Órmos Kriftos

Nísis Dhiaporos ahead   

Pirgadhíkia was a useful stop to get some essentials but we really wanted to look at some anchorages on the western side of Cape Singitikós. On the chart there is a very distinctive island, Nísis Dhiaporos, which looked to have some interesting bays. So, we left  Pirgadhíkia at midday on 30 May and gently sailed our way 9 miles down the coast.

Looking out of one of the narrow entrances of Órmos Kriftos   

At the northern end of Nísis Dhiaporos is a long narrow bay, Órmos Kriftos; we worked our way in carefully because there is not much detail on our charts. The gap between the islands pictured above is just 50 centimetres deep but the main route in was much deeper than we expected. Once inside we made our way to the head of the bay where it opened out. To our right we saw that two Italian yachts had beaten us to it and were already anchored in the peaceful surroundings. We recognised the yachts as being the ones which were moored to the quay at Kamariótissa on Samothráki.

Villas overlooking Órmos Kriftos

Nestling in the trees around the Órmos Kriftos are several large villas. Clearly we graded them all and decided which ones we liked and which one we didn’t, just in case we won the lottery.

We stayed 2 nights in Órmos Kriftos. It is both beautiful and very sheltered; a perfect peaceful anchorage. We spent our time pottering about and tackling a few outstanding jobs. The Duogen had become very rumbly. I had only changed one of the bearings when we were at Marmaris because the other seemed absolutely smooth. That was a false economy of effort because now it too needed to be changed and so we split the case again and put in 2 brand new bearings. Hopefully that will be it sorted for at least another year.

Sailcover finally finished   

Nicky swimming training   

Whilst I was in there re-running the DuoGen cabling, I also dug out the sewing machine from the depths of the machinery space. Using the Velcro we had tracked down in Marmaris in the winter (finding the correct sized tape was a bit of a job), I finally finished off the sailcover. Once the sewing machine was actually out, it was a simple job to finish the flap covering the zip [Ed: getting the sewing machine out took longer than than the time to stitch the Velcro on!].

Nicky was very dedicated and swam over a kilometre every day.

Shock at not being the ‘May Champion’   

During the evenings the serious business of the Backgammon Championship took place. From my perspective this was far from satisfactory because Nicky kept winning. This was an unusual turn up and it was quite a shock when 1 June arrived and Nicky was able to boast that she was the ‘May Backgammon Champion’.

Órmos Kriftos was a lovely anchorage and exactly the sort of place that we had hoped to find when we decided to explore this part of Greece. However, there is definitely more to see and so we decided that 2 nights was enough and that we should move on.

Órmos Kriftos, Greece