera - not much feed

We hopped back onto our trusty 125cc scooter to head to our next stop, Nikia, another even prettier hillside village.  Located on the southern side of the caldera it offers fantastic views of the volcano and the sea.  Perched on the top of the hill is the Church of Agios Theologos, an iconic Greek church in those wonderful white and blue colours.

I love buzzing around on a scooter - Bob reminded me there is almost an identical photo from Hoi An.

Nikia

Nikia Town Square

View from the town square

Chapel on the hill

 On to the capital of the island, Mandraki.  The interisland ferry stops here and we had admired it when we took the ferry from Athens to Rhodes in 2014,vowing to come back.   This was before we had bought Songster.  Now we are back here on our own keel.  I do sometimes have to pinch myself.

Mandraki with the monastery of Panagia Spiliani on the cliff

Octopus drying

Mandraki waterfront

Beautiful pebble mosaic front steps

Our last stop for the day was to catch the sunset from Mandraki harbour.  We met up with Onyx and Three Sheets for sundowners and Mother nature gave us her best.

The end of a great day

Panormitis

We spent three nights at the quiet anchorage of Panormitis.  The only noise was the occasional chiming of the church bells (though they never chimed on the hour but 10 minutes to), monks chanting for evening prayer and brief visits from the day tripper ferry boats.

 

The first morning we had a cuppa with Janet and Paul on Onyx and got the low down on the area as they have been here many times.  Since we were stuck in the immigration cage for three hours yesterday we didn’t have time to do errands in Symi Town.  We needed to take the local bus back into town to get some euros from a cash machine and Greek sim cards for internet.  Buses make the 30 minute journey over winding narrow mountain roads three times a day, in theory, but being school holidays (Greek Orthodox Easter break) the schedule was a bit loose.  We went ashore to check out the village and await the bus.

Songster and Onyx at anchor

The village is made up of the Monastery of Archangel Michael Panormitis, a small cafe, a shop selling basic groceries, a taverna which isn’t open yet for the season and some very basic holiday rooms.  There is a lovely walkway all around the harbour with gates to keep out the goats, an olive grove, a small cemetery and not much else. While we were waiting for the bus, two ferries came within a half hour of each other disgorging a couple hundred tourists who milled around the monastery, bought a few icons, took a few happy snaps then shuffled back onto the ferry and were gone.  That is the peak of activity here in Panormitis, and then the village goes back to its peaceful lassitude.

The quiet waterfront

Archangel Michael icon

Day tripper ferry arriving

Quiet sheltered anchorage

The bus came around midday and we began the journey up the winding roads.  The scenery was spectacular – steep cliffs tumbling into the blue Mediterranean and the islands of Rhodes, Tilos and Nisyros clearly visible in the distance.  Symi is a small island of about 58 square kilometres about 10 km long and 5 km wide.  Historically it was a centre for sponge diving and had about 22,000 inhabitants at the turn of the 20^th Century.  Now it survives on tourism and the population is only one tenth of what it was.

The bay from the bus

View from the bus

Looking towards Rhodes

Sadly the last return bus to Panormitis gave us only 90 minutes in Symi Town so we quickly had to do our errands and did not have a chance to check out the leather and sponge shops or eat at one of the many delicious smelling restaurants.  We did meet a Greek Australian, born in Melbourne, who had came to Greece 17 years ago and now is working in a restaurant and made us the best Freddos (iced coffees).  It was quite bizarre to hear an incredibly thick Australian accent in the middle of this tiny Greek island.

Symi harbour

 Back in Panormitis we took a walk to the windmill at the harbour entrance.  The windmill is derelict and now seems to house only bats.  Nearby was an old WWII pill box boarded up and covered in rocks.  We had a look through the cracks and to our astonishment a 40mm Bofors gun was inside, presumably left from the Raid on Symi during the Dodecanese Campaign.

WWII pill box

Bofors gun

Windmill and pillbox from across the harbour entrance

We walked to the other side of the harbour and were greeted by a herd of goats who took quite a bit of interest in us until they realised we did not have food for them.

Disappointed goats

We returned to the cafe and had some Ouzo while watching the sponge boats return and the sun set over the harbour entrance. 

Boats returning

The end of a great day

Goodbye Turkey, Hello Greece

After four days at anchor in a quiet private cove off Bozburun harbour where we made sure all systems were working, took walks, had a swim in the wetsuit I bought in Morocco (it is still too cold to swim in bathers only), met new friends and caught up with some old ones and had several meals at Osman’s the yachties’ hangout, it was time to leave Turkey.

Bob overlooking Songster in her private anchorage

We did the checkout formalities on Wednesday afternoon and were allowed to then anchor in the bay overnight so we could leave early the next morning.  It had rained overnight and was quite misty and wet at daybreak.  We readied the boat, weighed anchor and motored out of Bozburun bay saying goodbye to Turkey after almost two years since first arriving from Iran in 2014. 

Leaving Bozburun on a misty morning

  We were headed for the Greek island of Symi, only a few nautical miles from Turkey,  Here we planned to check us and Songster into Greece to sail north then west around the Aegean islands, then over to the Ionian over the next six months or so.  We had never checked into a new country with the boat and were not sure what to expect.  The whole process would have been quite quick and easy except for a sad incident that happened just before we arrived.  A visiting yachty was walking along the waterfront, collapsed and died.  The immigration policeman was busy dealing with this tragedy and we had to wait three hours before he was free to stamp our passports.  We were not allowed to leave the caged area of the dock until our passports were cleared so we spent the time chatting with the harbour guards, having cups of tea and admiring the pretty harbour of Symi.

Symi Town Harbour

Pretty pastel painted buildings

Once the immigration policeman arrived the procedure took less than 5 minutes to clear us in.  Next we had to clear Songster in by getting the DEKPA (travel log) stamped.  This is done by the harbour police on the other side of the harbour.  We were hoping we could leave the boat at the immigration dock and just walk around to the harbour police but we were told we would have to go to the other side of the tiny harbour, anchor and go stern-to onto the wharf.  We were a bit nervous about this as we had not done this before and Songster, typical of English built boats does not go in reverse in a straight line.  Fortunately there was plenty of room on the wharf and we managed to moor up easily – a red letter day as we had been anxious about this Med mooring in Greek harbours for months.  Ten minutes later Bob was back with the DEKPA form stamped and we were ready to head for Panormitis, our night’s destination, a quiet sheltered bay on the south of the island.  The wind had picked up so we unfurled the genoa and sailed out of the bay looking back towards Turkey.

Leaving Symi Town with Turkey in the distance

As we rounded the headland and headed south we had another close encounter with a NATO warship.

Close encounter with a NATO warship

We put up the main sail and had a blustery sail along the coast with the katabatic winds coming off the hillsides keeping us on our toes. Then a rain shower came getting us rather wet and chilly.  As we rounded the southern tip of the island and entered the channel between Seskli and Symi we were hit with 20 knot head winds and heavy seas.  The sails came down and the iron spinnaker turned on as we bashed along the last few miles.

A bouncy trip south

Panormitis anchorage was a quiet oasis.  A windmill marks the entrance and the shoreline is dominated by a very large monastery which looks more like a central post office.  We anchored, sorted out the boat and then had a well deserved sundowner in the cockpit while watching the sun set over the hills.

The village of Panormitis and monastery

The day's end

And so begins our Greek Odyssey. 

Bozburun Turkey to Panormitis Greece 24.5 nm

Starting the Journey

Early Saturday morning we left Yacht Marine in Marmaris.  We are not sure we will ever be back so it was a bit sad saying goodbye.  But we are keeping our options open and who knows where we will be in a year or two.  We had a great farewell dinner on Friday night and plans were made to meet up with a few other boats on our travels should our paths cross.  So as is the usual case in this cruising life, goodbyes frequently mean see you in another anchorage.  With mixed emotions we cast the mooring lines just after sunrise.  Now the start of our journey across the Aegean begins.

Leaving Yacht Marine as the sun rises

Just outside Marmaris Bay

There was no wind so we motored out of Marmaris Bay and down the peninsula.  We had some excitement on the high seas when a NATO warship and a Turkish Coast Guard vessel passed us.  They were communicating on the radio and it was fun to listen in.  Both vessels spoke very good English so their conversation was easy to understand but consisted of only routine inquiries - boring.

NATO warship and Turkish Coast Guard vessel

 Near late morning a bit of wind started picking up and we unfurled the Genoa.  Songster scooted along on a broad reach at 5 to 7 knots with just the single sail; a lovely sail.  The winds were with us the whole way so as we rounded the bottom of the peninsula and approached the entrance to Bozburun we didn’t have to tack at all.  This is our fourth time at this delightful little village.  It caters for cruisers with the restaurants offering free shower facilities and lending libraries.  The village is very low key and retains its Turkishness.

The approach to Bozburun where gulets are repaired

The village nestled at the foot of the hills

We took a quick trip in the dinghy to the village, stopping on the way to chat with some cruisers we met at Marmaris.  Then back to the boat for a quiet dinner in the cockpit watching the twilight glow and the fishermen setting their nets.

The view from our cockpit at twilight

Fishermen casting their nets

We will be here for a few days to wait out some predicted bad weather and prepare for our entrance into Greece.

Our route - Marmaris to Bosburun - 40.6 nm in under 7 hours