Kalymnos

Hello again both we and the boat are fine. From Symi we headed to Kos hoping to go in the old harbour but it was full so we motored on to Pserimos and this time round we stayed overnight in the small harbour. There were no other yachts when we arrived so we went alongside leaving space on the wall behind us, later 2 other yachts did arrive one decided to anchor outside of the shelter of the harbour mole. No idea why, they must have had a very bumpy night. The other guys went stern to on the ferry mole, so all good. We had a chat with one of the taverna owners about island life on Pserimos in winter. After end of October only about 20 people stay full time on the island everyone else decamps back to Kalymnos for the winter. This year there will be a few extra people as the local hotelier is renovating a couple of houses. One of the tavernas also stays open to provide coffee and a place for people to meet. So it’s a bit like Herm really.
After our night on Pserimos we phoned Kos and booked 2 nights there but as they had no room for the current night and the following days weather was rubbish, high winds and rain ( the medicane, we later learned), so we booked for Monday and Tuesday night so will be headed there tomorrow morning. So we have spent two days in Kalymnos, the sponge diving capital of Greece. We just mooched around town and the harbour visiting some of the numerous churches and wandering along the maze like alleys on the Saturday. We saw the church of St Nicholas, the patron saint of the sponge divers, that had been funded by the sponges caught on the last dive of the season over many years. In the courtyard of the church was a wonderful miniature dive boat. In the outer harbour there were loads of dead boats, we think they might have been migrant ones, they take up a lovely sheltered corner unfortunately. Up the hillside to the west of the town was another church and cemetery with incredible views. Today we did part of the Italian Way, this is what the path between Kalymnos town called Pothia and the village of Vathi is called as it was built by the Italians in the first half of the 20th century as no overland route existed. It is paved in part and goat 🐐 track in others and also fairly steep. We only did part as weren’t able to find out if there were any buses on a Sunday to or from Vathi, so we walked from Pothia where the harbour is up and over until we could see Vathi in the valley beneath us and mainland Turkey just, the views along the way were stunning.Read more