The Dodecanese

The Dodecanese are a crescent chain that follows the southeaster Turkish coast curving west towards Crete. These twelve islands banded together to protest about being deprived of their special tax benefits granted to them by the Turks in the 16th century. These people don’t forget a thing. Like most of this part of the world, they have flipped back and forth between foreign occupiers more than a pinball in a high point game. The Venetians, Genoese, Romans, Turks and a few other countries have all occupied this part of the world at one time or another. As a result, some of the islands look more Italian, for example, than they do Greek. Simi, our first stop is one of those islands. With charming homes all with pediments that give them a strong Italian look rise up the steep slopes of the harbor. It looks a bit like Positano, Italy. At night when the sun goes down, the lights seem to glow all around the quay that the town is built around. Doug, one of our charters was celebrating his birthday. So we got all of the surrounding boats to sing happy birthday to him while we lit a sparkler stuck in a lemon of the appetizer tray. He was politely embarrassed but took it in fun. We had a wonderful meal at a restaurant recommended by our new floating neighbors and then came back to the boat for a special dessert on the moonlit bay.

We spent a couple of nights on the island of Nisiros, one of two islands in the Aegean Sea created by volcanoes, Santorini being the other volcanic island. It is an almost square island with a steaming center crater that attests to its former eruption that blew the top off of the mountain. There are still steaming vents and boiling mud pots in the center. It is said that two gods were fighting with each other. One of the gods scooped up a hunk of mud and threw it on the other who got buried with it. The god that lost the mud slinging fight is still trapped beneath its surface and boy is he mad. He is still venting steam from the incident. We walked on the bottom surface of the volcano floor smelling the sulfur and checking out the crystallized openings of the vents that lead so far down to the depths of the earth being careful to not step too close to the small openings that have a tendency of collapsing.