Day 115

3/26/2014

Last night I slept under a restaurant's awning. The tent provided a canvas roof and no walls just a few feet from the water. It was supposed to protect me from the rain. In the night it poured. The concrete slab my mattress was on turned into a puddle. My sleeping bag was wet, but luckily I was protected by my computer which soaked up most of the water like a sponge.

In the morning I was cold and wet. The sky was dropping buckets. A woman took pity on me and told me to come into her bar to warm up, but everyone was smoking and I couldn’t breathe.

The man who I sawed for yesterday gave me an orange and helped me set up a clothesline in the tent to hang my stuff up to dry.

At around 12:00 the sun came out and a strong west wind blew whitecaps across the water. It was 15 miles to the Astakos, and with the tail wind I could make it before dark.

Only it wasn’t really a tail wind. It was a north wind, but protected as the village is by the island Kalamos, it was behaving like a tail wind in my immediate vicinity.

As soon as I was around the corner of the island I learned the wind’s true nature. I struggled into the headwind for about half an hour. My body still ached from the day before. I began to worry that I would not make it before dark.

I turned east and headed for the small village on Kalamos. The man in the internet bar told me there was no way I’d find a free shower this time of year. I think it has to do with me being here right before the tourist season. If it was winter then people would think of me as a man on an expedition and I’d be welcomed into homes as I have been many times. If it was summer they would think of me as a tourist. Right now, I’m an early tourist. No accommodations are available yet.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="4068,4069,4070,4071,4072,4073,4074"]

Nautical miles paddled: 5
Current location: 38.623187,20.931194