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I think I need to start this story about a year ago. Around Christmas last year a tiny seed of a travel idea germinated in my head.

Dodecanese, Greece

Nickjenkins
2003-11-20 16:38:39

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in fact known as one Lero-Kalymno. We negotiated the straights off Xerokambos without much difficulty however and head south-east down the coast of Kalymnos.

The sailing was again delightful and we ran before a 15-18 knot wind all the way to Vathi. Only one incident troubled us during this leg. About three miles off the coast, at Ormos Palionisou, a Greek navy frigate sat drifting slowly south. Now we had seen Greek warships before and generally had no troubles, but navies in general have a funny way of not obeying the normal rules of the sea and it's best to give them a wide berth. We were just doing this when another warship came bearing down on us from directly ahead in the south. Doing a good thirty knots and kicking up frothing white bow wake the patrol boat could have easily have run us down without even noticing. Hence there was some frantic course changing to give him too a wide berth.

Imagine then the consternation that arose when a third warship appeared on the scene and started bearing down on us at speed, again from the south. It was at this point that someone quite appropriately put the James Bond sound track on the stereo. Seeing that the coast of Turkey was less than twenty miles away to the east there was every chance of us being involved in an international incident.

The third warship proceeded past us and headed north up the coast. The frigate which had obviously been lying in wait for it, turned north in pursuit and fell in behind it. Now although I scrutinised it through the binoculars the third warship didn't appear to be flying a national flag and was of a distinctly different design to the other two. I still suspect that the third warship was in fact Turkish and the Greek frigate had been waiting for a traditional game of cat-and-mouse. We were glad to be rid of both of them.

About half an hour later we turned slightly west and head ...