Kalamata is located at the northern end of the Messinian Gulf. There we stayed for several days, among other things to see the ancient Messene.
Now we are heading south, with destination Limeni, not a harbour or a marina, but an anchorage. In the south of the Peloponnese, there is no need to get up early or to set off, because the wind in summer mostly does not come before noon. It is mostly a southwesterly wind, which then turns more westerly during the day. That means: first out of the bay under engine, then the wind starts about 5 miles from Kalamata. Southwest: So the wind again exactly from the front. That means: turn around, change of course, instead of southwest now more to the west. But because the coastline further to the south leaps back a little, it's not a big loss of height. Soon a turn is possible again, because the wind has turned further. So we can enter straight into the bay of Limeni. Travel guides compare the landscape that begins here, Mani, with Scotland: barren, harsh, windy, poor……and clans "rule" here, one lives in residential towers like in Tuscany, only harsher, more dismissive.
We have to search a bit, but then after six hours of sailing the anchor drops to a turquoise blue shimmering five meters depth on a sandy ground.
Open the railing, get out the swimming ladder - go swimming!
And the reward for the sailing day: a bay like an amphitheatre: a wide semi-circle that rises sharply, small villages on steep mountain slopes, almost alpine, cubic residential towers, rocks, and in the evening the lights of the villages - beautiful.
