Nisos Nisiros

This lovely old chapel is one of many on the island.

Our time on Astypalaea (several different spellings) draws suddenly to a close on Friday 14 August. We have downloaded a weather forecast the previous evening and got together with Bodil and Ole, (Danish friends from the Rally last year who we have by chance bumped into here on this island!). B and O are heading across the Agean for their haulout on the Pelopinnisos Peninsular and we are heading back east towards Kos Island.

It seems that tomorrow is the ideal weather window to leave behind this windy, but lovely island. We say farewell for about the third time as they have planned to leave before, but this time we think they will definitely go and so should we.

We have taken a bus trip and seen as much as we can, stopped for a swim at Maltezana, walked each morning up through the steep and charming streets to the top of the hill above the harbour at Skala Astypalaea and made good use of the good internet connection at the café on the waterfront.

As we pull out of our berth our neighbours who have come from Nisos Nisiros tell us it is their favourite Greek Island so far, so we lay a course for Nisiros, 40 NM to the south east on the way to Kos. We skim across there easily in a 15 knot breeze on the aft quarter. It is one of those magic sails we have from time to time with a following sea, which gets under the stern and swishes us along with a soft sighing sound. Matelot goes with the flow, dipping into the hollows and rolling over the crests of the waves. She is like a great white bird on the blue blue sea.

Six hours later we are laying the north-western end of the volcanic island of Nisiros in a freshening breeze with quite a big sea behind us now. We haul up into the lee of the island of Nisos Yiali close by to pull our sails down. We understand this is a quarry and not a desirable stopping off point, so are a bit surprised when we spot the inviting turquoise waters at the shore line. We can see the huge scars of the quarry in the backdrop. We are hankering after a refreshing swim, so decide a closer investigation is called for and soon drop anchor in around 7 metres of crystal clear water on a sandy bottom.

Minutes later we are over the side with masks and snorkels on. To our great surprise and delight, we find ourselves swimming is what appears to be a huge glass of champagne, with effervescent bubbles rising up from the sandy bottom. There are hundreds of vents in the sandy ocean floor and the bubbles rise to the surface in myriad ribbons of light. We would love to have an underwater camera to capture this image – it is like a fairyland scene as the ribbons of crystal bubbles bend and sway with the current. We dive and roll over and watch the phenomenon from underneath lying over the vents and floating to the surface on top of the bubbles. They appear to be mineral water vents as we can smell the sulphur in the water.

Eventually we drag ourselves away from this magic place and as the light starts to fade make our way two miles across to the harbour of Palon on Nisiros, hoping there will be a berth for us as we have lingered a little too long. We are met by Dimitris who directs us to the last place, alongside a rusting wreck at the harbour entrance… Phew what a day! We wander ashore and stop in the popular looking Aphrodite Restaurant where we are to enjoy the best Moussaka ever for dinner. The servings are so generous we take home our leftovers for later on. We give this delightful place a resounding ten out of ten.

We end up squashed between a rusting old wreck and an old timer belonging to some people we met in Alanya. They have a lovely doggie who is most welcome on our boat!