Lesvos (Lesbos)

Lesvos (Lesbos) is where the family (Kara, Michael and Christine plus Samantha, Christine’s sister) all joined us. We arrived here a few days before our visitors which gave us time to check out a couple of anchorages – Sigri & Plomari before we decided on Skala Loutra – just a short taxi ride from the airport.

Sigri – metal stud door
Sigri – Church
Sigri – Operational Windmill

Town Square Plomari
Sadlery in Plomari
Note the wooden donkey saddle

Two days before the family arrived there was a large storm brewing in Northern Greece. Together with our friends on Taka’Oa we headed off to the top of the bay (5 nm) where there was good anchoring in shallow water, a short fetch (which means the waves can’t build up) and plenty of open sea behind us – a perfect place to weather the storm. We erected our riding sail, a small triangular sail rather like a dart, which goes at the back of the boat and stabilises the swinging effect of the wind. This great little sail reduces our swing arc from 110 degrees down to about 30 degrees making for a much more comfortable time at anchor.

At about 10pm the wind was howling; up on deck what looked like a strobe light was going off every few seconds – it was sheet lightning to the north of us. We only had to endure the thunder and lightning for a few hours but the wind gusted between 20 and 45 knots all night – quite a wild ride. The next morning we heard on the news that 10 people had been killed in the storm which hit Northern Greece with it’s full force. The area worst hit was where we had been only a couple of weeks ago.

Moving down to the bottom of the bay again we anchored at Skala Loutra, doing do a quick clean up of the boat, re-fuel, and fill the water tanks. The family arrived by taxi about 10pm after travelling from Split to Vienna then direct flight to Lesvos – just in time for dinner (10.30 pm) at the waterfront Taverna. It was a very still night which was lucky as the boys had to ferry all the luggage out to the boat via dinghy.

OMG where will we fit all that luggage
No worries Dad

Captain John and First Mate (yours truely) got the boat underway at about 7am and let the poor darlings sleep. We motored an hour to the head of the bay (same place where we were in the storm ). A dull day meant a good day for exploring so it was off up a track for a couple of kilometres to find the remains of a Roman Aquaduct at Moria. We descended over a ridge and there it was before us in the middle of nowhere – this gargantuan crumbling mass of local grey marble blocks forming stone arches and pillars standing 60 meters high from the valley floor carrying water aloft for a distance of 26 km across valleys and around hills to the ancient city of Mytilene; transporting an estimated 127,000 cubic metres per day- what a feat of engineering. Probably constructed at the end of the 2nd or the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. it was considered to have been built by Hadrian due to its typical classic elements.

Back on the boat rather soggy, after walking through some heavy rain showers, we headed back to our Skala Loutra anchorage for some swimming and lazing around. A bus ride the following day took us over the hill to the main town of Mytilene and a visit to the Castle with great views of the surrounding areas. Pastries and Cappucino Fredo followed (iced coffee with whipped milk on top) then back to the boat to clean up prepare to move the next day.