Serenity: Kassos to Khalki

From Sitia we had an 8 hour sail up to the island of Kassos - the beginning of the Dodecanese for us. We moored alongside on the outside quay in Fri and we were soon joined by Thalassa who had followed us up from Sitia.

Fri was a rather small, backwater sort of place but had this huge church by the port.

The following day we left Fri to sail to Tristoma bay on Karpathos. A very roly, 6 hour crossing - a lot of swell and not a lot of wind. A difficult bay to find even when you are close to the entrance.

A very quiet little bay with a deserted village - except for the shepherd and his wife who appeared on the shore just as Dave was showering off the back of the boat!

We had been warned about how difficult it was to get in - not to be attempted in rough seas. There is a small gap between the cliff on the right and rocks to the left but after such a choppy sea we could see flat calm water on the other side - glad Dave was on the helm for this bit!

Did we really just come through there??!

KHALKI

An early morning start saw us leave Tristoma bay for a great sail up to the island of Khalki, just to the west of Rhodes. Winds were kind and sea was calmer and the sun shone! Khalki town is a very colourful little port on the north east of the island. We moored alongside on the quay at first but were told that we would have to move when the ferry came in at 6.30 that night and 7.00 the next morning but we could stay there in between. We decided to go onto a mooring buoy and settled on the 3rd one we tried only to be told that we were too far out and would be affected by the ferry wash - so 4th time lucky!

Dave practising his best Greek on one of the locals!!

A lovely walk around the town to this church with its very ornate tower. The sort of town that makes you want to get the paints out!

The view back to town from the church - nice picture shame about the air con unit - didn't see that when I took it!

Inside the church decorated with ribbons for Easter. Beautiful paintings and lots of gold.

A window with a view! Taken from the old Khalki house museum.

Let's just go for a walk Dave said, see how far we get towards the castle he said!!

There's the castle at the top. We are not going all the way up there I said!!

Typical Greek scaffolding! Probably the same as was used to build the castle originally! And yes we did go across it, and yes we were heading up that hill to the castle!

Stopped off at the smallest chapel on the way up. We could just about stand up inside but this is the height of the door! Once inside you could almost touch all four walls at the same time.

From the entrance to the castle looking back down to the road we had walked along. The scaffolding on the right seemed to be how they conveyed the sand and lime up to the castle for the renovation works. There was a sledge which ran on this track but a small motorised 4 wheeled barrow carted the bags to the bottom of this track. A large noticeboard informed us that 800,000 euros from the EU have been given for this renovation work?!