Adventures of Thésée: SPECIAL EDITION

Monday 31st July...

Linda - HALKI at last. As I said yesterday, Dean came here about 12 years ago with Claire and vowed one day to come back here with his own boat. Today was the day. Lots of photos were in order as we walked about the waterfront and visited two anchorages. Also we made sure the Hellenic Coastguard stamped HALKI in our Transit Log for a keepsake.

One hour trip across from Nisos Alimia to Halki

We had to be aware to miss this reef at the half way point

Here is the reef in reality

Chalki town with its three windmills

We found a space on the pontoon in the town

When the ferries arrive there's LOTS of surge on the yacht pontoon

Next this massive ferry arrived, yikes!

The Captain spun it round and backed onto the quay

Thesee on the pontoon

Dean and Thesee

Thesee again

The waterfront restaurants

Tiny cars for the Hellenic Coastguard

Going to get a stamp in the Transit Log

They always have a flag flying

Now walking to the first anchorage and beach bar

Ftenagia Beach anchorage.... nice clear water

Beach Bar flowers

Lovely little houses

Now on way to second anchorage called Pontamos

Graveyard with a view

Pontamos anchorage

To the beach bar

Fabulous for safe swimming here

A refreshing Orange Juice

Unique doors

Dean on a mission to find the apartment where he stayed last time

It took a short while to find

By the Bell Tower

Along the back streets

Pretty pink and white flowers

Here's the apartment. YES!

Deja Vu Dean??

Just had to eat out tonight on this special occasion

Big full moon

My chicken loving best friend

Tuesday 1st August...

Linda - Awakened in the night by a ferry moving and a big roll that goes on for about 20 minutes. We'd decided that we would move off the quay by 9am to avoid any more ferry movements. We popped just around the corner with Thesee and dropped anchor in Ftenagia Beach anchorage. It's beautiful but very rolly, not dangerous though like the quay. A big ferry came past and into Halki twice plus the small ones, but even when there's nothing about it's rolly. Even now at 9pm we are rolling for no reason. One good thing though is that it hasn't dampened Dean's spirits.

Snorkelling in Ftenagia Bay anchorage

How cool is this?

I sent Dean away so that I could get more photos

You can come back now

Thankyou Mrs C

Vessel Finder showing us in the anchorage south of the main harbour

Today's view and beach bars

Fantastic sea colours

BIG ferry arriving from Karpathos

It's bigger than Chalki town

AW next to us and too close tonight

Today's NEW furry chicken loving best friend

Dinner ashore again tonight, we tried a new restaurant, and had to dinghy in too.

Wednesday 2nd August...

Linda - Today we said 'Cheerio' to Chalki, and 'Hello' to Nisos Tilos. FYI Nisos means Island, and A LOT of the island names end in OS. The sea was lumpy on and off throughout the three hour trip especially when we approached the southern tip of Tilos. The pilot book states that the currents can be very strong in either direction and there may be eddies (whirlpools) also. Today for us it was just a bit lumpy.

We are at anchor again in the main bay at Livadia which doesn't look very exciting, but once ashore it was really very pleasant. Again, only a small village really, but it's the main town on the island, and we also got the chance to get the Transit Log stamped again.

Tilos is supposedly famous for hiking trails, I can see why but not at this time of year i'm afraid. I can hardly walk down the road in this heat let alone up a mountain.

View from our anchorage in Livadia, Tilos

Imposing Church

A number of mountain peaks surrounding the bay

The harbour is quite tiny

More of my favourite pink blooms

Church entrance

Church close up

Thesee in the middle

Quite a long way out today

A very nicely decorated bar for refreshments

Mosaic

St George's Church

Greek version

St George's

After a walkabout along the lovely beach front, Dean was lured into a very small hotel where the owner tempted him with some home-made Raki. This was the Dream Island Hotel.

Good supply of wines too

Nicely decorated lobby table

Me shading myself with my faithful light shawl

Back to the harbour

Well, we had only been back on board for about 10 minutes and were sorting ourselves out, when Dean noticed a yacht far out in the bay with his anchor down. He commented how strange to anchor so far out. Well, already stranger than strange the AW boat that was actually anchored too close to us last night in Halki had basically followed us here this morning. Can you believe it, it was their boat which was dragging out into the bay and was about half a mile off shore. Dean looked with his binoculars and couldn't see anyone on board but their dinghy was on deck so someone must be on board.

Luckily, our dinghy was in the water with the outboard engine on, so Dean jumped into it without a second thought and rushed across to the rescue!

Dean arriving in his dinghy to the dragging boat

As he arrived one of the guys heard him and jumped up, the other guy was fast asleep. Dean shouted 'You're dragging, you're dragging'. The occupants were Turkish and once they had time to gather their thoughts on what was being said, they went into panic mode. All three of the occupants had been asleep and had no idea they were drifting out to sea, in fact probably all the way back to Turkey if it hadn't have been for my hero Mr C.

They were all very grateful for being alerted and a little while later came over with a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for us as a thankyou. Dean told him he should ditch his delta anchor and get a SPADE anchor like us.