Part 1: Moving to Milos
With a couple of days grace in the weather before it started blowing again we decided to bite the bullet and head south to the island of Milos to escape the Meltemi for good. Having made the momentous decision to move south, the stress of dodging the Meltemi was lifted from our shoulders. We left our unprotected, but by now quite calm anchorage in the dark. Thank goodness for chart-plotters. The wind was very light, it really is all or nothing here, so we had a tiny bit of sailing but sadly we had to motor most of the 89nm to Milos. It was not enough to put us in a bad mood though as we felt happy to be escaping.
Having arrived late in the afternoon we could not see or swim our anchor, but in the morning the silt had settled and the clearer water revealed we were floating above a huge abandoned ship's anchor and large chain. Wow that is a bit too close for comfort, it could have snagged our anchor and made our departure a lot trickier. A lucky break to miss it.
After a morning walk ashore we head off to do a clockwise tour of the island. The coastline is spectacular, with many beaches and caves. Although in a couple of places this is marred by evidence of quarrying and mining. During the late 1800s Milos was exploited for minerals like Sulphur, Kaolin and Pumice. The colours of the cliffs vary significantly from bright reds and oranges through to stark whites. Mountains dominate the landscape on the western end.
We stop at Kastanas beach on the east coast for lunch, a swim and a paddle. The water is beautiful and crystal clear and the rock formations are spectacular. I managed to surprise a couple of nudists as I padded through an archway to take a closer look at the tiny beach hiding behind it. They quickly scarpered.
Heading further around to the south west corner of the island and we stopped for the night at some incredible caves called Kliftiko. These are very popular with day tripper boats from Adamantus and the larger inlets are full of action with tourist boats coming and going, spewing out punters in their dozens before leaving and making way for the next boatload. We find a spot to the west of the coves with a couple of other boats, contemplate moving into one of the small, more enclosed coves and picking up a mooring once the tour boats had left, but decide against it. We feel it spoils the ambience of the place for others if we plonk ourselves in the middle of it and it will be nice to see it empty in the morning. We spend the rest of the afternoon exploring on SUPs and in the RIB, dodging snorkelers and swimmers.
Early the next morning we SUP around the caves again to visit the coves without hoards of tourists. Two brave little powerboats had spent the night inside the cove but everyone else had left. The light was beautiful as was the calm, but we wanted to leave before the madness started again.
1 Comment
Sarah Dunne
3/11/2021 09:48:47 pm
Incredibly clear water -lovely!
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AuthorAfter more than 5 years of (minus time off for Covid) and more than 27,000nm Lynda has finally got the hang of this cruising life Archives
June 2024
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