When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie: ‘That’s.... (Amorgos)
Awoke in the beach skirted bay on the Eastern end of Koufanisia. It’s forecast to be a hot one today (30+ degrees in October!), so I set off early to avoid the worst of the days heat. I’m heading along the coastal walk back to the main town on the island to pick up some bread and hopefully get some stuff for my psoriasis. It’s been good all summer, but has annoyingly chosen the last few weeks to start playing up again. I take the tender to shore, tie it up on the beach then head long the well defined stone path into town. Along my way I pass close to the beach’s local tourist attraction. The dramatically named ‘devils eye’ - is a hole in the cliff that looks out to sea, not quite the satanic eyeball I’d expected, but worth the short detour.
Made it into town in good time, passing lots of small deserted beaches decorated with carefully stacked stone cairns along the way. Not many people in town - maybe 3 or 4, it’s the sleepy end of the season here now. I suspect it would have been a very different place a month or two ago - or more certainly a year or two ago before Covid spoiled most people’s holiday plans. The baker and the pharmacy both come up trumps, and I’m soon making my way back the way I’d come. Along the low lying cliffs, turquoise lipped beaches I enjoy the peaceful stroll. Got back to the boat, Chez having made new friends in my absence with a a couple from Norwich who’d anchored nearby. We’d originally planned to stay here another night or two, but there’s a lot of annoying flys buzzing around, so we decide to head over the short hop to Amorgos. There’s little or no wind, and we resign ourselves to having to motor over there. We’re pleasantly surprised however when we get away from the bay that a gentle breeze is blowing, and it’s sufficient to glide us on our way at a sedate 4knots. 4 knots is not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re in no hurry, and over the last month we’ve had our share of more interesting sails in both high winds and high seas - so for today... 4 knots is just fine.
Pop the sails away as we near our destination, which turns out to be a truly gorgeous little bay, small beach, whitewashed chapel and cliffs to the rear. Sadly though, it’s not to be... there’s one other boat in the prime position, and after two attempts at setting the anchor we realise that the bottom is more weed than sand - and won’t set to our satisfaction. Oh well, there’s another option literally just around the corner, so we tootle off there.
It’s not quite so pretty, in fact it’s not all that charming at all. The local fishing fleet seem to be using it as their doss-house. Just after dropping anchor, we see bubbles coming up from roughly where I’d dropped anchor - my first thought is we’ve ruptured some sort of pipe.. this turned out to be wrong, as four scuba divers swim their way towards us - they’re not showing a diving flag (you’re supposed to display a flag on a floating buoy when you dive) - thankfully none of them were brained by our anchor - could very easily have been a different story. Regardless of how pretty or otherwise it is here, it’s now late late lunchtime, so we decide to stop for a bite and a cuppa before deciding what to do next. Slightly refreshed, we agree that this isn’t where we want to spend the night. So we head back to ‘lovely bay’ - that’s not it’s name, but you know the one I mean. Spend a little while hunting for a suitable spot to drop anchor in sand not weed, and quite soon, we manage to do exactly that. Now sitting here, writing this enjoying the sound of lapping.
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