Nísiros

Despite the forecast for a 15 knot northwesterly all day, the wind didn’t start to build until mid-morning on Sunday 7^th September, so we had a lazier than anticipated start.

When it arrived, the wind was actually from the west-southwest but that didn’t matter as we were heading east and it arrived at forecast strength so we had a lovely very broad reach, with the genoa poled out to starboard, past the grounded ship and straight across the 40nm to the north coast of Nísos Nísyros.

Mandraki

Just before we reached our destination, Palon, and whilst we were abeam Mandráki, the capital of Nísyros, the wind died so we had to motor the last couple of miles.

Palon

The port at Palon has recently been renovated (more EU money) and the entrance moved from the north side to the east side which makes it significantly more sheltered in the prevailing northwesterly winds. We moored on the south quay (to the right in the picture above), just in front of a couple of tavernas, which conveniently had excellent wi-fi. The Port Police in Palon are significantly more proactive than in most of the ports we have been to and no sooner had we finished securing BV than their ‘man on the ground’ visited to request that we go to the office to complete the arrivals paperwork before he knocked off for the night. At approx €7 per night it was not an unreasonable charge [Ed: and it would be nice to think that some of that is going back into repaying the EU loan for the renovation work. Perhaps I’m just naïve!]

Palon

Palon is an attractive little place which seems to exist because of the port/marina. There are a few fishing boats but it seems that the main income generators are the yachties who visit and spend money in the tavernas and shops.

Both our guide books say that the highlight of a visit to Nísos Nísyros is a trip to the caldera so, not terribly bright and early the next morning, we went to hire a scooter from ‘Captain’s Motorbikes’, also located just behind BV. At just €15 to hire a 125cc scooter for 24hrs we thought it an absolute bargain. We asked if we could both drive the scooter and were answered with a surprised ‘Of course’. The fact that we didn’t need to show our driving licences and that Nicky had never previously even been pillion on a scooter or motorbike, let alone driven one was neither here nor there! The proprietor advised us that we should delay our visit to the caldera until later in the day, after all the tripper boat tours had been and gone, but he recommended a number of other sights to visit before then so we set off at the wobble; a 125cc scooter with pillion passenger doesn’t drive much like my 650cc motorbike did and there are a lot of hairpin bends on Nísyros!

First stop Mandráki, the capital. We abandoned the trusty steed on the outskirts, where it seemed that the main road petered into tiny alleys and lanes. Our mistake: these are main roads for the local scooter drivers and some of them fairly hare around the corners. Still, on foot we could better appreciate the architecture, the colourful shutters and balconies and the ubiquitous doorstep mosaics made from smooth black, white and grey pebbles.

We strolled up to the monastery, from which we had some lovely views across the town and out to some of the other Dodecanese islands.

Back on the scooter, and with growing confidence, we followed the signs to the paleaokastro (old castle, basilica) negotiating innumerable hairpin bends along a relatively narrow road with sheer drops to one side and no crash barriers which focused the mind somewhat! However, the views across the island were impressive, as was the amount of terracing for agriculture that had been completed in years gone by. We also noted that many of the churches on the island are painted in terracotta and white, rather than the more usual blue and white.

Happily we met no buses on our way up the hill and arrived at the paleokastro unscathed. Here we found another EU sponsored sign saying that the castle had been renovated at great expense and was closed on Mondays. Since there was no gate, we just walked in anyway and wondered what we would get extra on a day when it was open. The castle dates from the 4^th century BC and the gateway and fair proportion of some of the walls are still standing from that time. Like exterior wall at Ancient Delphi, the exterior walls of the castle were built from polygonal stone blocks, which fit together without the need for mortar. The inside of the double layer cavity wall was filled with rubble – not quite what an insulation salesman would have in mind but far more effective for withstanding enemy attack!

At the time when the castle was built, the population of the island pretty much all lived in or close around it and that remained the case until at least mediaeval times. As in Astipálaia it is only as a result of the relatively recent stability and safety from pirate attack that the villages at the seashore have developed. For obvious reasons the views from the castle walls are excellent.

Yialí Island being mined for pumice

We had our packed lunch just outside the castle and then set off for the caldera. The road took us quite close to Palon harbour so we thought that we would drop off anything we didn’t need and check on BV on our way past and we are very glad that we did. In our absence the yacht that had been on our port side had left and had clearly lifted our anchor in the process. Though the crew had put it back as far out from BV as they could, it was not properly dug in and BV was working her way back towards the quay. Fortunately, she was moving quite slowly backwards as she was leaning on the large Turkish gulet that was moored on our starboard side, so her stern hadn’t yet hit the quay. We were very lucky that day as we were able to retrieve the situation very quickly merely by hauling in on the anchor chain, which dug in the anchor again. More usually, you need to totally unmoor and properly re-lay the anchor, which is a time-consuming and frustrating process when you had got the anchor laid properly first time around.

Anyway, having secured BV again, we set off once more. There was another steep climb and yet more hairpin bends to negotiate but the view from the top of the island down into the main caldera was worth it. Having tested the scooter’s brakes to near destruction on the run down into the caldera, we arrived at the craters (open to the public, €2 per head).

The last major volcanic eruption at Nísyros took place about 25,000 years ago. However, there is still intense hydrothermal activity in the couple of kilometres below the surface of the caldera and every now and then the superhot liquid blows upwards and creates a hydrothermal crater. The biggest of the 10 in the bottom of the caldera is called Stefanos. It has a maximum diameter of 330m, is one of the largest hydrothermal craters in the world and was formed by a massive eruption that took place 6000 years ago.

You are allowed to descend into the crater to take a closer look at the bubbling mud pools (you are warned not to get too close as the ground is particularly unstable at the edges) and the sulphurous fumeroles. The scenery is quite wild and the bugs are too!

The crater feels a lot larger once you are down inside it and, as we experienced on Volcano, the ground sounds disconcertingly hollow in places. There are also 3 other hydrothermal craters close to Stefanos which are worth viewing but you are not allowed to descend into these. These craters are much younger than Stefanos; Flegethro and Polyvotis were created in 1873 and Little Polyvotis was created by the last hydrothermal eruption, which took place in 1887.

Flegethro

Polyvotis

Though it is much smaller than Stefanos, Polyvotis is in many ways more spectacular, being relatively much deeper and surrounded by high cliffs of lava. It has some very impressive looking fumeroles, which are also impressively smelly!

Nikia

Having walked around all the craters we returned to the scooter for the last major climb of the day – all the way up to the village of Nikia, perched on the caldera rim high above the craters but with a great view down to them. From the bottom of the caldera we could just see a couple of the houses of the village but, standing out clearly above the village, was a small blue and white church, so we resolved to climb up to that too.

Nikia is another lovely village, with more tiny, winding alleyways as roads and some great views across to Tílos and down into the caldera. Finding the steps up to the church took some doing but we eventually spotted them tucked away behind the Volcano Museum. Having climbed the 300-odd steps to survey the view Nicky was a little disappointed to find that there is a car-park behind the church which is, presumably, accessed from a lane off the road we had just driven along to the village. We had both rather hoped that the church, seemingly perched on a small pinnacle overlooking the village and the caldera, was only accessible by steps, much like the chapels above Íos’ chora. From the church we could clearly see the Turkish coast, along which we planned to sail the next day en route to Sími, though Sími  itself was lost in the distance.

Nísiros