Dreamcatcher Log

Thursday 17th April

We left Samos Marina at 14:00 after Yiannis the electrician came on board to fix the (slightly forgotten) switch on the forward shower drain. It took longer than expected as it is totally inaccessible so he rigged a temporary switch under the basin. Automatic bilge pump switch will be fitted this summer, we hope. He is as gorgeous as ever but his knees (shot in the Caribbean in a mugging for $20 cash in his wallet) are still causing him to limp badly. However in true Yiannis style, all he mentions is the positives and how each two weeks he sees progress with his physio.

After leaving the marina, we hoisted both sails and celebrated how easy everything is with the new furling gear. After a hopeful gust of about 12 knots, the wind dropped to 5kts and we turned on the engine.

Arki is on a direct line from Samos to Patmos and we decided to pull in to Port Augusta for the night. Manolis (Taverna Trypas) is looking healthy and bright after his heart troubles a few years ago. He is now 74, still wearing his beret and dancing to Dave Gilmour and Mark Knopfler at every possible moment. His wife Katrin who (we suspect) keeps the wheels on the road was as friendly as ever and they gave us a delicious dinner of fava, Greek salad and pork from the grill.

Nikolas has sadly decided to take a sabbatical. He is from Arki but his family are back in Poland and he has found running Taverna Nikolas exhausting and stressful. We missed him and his mother’s cooking but I guess it is probably time she retired and enjoyed the rest of her life without spending many hours in the kitchen every day. The taverna looks sad without the colourful model boats that his father made. His father was around, taking our lines, mending his nets and chatting to his mates in the back of Taverna Trypas.

Taverna Nikolas has been taken over by another group of people. Manolis didn’t know what they were planning in terms of style of cooking. They had dinner in Trypas the same evening we did and looked like a nice group of people but have no connection to Arki. Time will tell – it is a unique and tiny island and I fear will not suit people “from off” but I hope I am wrong.

Friday 18th April

Good Friday. We walked round to the beach alongside the entrance to Port Augusta, hoping for a swim. However we found that a lot of plastic had been washed ashore over the winter and there was a dead goat lying by the waters edge. The smell was indescribable so we decided against a swim after all and walked back to the boat.

I was having a nightmare with my phone and used Manolis’ wifi to get on a chat line with Vodafone. Big mistake! An hour later after all sorts of nonsense, it turned out that I had to manually select COSMOTE as my network, not Vodafone because on automatic it always reverts to Vodafone which doesn’t cover the islands. David’s phone works fine on Vodafone so riddle me that!

With a working gadget, I walked along to join David in the main church of the island where the priest and his assistant were reading a chanting the service of mourning for the death of Christ. Not understanding a word, we lasted about half an hour and slipped away.

Greek pies do not last until the next day. Our pies from Samos were horrid and soggy so we ate some tomato salad and bread then set off for Patmos at about 14:00. The fish loved the pies though!

We motorsailed across with very little wind and came in stern-to on the harbour wall in Scala. Dimitris the car hire guy has made a lasting friendship with David and was very concerned that we did not have the masthead burgee flying! He said we had to have it up by 8 a.m. on Saturday!!

I went to see Victoria to have a pedicure – she runs her business on her own because the busy season is only 2 months and it doesn’t work economically to employ an assistant. She would rather turn business away than have the hassle and overheads of employing someone from off the island, involving board, lodging, taxes and a heap of bureaucracy.

EASTER IN PATMOS

Having received much-needed advice on where to eat over Easter weekend from Dimitris and Manolis we were fortunate to have some good reservations. Everything gets booked up very early because Patmos is a special destination for Easter. After Jerusalem and along with Mount Athos, it is at the centre of the Greek Orthodox Church so many people bring their families here to celebrate. We missed a couple of important ceremonies. On Thursday the most senior priest washes the feet of 12 of his colleagues in a ceremony akin to the last supper. On Friday, the cross with an effigy of Christ is walked around the Chora.

Dimitris told us about a nice family restaurant very near one of the churches in Scala, the main port area of Patmos. Pantelis is down a small street parallel to the main road along the front. It is run by the fourth generation of the family and, of course, was bustling with actvity. We sat outside and had a simple supper before heading to the nearest church for 9 p.m. After much chanting, the most important icon of the church was placed on a daïs and carried out of the church with the congregation following. We were each given a candle and followed all around the back streets, eventually ending up in the main square to mingle with the congregation of another church doing the same thing. It felt very special to be part of this ceremony, blessing the houses in town.

Easter Saturday brought more gorgeous weather, about 21C in the daytime and we took our little rental car to the beach, To Melói. It is a beautiful cove, just to the north of Scala and the promontory to the north looks like a glorious estate with main house, beach house, chapel and stunning gardens. I wonder who it belongs to, lucky them! The water temperature was fresh at 19C but not at all chilly compared with 10C at home. It was warm enough to have a decent swim.

Back to the boat, showered, snoozed, changed for the BNO. Our restaurant reservation at Tsipouradiko, made by Manoli under his nickname “Trypas” was for 6:30 as the kitchen closed at 9:30 for everyone to get to the midnight service.

We headed up to the Monastery just after 9 p.m. for the Resurrection service, not realising that it didn’t really start until 11 p.m. Being so early we had a seat just outside the main chapel where we could hear all the readings and chanting. David took the opportunity to “meditate”, dropping his candle. We sat next to a very interesting woman from Australia who was taking a one year sabbatical. There was mention of an ex-husband and five children back home. She is hoping that the younger two, both boys, would be able to join her at some stage but the three daughters have small children and cannot travel.

The service was not participative, just as well since the only two words I recognised in three hours were Kyrie Eleison. The reading and chanting crescendoed as midnight came closer and the priests, dressed in elaborate gold robes, came out from the inner sanctum so join the masses in the open air part, right next to us. By now the whole monastery is packed and there is barely standing room. At midnight the bells rang and fireworks and homemade bombs were let off but we didn’t see this as it took a full half hour to get out of the monastery, with so many people.

Our restaurant did not offer a meal at midnight, or we would have gone back to try the famous soup, Magiritsa is served to break the Lenten fast and is made from lamb offal, onions, dill, lettuce and finished with avgolemono sauce. Many Greek people fast for lent by not eating meat so this is their first taste of meat in 40 days. They may also eat a main meal of lamb, goat and pork – it is a proper feast.

We walked past our family restaurant from yesterday, which had said earlier that they were too busy to take us. There were spare tables but by then David had lost all interest in soup and was positively averse to trying other meats so late at night. And so to bed.

EASTER SUNDAY IN PATMOS

After all the revelry of the night before, Easter Sunday dawned without fanfare. A few church bells rang in a haphazard way and the town snoozed off its meat feast. We went to the same beach and had another lovely swim, not realising that we were missing the reading from the Book of Love in seven languages up in the monastery, having been advised it was at 3 p.m. in the afternoon.

Our only commitment was a reservation at Aloni’s restaurant at 2 p.m. for lunch. When David called, he was told we would be the only non-Greeks. Perfect. When we arrived, the place was completely full. Long trestle tables with 20+ people on each one. We were shown to a table for two, on which sat a Greek woman, Alexandra and her daughter Maya. She immediately started chatting to us about the very good live music, the dancing and the food. The man in charge, and all the waiters, were dressed in traditional Greek clothing, waistcoats covered in brocade, britches and the women in long skirts. The food arrived plate by plate, all homemade, all delicious. By far the most delicious was the goat casserole which under other circumstances I would have been wary of but it tasted so good, delicately flavoured with herbs and very lemony potatoes. People stood up to join in the dancing, a bit like American line dancing or Scottish dancing with intricate steps and heads bobbing.

Half way through the meal, the waiters all took to the stage and put on a performance, the head man leading the way with much ducking and diving and slapping of ankles. He teaches Patmians how to dance from a young age, keeping this tradition alive. Zorba roll over, this was much better. Now firm friends with Alexandra, we invited them to join us on board Dreamcatcher for a drink before the evening’s entertainment.

They arrived in time for a drink – Alexandra had coffee as the police put up road blocks on festival days to check for drink driving and she had to drive back to the Chora. Then we walked along to the town square where our lunchtime musicians had relocated for the town festival of dance, largely involving the children. On the way, I managed to trip over on a rough pavement and hurt my knees which blew up into an enormous swelling. Alexandra dived into a restaurant and emerged with a bag of ice. – that really helped and we carried on. The dancing lasted for a couple of hours and the mayor gave out free wine to everyone there.

We retreated to the peace and quiet of our cockpit, to the continuing random sounds of bombs going off, as they had been all day. The young men make proper pipe bombs, ramming gunpowder into a pipe with a fuse and linking them with a trail of more gunpowder. Several people have lost their lives to this and the police, despite their perpetual blue-lit presence in squad cars, seem to have no control. The government has now declared these bombs a terrorist threat so the consequences of getting caught is much more serious – but that seems to have made no difference to the lads concerned who continue to make loud bangs without fear of reprisal.