As soon as we rounded the headland leaving Folégandros Island, we picked up the light northerly winds that had been forecast, unfurled the headsail and enjoy a lovely sail across to Milos Island.
As we neared Milos Island, though, the wind dropped, so down came the sails and on went the engines for the rest of the way.
By noon we were anchored in our chosen anchorage, but not before we took advantage of the very large bay in calm weather to recalibrate our electronic compass.
After a coffee onboard, Elaine dropped Roy ashore to clear in with the Port Poilice. Turns out each office has there own set of rules and their own tin god to deal with. Today was a smarty pants telling us we have to depart with 24 hours, something we had no intention of doing because we would be hunkering down here for bad weather, forecast to arrive tomorrow and stick around through Thursday. When Roy pushed back and indicated we would not be leaving, he was told that he then has to return to the Port Police Office to obtain our outward clearance stamp; this officer refused to do the two together, as every other officer has done thus far.
Needless to say, we are so over Greece and it’s bureaucracy. In all the years of sailing we’ve never experienced anything like this before and quite honestly, if we’d known, we would have sailed right on by; heading to Malta instead. We only hope Italy isn’t as pedantic and bureaucratic.
As for the little town we anchored off, it didn’t look very touristy at all from a distance, although there was a large charter base located in the bay and we did have three other non-charter yachts for company, increasing to seven before evening fell.
After an afternoon nap and a nice hot shower, we dinghied ashore for dinner, surprised to see just how many tourists there were out and about, together with the numerous charter yachts and day trip boats all returning; it was mayhem actually as they all jostled for their spot along the town quay.
Our challenge, however, was finding somewhere to leave the dinghy. After circling around and being chased from a number of spots, we were eventually informed we could tie off from two rafted work boats; absolutely ridiculous that there are no dinghy docks provided.
Our dinner at the restaurant, Flisvlos, was delicious, though, enjoyed after a stroll around the little town.
