Levitha

Levitha is so small it isn't in the Greek Island tour books.It is an extremely rocky island but it sustains two families, their garden and a herd of 150? goats and sheep. The island had many rock fences scattered across it, yet there remains so many still on the ground you'd think they had the fence rocks shipped in. It must have taken generations to build them all.

We sailed from Patmos in medium winds but quite heavy seas. Fortunately the seas were behind us so they helped us along our way. It took almost 5 hours. We found a lovely protected bay on the lee side of Levitha and secured a mooring buoy. Outside the bay there are gale force winds but waters here are utterly calm and it's hard to believe it could be different just over this little hill.

Soon after arriving we dinghied ashore and had a swim in a nice little cove. The water is perfect here, cool enough to be refreshing, clear enough to snorkle, and, just plain fun.

Jim tried to go for a hike and take pictures but he couldn't get far because of the fencing that runs all over this little island.

The bay is being used by several other sailors. 2 Brits, 1 German, 1 Israeli, 1 Italian, and 1 Slovac. What a great combination.(We fly a Brit flag and our little Canadian flag flys high and small as a courtesy flag, as does Howard's flag of Wales.)

The families run a taverna and they serve a wonderful meal at prices that we can't afford to do twice! Jim had a goat stew served with a mint flavoured rice. It was delicious.We sat in a nice walled outdoor eating area where 8 tables were available. The wall had a variety of old jug fragments atop it, perhaps relics of the past. Their buildings were all painted white and connected around a small courtyard. The window frames were painted green.

It has been a relaxing day, no shopping, no real sightseeing (except snorkling) so we have totally enjoyed watching nature and catching up on paperwork, etc. I even managed to do a sudoku.
Lewis' and Pat went for a snorkle yesterday from the boat to a rocky beach. Many sea urchins live in the rocky waters so we had to be very careful of how we got to land. Once on land we explored a bit but couldn't go very far. Marg and I climbed over and rocky path (generally used by the sheep and goats) and made our way to an easier area from which to swim back to the boat. Our exploring reminded me of Marg and I at 12 years old.

July 24, 2009 and we are staying yet another day. Gale force winds are out on the sea and we are not keen to rock and roll on them. Many other sailors have left this sheltered bay, I suppose they are on a more restrictive time line.

This morning Jim dinghied me ashore and we took our veg and fruit peels to feed the goats. They are so used to the barren dried briers that they were very suspect of our lettuce and cabbage leaves. We finally picked most of it back up and brought it back to our boat.

The goats have a great variety of colour. There is a long haired blondie, a red haired billy goat, blacks and white, plain black, etc. They are quite small. The shepherd comes with a pail and feeds them morning and night. I don't know where they would get fresh water but it must be available somewhere.

Marg and I did a large laundry this a.m. We take water from the sea for the wash and then rinse with our fresh water source (sparingly). We want to make sure we have lots of fresh water to rinse off with once we have had our daily swim. It seems the Sea is extremely salty.