Our eventual destination is Lesvos, and Lemnos is on the way. We left Chalkidiki on the mainland at first light again for a long day on the water, and we had almost perfect wind so we sailed for much of the way. We only saw one boat the entire day, and it was an 80m long cargo ship dipped slightly below the horizon (I looked him up on AIS). There were a few hours in the middle of the trip where we could see no land at all! This is not so common in the Med. Usually, you can see land 20-30 nm away (37-55 km). It is very common you can see your destination when you are leaving and usually a few islands are visible in the distance.
We ended up in Diaphori Bay in Lemnos all by ourselves. It was a very large excellently protected bay with a few houses around, but almost deserted. Over 4 days I saw 4 people and a bunch of sheep. It was quite windy the entire time, but our anchor completely buried itself in the muddy bottom (I could not see any part of it above ground) so I wasn’t worried about dragging…..it was just a bit too windy to be fun. If you were not a good swimmer you could easily be pushed away from the boat by the wind and waves. We were waiting for the right amount of wind to sail to Lesvos….and the forecast was for a bit too much wind so we were waiting it out. (We could sail in any wind, but we strive to keep everyone happy and comfortable.)
Two fun things that happened in that bay. I a saw a big octopus! Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture, but it might have been 1m across if stretched out. It was very well camouflaged: it was identical in colour to the sea bottom about 5m down. The second thing was we saw 2 F-16s fly over fairly low. I would guess they were 4-5000′ high.
Lemnos is close to Turkey, and I’m sure Greece and Turkey are both keeping a close eye on each other (Turkey has been provocative in the past)…..these babies cruise at just under 600mph!!! if you are flying at that speed you take off on one side of the Med and you need to start turning in 20 minutes. It is a very small area for one of those planes.
Eventually we got bored and decided to hop over to the next big bay of Moudros. Moudros was described as a boring little town….my expectations were low. Plus it was quite a shallow harbour, 2.1m in places. Spruzzo has a draft of 2.01 (maybe a bit more with all of our stuff onboard) so there would only be a few centimeters between us and the bottom in some places. We would go into the harbour if we could and would anchor outside if there was no room. On the map it was just one big bay over…..but when I looked at the distance it was going to take us 2.5 hours to get there! Limnos is huge! We saw 3 big dolphins just outside Diaphori bay which is always exciting.
We ended up alongside to a long cement pier. I saw 2.1m on our depth finder but we never touched bottom and there was an easy spot for us to very professionally glide into. There are 2 larger catamarans here, but we are the biggest mono-hull…..I think we are the biggest that can fit!
If Lemnos was a person, they would have been important when young, and are now living very quietly in a shack off the beaten path. In ancient times Lemnos was a central hub. In WW1 ( the battle of Gallipoli was launched from here) and WW2 Lemnos was in the center of things…..but now it is very, very quiet. No hordes of tourists…..just a bunch of small fishing boats and locals and a few visiting sailboats.
Surprisingly, we had an outstanding dinner at the taverna near the dock. We had the best fried zucchini ever (crispy as potato chips), and my chicken souvlaki and Victoria’s Greek beef stew were excellent! And it was not rip-off expensive. This would be a great place for a very quiet Greek island vacation.
Adventures on Spruzzo 