{"id":5562,"date":"2015-05-16T08:02:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T08:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=5562"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:32:13","slug":"mersincik-to-leros-and-many-stops-in-between","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=5562","title":{"rendered":"Mersincik to Leros and many stops in between"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"View<\/a>
View from “Mikro Horio” on Agathonisi Island, Greece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Agathonisi<\/a>
Agathonisi to Leros in the Dodecanese islands of Greece:\u00a0 A – Agathonisi, B – Arki, C – Kusadasi, D – Pythagoreon, E – Lipsi, F – Leros<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are way behind on our blog, so I will go through the highlights quickly and try to catch up.\u00a0 We left Ke\u00c3\u00a7i B\u00c3\u00bck\u00c3\u00bc (Turkey) on April 28 heading for Agathonisi Island (Greece) in strong southerlies.\u00a0 That night, we stopped in Mersincik bay, at the far end of the long peninsula on which Datca is located.\u00a0 Just as we were entering the bay the wind increased to 35 knots with higher gusts and we could see whitecaps even inside the bay.\u00a0 But it was late and there seemed to be no alternatives nearby so we entered and anchored with some difficulty.\u00a0 In the middle of the night the wind switched to east and I sat anchor watch for a couple of hours.\u00a0 The wind moderated by morning and we headed for Agathonisi, just a few hours away. We have already written about the Syrian refugees arriving in Agathonisi.\u00a0\u00a0 As the temperatures were cool, we did a lot of walking in the hills, and enjoyed a few excellent meals at George’s Taverna.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
View from Mikro Horio (hilltop village), Agathonisi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Mikro Horio (hilltop village), Agathonisi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tiny<\/a>
Tiny chapel in the Mikro Horio of Agathonisi has religious paintings and icons including the rare Our Lady in the Sunglasses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We left Agathonisi on May 3 intending to sail to the marina at Ku\u00c5\u0178adas\u00c4\u00b1 to officially clear out of Turkey, but observing an island 10 miles to the west, we changed our minds.\u00a0 The island is Arki (Arkoi) and we spent a delightful two days there.\u00a0 We picked up a mooring in narrow Port Stretto where we had less than a foot of water under our keel.\u00a0 Next to us on the only other usable mooring was the British boat “Wight Egret” with David and Beverly aboard, who quickly became our friends.\u00a0 The mooring belonged to the Apolafsi Restaurant, where we dined twice.\u00a0 We walked into town (Port Augusta) every day to drink coffee and use the internet.<\/p>\n

\"Port<\/a>
Port Stretto, Arki Island (Greece)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Walking<\/a>
Walking path, Arki Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"On<\/a>
On the walking path, Arki Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone walls topped with thorn bushes traverse Arki Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"At<\/a>
At the southeast corner of Arki Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On May 5, we sailed from Arki Island to the Setur Marina in Ku\u00c5\u0178adas\u00c4\u00b1, Turkey.\u00a0 In the windy strait between Samos Island and Turkey (Mycale Strait), the glass cover on the vanity smashed and bits of glass fell into the toilet and stuck in the toilet pump.\u00a0 That,\u00a0along with an erratic engine thermostat, gave me some more things to do in the marina.\u00a0 Two days in Ku\u00c5\u0178adas\u00c4\u00b1 were enough to provision the boat, fix the toilet and thermostat, and get officially cleared out of Turkey.\u00a0 On May 7, we sailed to Pythagorion (named after their most famous son, Pythagoras) on the south coast of Samos Island in order to officially clear into Greece.\u00a0 Even though the Samos Marina knew we were coming, there was much confusion when we arrived.\u00a0 Inside the tight confines of the marina, with 25 knots of wind, the lone “marinaro” (“boat boy”) changed his mind twice on where we should tie up.\u00a0 Laura was running over the deck moving fenders and lines while I struggled to control the boat until we tied side-to on a concrete dock.\u00a0\u00a0 The next day we rented a car and drove to Vathi in order to get SIMs for our mobile phone, USB modem, and iPad, and then drove around the island.<\/p>\n

\"Thanks<\/a>
Thanks to this sign I avoided taking the shortcut across the marina in my rental car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Manolates, Samos Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Manolates, Samos Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Manolates, Samos Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We sailed from Pythagorion, Samos to Lipso (Lipsi) Island on May 11, anchoring off of the beach at Katsidia at the sparsely populated southern end of the island.\u00a0 We had been told that Delilah’s Taverna on the beach was excellent.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it was closed for renovation.\u00a0 The day after we arrived, we walked 35 minutes to Lipsi town up and down a steep road and had lunch at the Kalypso Restaurant.\u00a0 We dawdled over ice coffee waiting to see if it would rain but finally decided it would not and walked on the town quay to see the sail boats tied up there.\u00a0 Just as it started to pour, we came about “Wight Egret” whom we met in Arki the week before.\u00a0 David and Beverly invited us aboard to get shelter from the rain which soon turned into successive waves of thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds.\u00a0 After two hours on “Wight Egret” there was no end to the rain in sight and it was getting dark.\u00a0 We found the island’s only taxi driver and he took us to Katsadia with our iPads protected by an umbrella borrowed from “Wight Egret”.<\/p>\n

\"Sabbatical<\/a>
Sabbatical III at Katsidia, Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sabbatical<\/a>
Sabbatical III at Katsidia, Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Church,<\/a>
Church, Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Laura<\/a>
Laura overlooking Lipsi town<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lipsi<\/a>
Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lipsi<\/a>
Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On May 14 we sailed from Lipsi Island to Blefouti (Plakouti) in northern Leros Island in order to get protection from the approaching southerlies.\u00a0 On the way, we anchored off of uninhabited Arkhangelos Island for a swim.\u00a0 On the sail over, we caught up with “Wight Egret” and we anchored together in a small cove at the western end of the island.\u00a0 Everyone swam but me — the water is still too cold for my taste, although the day was delightfully warm.\u00a0 Laura could not speak for the first minute after she got in, but then got used to the temperature.\u00a0 “Wight Egret” had lunch on Sabbatical III and then headed for Lakki, while we went on to Blefouti.\u00a0 We had a nice walk around the bay.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the one taverna at Blefouti had not opened for the season yet and we were left to have scrambled eggs for supper.\u00a0 The next morning (yesterday, May 15), we left Blefouti at 6 am to sail across to the western side of the Aegean, ending up in Rinia Island (just west of Mykonos) after a 13 hour sail in a decent southerly with a tiring steep chop.\u00a0 Today we are just resting.<\/p>\n

M.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
David and Beverly of “Wight Egret” at lunch on Sabbatical III at Arkhangelos Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from Blefouti (Leros Island) towards Lipsi Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Donkey<\/a>
Donkey grazes at Blefouti (Leros Island)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are way behind on our blog, so I will go through the highlights quickly and try to catch up.\u00a0 We left Ke\u00c3\u00a7i B\u00c3\u00bck\u00c3\u00bc (Turkey) on April 28 heading for Agathonisi Island (Greece) in strong southerlies.\u00a0 That night, we stopped in Mersincik bay, at the far end of the long peninsula on which Datca is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mersincik to Leros and many stops in between”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-turkey-greece2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}