Kalimnos

Passing Mandráki on Nísiros   

After our night stop in Palon we left at 9am on 20 April. Heading west along the north coast of Nísiros we passed close to Mandráki, a town we’d very much enjoyed exploring in 2014 with its monastery on the headland and the bronze age fortress on the ridgeline above. The island sheltered us from the wind but once clear of it we had a good 15 knots of breeze and BV picked up her heels and raced off towards the western end of the island of Kos.

We were heading for Kalimnos and the shortest route was via the western end of Kos. As expected, as we went around Kos there was an acceleration zone and the wind increased to just shy of 30 knots. We also got an unexpected bonus of an escort because large school of dolphins decided that swimming around BV at 8½ knots was great fun.

The dolphins stayed with us for about half an hour. Great fun to watch and fantastic to see them so close in their element.

Once north of Kos the wind dropped a little but we still made good speed. This was great sailing!

Our destination, Límin Kalimnos, came into view from behind the headland but by this stage we had slowed up to 4½ knots which we kept up for as long as we could, shaking out the reefs, until finally we were sheltered by the cliffs and the engine had to go on to get us into port.

We arrived at 1445, sorted out the paperwork and spent the rest of the day pottering about. Nicky wasn’t feeling too great and so took things easy whilst I messed about with my new WiFi gadget. Not a great idea because part way through, when I did a reset, it stopped working - oops!

During the afternoon the wind was fine but overnight the meltemi got going and there were some big gusts. I got up to lay some extra lines because the gusts were coming from our side but generally we were well sheltered.

Límin Kalimnos is quite a big town. We’ve been here a couple of times before; it seems to be our regular spot to wait out the meltemi. There is a large fishing fleet, a reasonable sized shopping area with a couple of supermarkets and a lively café scene on the seafront. There is also a good archaeological museum but we had visited that last time and so turned our attention to other things.

The strong winds continued throughout 21 April so we stayed put as planned. We desperately need to get some laundry done and the place that we had used last time was still closed with it being early in the season. Fortunately, the berthing master, Ioannis, was able to help and took it all away for us. The bedding was delivered back that evening and the rest the following morning.

Sheep delivery scooter    

The Wifi gadget company rang me back from the UK after I had left a message with them. They sent through an excellent e-mail and a configuration file which allowed me to properly reset the system along with guidance on how to change countries as we travel around without upsetting it. Excellent customer support from Paul at Digital Yachts.

After the second batch of washing had been returned to us on 22 April we went shopping to restock the fridge. We got everything we needed and then, outside one of the supermarkets, we saw our first ever ‘sheep delivery scooter’.

BV with extra lines for the meltemi   

Throughout the morning the wind dropped off and so we removed the extra meltemi lines and made ready to set off again. We wanted to work our way around the island and, in particular, stop at what looked to be an interesting bay at the north-western part of the island; Emborios.

Límin Kalimnos, Greece