Ormos Palionisou on Kalymnos, Tuesday 26 July 2016

Well, I have not posted before now because we hadn’t done any sailing!  We spend three days in Kos just relaxing.  We did some domestic stuff and shopping.  We did a little sight seeing.  We went back to the reconstructed Roman House, which I really love and then to the archaeological museum to see some of the statuary rescued from the house.  But we decided to leave today.  So it was early rise and get everything ready.  We managed to get away just before 8:30am.

The weather forecast looked unexceptional.  The winds were forecast to be just off the nose, possible enough to sail, but with wind speeds of only 8-10 knots.  So we were expecting a long boring motor trip into light winds with a fairly flat sea,

So we headed off planning to go to an anchorage on Lipsi.  But the weather was not as expected.  The wind was blowing top of a 4, bottom of a 5, right on the nose!  Further the sea was bigger than forecast being between .5 and 1 of a meter.  That doesn’t sound to bad, but with the wind on the nose we were banging right into all the waves.  It was not nice or comfortable.  And in those conditions we were making slow progress even with highish revs on the motor.

After about two hours of this (luckily I did take a pill before we set out) even Richard got fed up with the conditions.  So we started to trawl the pilot book for an alternative destination.  He found what sounded like a suitable bay called Ormos Palionisou on Kalymnos.  It is described as having two tavernas who put out mooring buoys.  So we decide to go into it to see what it is like and if any of the buoys are vacant.

It turns out to be a very pleasant stop indeed.  The bay is surrounded by hills, which look quite dramatic.  There is a taverna on each side and each taverna has about 7 or 8 buoys with pick up lines. Plenty of the buoys are vacant and we have no trouble picking up the line, securing it to the boat and then with the dinghy attaching our own lines to the buoy.  We have picked an orange buoy belonging to the taverna on the right hand side of the bay.  It is fine, but we note that the taverna on the other side sends a boat out to help you attach your buoy (not that we needed help) and also seems to take you in their boat to the restaurant.

But we are fine.  We haven’t bothered to put the outboard on the dinghy.  Too much hassle and we are quite close to the shore, so Richard rows for the evening.  The weather is warm and sunny and the sea is lovely.  Slightly cool at 25C and a lovely turquoise colour!  So we both have a couple of good swims and just relax.

We row over for an early dinner at the taverna where they keep giving us more little nibbles on the house!  My only complaint is that for some reason our boat (and not the others) is rolling about a bit.  But then again, I am tired and I expect the motion will put me to sleep.