9/7 18:15 - Karavostasis Folegandros - It was a rough night down here in the small port of Folegandros. With very strong gusts of wind, and really unpleasant waves, the Rinia was shaking with discomfort all night.

Karavostasis literally means 'boat stop'. And what's in a name, again?

It's never a good sign when the Meltemi keeps blowing during the night. Today, supposedly, there's about 6-7 beaufort out at sea. But in port, there a still severe gusts hitting us. This storm presumably took only a few hours to fly over from Athens down to where we are. We even had reports of rain up there!

Yesterday it was a short, but nice trip from Ios, along the south side of Sikinos. Today we planned an early visit to the main town of Folegandros by bus, followed by just another short sailing trip to Milos. I guess Milos will have to wait: Not only would we have the strong Melemi right in our face, but also would we've liked to have slept a little better before going for a clown's act like that. And we're still on vacation, aren't we?

So around noon, after we finally were sure we could trust the Rinia to be securely berthed, stern to the quay and towards the majority of the gusts of wind, we took a bus up to the main town. Now this was a town like one pictures a small village in the Cyclades: white, low, sunbaked little houses and miniature churches; a few tavernas under roofs of flowers and trees on a couple of quiet 'platías'; and the always amazing view of the high cliffs over the raging blue and white sea. Well, you either had to be there amongs the few daytripping tourists, or wait for the photographs to be uploaded to this site.

Now we are back aboard, the weather seems to have calmed down a little. Tha doume what tonight and tomorrow will bring.