While we slept, the captain left Kos for Pserimos. We moored stern-to near the entrance to the bay; Beetfish could not enter the shallow Blue Lagoon, so after breakfast we went by dinghy. On the return we finally caught our first fish. Soner’s saddled-seabream rig worked, and I caught three small fish with bait, one of them large enough to eat.
Towards noon we headed north and paused at Plati behind Kalymnos. Its sandy bottom, mirror-still bay and clear water made it a place worth returning to. Kalymnos’s barren, precipitous mountains pushed its people towards sponge diving for centuries. When we reached the tiny bay at Vlychadia, the melancholy of September had settled over its two nearly empty beaches.
That evening, at Giannis’s recommendation, we met Vasilis at Nautica Taverna. The cured fish and fried calamari were memorable. During the night, wind accelerated through the valley and struck us directly, so the captain and Alperen kept watch in shifts—our first genuinely anxious night of the voyage.