Kalimnos - Emborios

South coast of Kalimnos   

The meltemi eased in the morning and backed to be more westerly. That gave us an opportunity to leave Límin Kalimnos and so we left the town quay at lunchtime on 22 April and spent the afternoon sailing clockwise around part of the island.

Vlikadia

A few miles to the southwest of Límin Kalimnos is the small bay of Vlikadia. We spent a night in there last season and could have done so again this time but another bay further on had caught our eye from our reading of the pilot book and from talking to other sailors last year.

Southwest coast cliffs   

So we continued on, enjoying both the spirited sail and the craggy coastline. Above us were some impressive cliffs with huge caves carved out of them. Kalimnos is a rock climbing mecca and every October the island hosts a large rock climbing festival. The routes are bolted and so, as the climbers ascend, they can clip into these fixed protection points. The quality of the routes apparently varies from the most basic right up to top world class, hence the attraction for climbers and the success of the annual festival. That said, the chap in the tourist office was very concerned because he had heard that RyanAir has cancelled all of their late September and early October flights which will make it harder and probably more expensive for climbers to get to the festival this year.

Rock climbing country

Approaching Emborios   

Almost at the northwestern extreme of the island, tucked in behind some small islets is a beautiful bay by the village of Emborios.

Emborios   

It’s a deep bay with poor holding for anchors and so the tavernas have put in mooring buoys. We picked up one of these and settled BV before going ashore.

The bay is surrounded by high ground and was both picturesque and very sheltered. The buoys in the bay have the names of restaurants painted on them. We went first to the restaurant named on our buoy but this was not yet up and running for the season and so we went next door to his aunt’s restaurant for dinner by way of payment for using the buoy.

Calamari with courgette fritters   

We were not alone there despite that restaurant also not being fully set up yet. Like us the crews from the other yachts in the bay were enjoying a beer and there was a group of Estonian female rock climbers on the table next door. The restaurant owner apologised, explaining that they had been busy all day putting up the parasols on the beach and so she had not cooked her usual array of dishes. However, she had some fresh calamari and made up some courgette fritters for us which worked as a nice accompaniment to the beer.

Emborios   

Overnight the bay was so settled that our only issue was the noise from the buoy bumping on the hull. Nicky got up in the middle of the night and rigged it so that it was quiet and thereafter we slept soundly. We spent the morning of 23 April sorting out some e-mails to the UK and, for me, catching up a little of the backlog of blog entries. The plan for the afternoon was to sail 12 miles north to the next island in the chain, Léros.

Kalimnos - Emborios, Greece