I’m sure you are all desperate to know what happened to the sparrow chick. Don’t worry, we managed to feed it on Saturday morning and it even allowed us to stroke it. We went into town to do some shopping and on our return, it had flown off so our job was done.

One of the reasons we went to Epidhavros was to await the arrival of friends who had chartered boats out of Athens for a week. We had planned to join them for some or all of their week. They weren’t due until Sunday evening so we spent our time profitably by finishing getting Nimmie ready for the season. This included putting up the bimini to give us shade in the cockpit, Liz going up the mast to change the anchor light and pumping up the paddle board. We also went to see the famous amphitheatre about 15 mins outside of the town. This was built in the 4th century BC to honour Askeplius, considered by many to be the father of modern medicine. A hospital, hostel and stadium were all built on the same site as the amphitheatre and the small museum holds a fine array of medical instruments used at the time. The amphitheatre holds 14,000 spectators and is still used today.

We also managed to catch up with Cathy & Jorge, who we had first met in Monemvassia last year and Cathy had introduced us to the Facebook group, Women Who Sail the Med.

Our friends duly arrived on Sunday afternoon so we celebrated by eating out at a local taverna. Some of us had slightly sore heads in the morning! This didn’t deter us and we left Epidhavros mid morning to head towards the island of Hydra. Those of you who have been following this blog last year will know that Hydra Town is to be avoided at all costs due to the number of boats crammed into the small harbour. We anchored in a bay less than a mile walk away where we could swim in crystal clear water and have a peaceful night’s sleep. Some of our mini flotilla opted to go into town that night but we stayed on board to eat and have a quiet night to ourselves. We did venture into town Tuesday morning and it is as cute as ever but still bustling with tourists.

We left Mandraki Bay around midday to head towards a (late) lunchtime stop in a bay a couple of hours away. We had a glorious sail, once we had cleaned the bird poo from the stack pack and sails! Lunch in turquoise water (yet again) before making our way to the island of Dhokos to sit out a blow that was coming through. We had used the bay last October for the same thing and it was an incredibly quiet night. We were invited over onto Dioni to have dinner with them. You wouldn’t have known that there were any strong winds nearby at all.

Wednesday morning was spent enjoying the clear water and chatting amongst friends. It was lovely to have company. After another late lunchtime stop for a swim, we went into Poros Town for the night. This was the first time since last year that we were on a Town Quay and even had to pay! Still it was great to be with friends who needed both water and electricity. We had an end of holiday meal at a lovely taverna that gave us free wine – what could go wrong!

The charter boats had to be back in Athens by Friday evening so we spent a lazy afternoon in Russian Bay just outside of Poros Town. It used to be the old Russian Naval Base in the Greek War of Independence (hence the name).

Now it is a lovely bay with a trendy bar and beach. Perfect for a few hours. The others headed north to the island of Aegina so that they wouldn’t have too long to go on their final day. We decided to join them as this would shorten our journey to Kea, our first stop in the Cyclades.