So Long from Salamis

The week has flown by and we find ourselves on the historical island of Salamis for their last night on the boat. We choose a quiet private bay where we are the only boat to anchor out for the evening where we spend the night together. I fixed a Thai dish of lemon chicken and stir fry vegetables for dinner that we have on the front of the boat complete with linen tablecloth and napkins. It has been a full week that seems some how less than 7 days.

In the sun breaking light of morning we take the group to the Athens marina so they can catch their flights. Fortunately our trip is not over and we choose to go back to Salamis for another night anchored this time on the southern coast.

This summer I read a historical book about the rise to greatness that Athens obtained before Christ’s birth redated the calendar. This island played a major role in fighting off the Persian king Xerxes from taking control of the Athenian empire. Through trickery and strategic maneuvering, they trapped the Persian navy in the narrow waterways between Salamais and the mainland. It so destroyed the Xerxes’s navy that the Persians were forced to give up their goal of ruling this part of the Mediterranean. One of the things I have enjoyed about spending so much time in the Mediterranean is learning more European history and having it come to life as we visit these important pivotal places where a nations fate hung in the balance.

Kea Without the I or the Furniture

We arrive early in the day and the town quay is practically empty. So we drop our anchor and back up, securing our stern lines to the iron rings embedded into the concrete quay. It is so lovely that we wonder why there are so few of visitors here. As the afternoon progressed, it took little time for other boats to arrive. A bigger boat arrives and wiggles in between only to be outdone by an even bigger arrival until the entire quay was bumper to bumper full. Ok, it was not quite an undiscovered paradise that we thought it was. The tempo of the little town increased and it takes on an entirely different vibe. There are plenty of traditional Greek restaurants, art galleries and shops selling just what you need to remember your time in this charming little village.

Kithnos

Like most of Greece the history of this island goes back millenniums ago when it was famous for producing the lyrical poets Simonides and Bacchlides and the physician Erasistratos. Those names are long in the dustbin of history, but in their day their fame brought world travelers to these shores. Now it is the quiet bays, whitewashed houses with bright blue shutters, old Greek women dressed in black and picking their way down narrow stone streets, and shops selling locally made items crafted with care that bring the travelers.

We choose an anchorage that is well protected from the sea and has a sandy beach connecting a smaller island to the main island. This is a bay where no lights from even a village penetrate. When the sun sets, the inky night skies are punctured with a dazzling show of nighttime pricks of light. The nights and the waters are warm enough to dive off the boat and just float looking up and dreaming of another more ancient time. I some how feel connected to a civilization that extends back so far in history who also looked at that spectacular sky. While the world has changed dramatically from their days of glory, the one thing that remains a constant is the night sky.

The gang hikes to the small village at the far end of the bay for a night of exploring. When everyone returns back to the boat at around 2am they share tales of hitchhiking in the back of a pickup, renting motor scooters, more amazing food and unlocking the magic of this Greek island. There is plenty of time for napping in the sun on the front of the boat while we travel to the next island adventure in the morning.

Siros, Syros, or just Seriously Beautiful

The Greeks have yet to decide how to spell the names of the islands. Almost all of the Islands have two or three spellings. Some have completely different names that are used simultaneously. Santorini for example is also known as Thera. But however you spell it, we head to Siros, the capital of the Cyclades. We avoid the main port and instead choose two secluded bays to hang out in. On the way, one of them asked if we could stop and so some cliff diving. It wasn't 10 minutes later that we came across these great cliffs.

Our guests rented motor scooters and crawled all over the island making sure they didn’t miss anything. When they came back to the boat in the wee hours of the morning, they raved about the amazing food at a restaurant on the top of the hill, the crimson skies of Greece at sunset and small villages tucked away in the tops of the hills of this rugged island.

A New Crew, and New Fun

We pick up a group of 6 friends on Mykonos who plan to sail with us to Athens. These are friends of my kids who have dreamed of a Greek island sailing adventure. Their special talent is making the most fun they possibly can as often as they can. I feel like we are chartering 4 kindred spirits who are their own version of “Sex in the City” women that have a bond with each other that is deep and commited with a couple of husbands tagging along. Fortunately the winds have calmed down and the aggressive Etesian winds have dissipated. We have a week of smooth sailing and calm waters. Before we leave Mykonos, the gang does some exploring and visits the sacred nearby island of Delos. The next day we head for Syros. There is nothing like unfurling the majestic white sails as they grab the wind. You feel the power in nature take over as we shut off the engines. Blue skies and even bluer seas set the scene for a perfect course to the next island. And if that setting was not enough perfection we are rewarded with a brief visit from a playful dolphin that seems intent on making sure the gangs first visit to Greece is as magical as they envisioned it to be.

Aquatic Rodeo in Mykonos

The new Mykonos harbor was built by EU money and left for the Greeks to finish. So of course it has never been finished. There is water and electricity on the quay, but none of it is turned on. Mooring lines have been laid in some places, but despite the fact that they were laid only last year, they are still in a state of disrepair. With all of the dysfunction of this port, the main problem is that there is little to no protection from the strong Meltomi winds. When we came into the marina the winds were 25 knots. That strong of winds does not make landing a boat safely to the quay an easy job. To do it without incident requires a lot of experience and sometimes just plain luck.

We call it harbor theater. Or sometimes harbor drama. One couple referred to it as Aquatic Rodeo. It is both entertaining and horrifying in a car wreck kind of way. Because Mykonos is only a couple day sail from Athens it gets a lot of sailors who sail maybe every couple of years renting boats for the week to have a holiday in the Greek islands. Mix that with forceful winds and you have a combination that can only be spelled d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r. One by one we saw boats running into the quay at full speed knocking chunks of fiberglass off their hulls, anchor chains crossing in an unbelievable tangled mess and boats being blown sideways into the bows of other boats. I would estimate that 80% of the boats in the marina were either the battering rams or the receiving end of the out of control boats. It was so bad, we felt uncomfortable to leave the boat to go do anything. We were more than happy to leave the marina after a couple of days of stress and wind.

Oh My Gosh, Armorgos

As we pass the narrow coastline of Armogos, the winds plunge down the steep cliff walls to reach gusts of over 35 knots. But it is the waves that continue to be the most punishing. We reef the sails down and make our way around the island. There is a small protected bay on the west side of the island that will be a safe place for the night. Along the bays edge, restaurants hang their octopus out to dry like newly laundered clothing and streetlights create a necklace that twinkles around the harbor as night falls. There are three other boats also anchored out. We bob up and down together in sync with the rolling waves that dwindle in strength. By the time they reach us the waves are no more than a gentle rocking. We should sleep well tonight. It is so peaceful in this lazy bay that we decide to stay a couple of days. We rent a car the next day to visit places not reached by boat.

The “you gotta see” thing on Amorgos is the Greek Orthodox monastery that clings to the face of a sheer cliff. Its whitewashed walls look more like a waterfall than something that was met for living in. There are shallow caves that extend no more than 5 meters into the cliff and the monastery façade in front of these caves tower 8 stories high. The wonder is how they managed to get the building materials up the steep sides and how were they planning to support this monastery once it was inhabited..

You have to wonder why they chose this cliff almost 1000 feet above the sea in a sheer cliff. Well the legend goes like this. In the 9th century numerous icons were destroyed in Jerusalem. The icon known as “the Dark-eyed Mary was broken in half and thrown into the sea by an old woman that thought it was safer than being burned by the heretics. One half of the sacred icon drifted to the shores of Amorgos where a chapel was build at the end of the 11th century. Later, the chapel was replaced by this monastery.
But what of the other half of the icon? 
It drifted to the island of Patmos where another monastery was built. The two islands are therefore connected by the icon of Panagia Hozoviotissa. The two halves of the icon were reunited and… miraculously sealed together.

We climbed up the steep stairs to this impressive fortress of a monastery and crouched through the tiny 4-foot door that would have been home to Alice in Wonderland. More steep steps in a narrow passage only reinforced its fictional feel of any real place. At the top of the stairs there is a small chapel with solid silver dragons used to support candles to light the chapel. Byzantine icons line the walls. Silver chandeliers with iconic dragons hold candles that illuminate the chapel. And if you look closely to the left of the alter, you will find a wooden box with a glass lid containing a bone from Saint George. I take it that is why the chandelier was of dragons.

Fluttering through the Islands

We spend a night on Kos in a quiet well-protected bay. Then on to Astipalaia, the butterfly shaped island. Where the two wings touch together there is secure anchorage with strong protection. The winds continue to be strong and the waves seem to rise and fall in front of us like liquid fortresses. Sometimes they dissolve right in front of us like cotton candy on a rainy day and other times we crash through them with saltwater scrubbing our decks like a washing machine in its rinse cycle.

Castles in the Air

We skip through the islands like a smooth rock thrown against the glassy surface of still waters. Yet the water is not even close to being smooth. As we come in to Simi, windsurfers are skirting back and forth at speeds that are nothing short of amazing. These are islands that we have visited before. Some we remember more than others. Simi is the island with the castle built at the top of a high peak surrounded by white squared houses that from a distance look like sugar cubes holding up the castle that served as its protection for so many years. Now the castle is in ruin and the economic difficulties of Greece are no match to the stonewalls that once could repel her enemies. The young people grow up and move away to the more prosperous cities like Athens, leaving the old to click their canes through the narrow streets and settle into café chairs to contemplate their past glory. What is left behind is a small village with tasty restaurants and decaying windmills on the hill that no longer grind the village wheat into flour. What time cannot take away from this island are the beautiful beaches, clear sapphire water and deep bays that still protect the boats that come to visit the shops and eat at the restaurants.

Etesian is Upon Us

This part of the Aegean Sea can have some of the strongest winds in Europe during the summer months. July and August can be particularly ferocious. And this week the Aegean delivered on its promise of these annual northerly winds. It is these winds that my boat gets her name. Etesian is the old Greek word for the annual northerly winds. The winds are the results of a high-pressure system lying over the Balkan/Hungary area and a relatively low-pressure system over Turkey. You can tell when the winds are starting to form because the dew quits appearing in the morning and the boat deck is dry. As the week progresses, so does the wind strength. And where there are strong winds, big waves follow. We can reef down the sails to accommodate the increase in wind speed, but there is not much to do about the mounting waves. Given the right conditions these winds can strengthen even further on the leeward side of some islands. We watched on Amorgos as the winds plunged straight down the cliffs into the sea. A circle of wind would radiate out and within less than a mile form large waves. Fortunately the catamaran handles the winds and the waves very well. And when the waves get too rough we can go inside the salon area and literally sail the boat from in there using the automatic pilot.

The Ruins, the Royal Tombs and the Mud

The next day we anchor out in a quiet bay just north of Dallion. In the morning, a small flatbottom boat picks us up right from the boat and takes us through a maze of reeds. And just like a mouse searching for a piece of cheese, at the end of the maze we are rewarded with a crumbling old Lycian ruin of a town. This once great city built on the waters edge has long ago been abandoned and left for nature to silt up her harbor and wear away her once grand stone buildings.

The boat continues up river to the town of Dallion. Across from the town are the royal Lycean tombs of once great kings carved in the solid rock cliffs. They look like monumental building with strong Corinthian columns and pendentive doorways. It is a very nice resting place. I am reconsidering a simple grave marker for when I die.

We stop for a nice traditional lunch and relax to enjoy the crowds and shops of the local merchants. Then we board the boat again to continue up river to the healing mud baths. If you are feeling that you have read this before, it is because we were here two years ago. It is a fun outing and we wanted to share it with our traveling guests. We all had fun coating our bodies with thick gray mud and then letting it dry in the sun. The healing powers speak of taking twenty years off of your life. Since today is my birthday, I feel like it would be a perfect time to look 20 years younger. I might even try a second coating.

We got back to the boat in the early evening. I cooked a Thai dinner of vegetables with sweet and sour chicken. The guests surprised me with a little birthday celebration along with a tart pie lit with the traditional birthday candle. Thanks, it was fun celebrating with you. The next day we dropped everyone off at Marmaris so they could make their flights back home. We stay for a few days getting things cleaned up, refueling and hanging out.

Go, Go, Go to Gocek

Gocek bay is really one of the most beautiful bays anywhere on earth. It is a very large bay with a raggedy edge that makes it ideal for tucking a yacht here and there for a private piece of paradise. To the east of the bay is the large town of Fethiye. It has a nice new marina with all the amenities of a 4 star resort hotel. The town is not anything special, but the food and the welcoming people make up for the lackluster architecture. We anchor out right by the marina one night and the next day go into the marina to pick up 4 Canadians who will be sailing with us for the next couple of days.

Repeat Performance

We pick up our friend, Robert who lives in Munich, and Andrea, an Italian living in Switzerland who is chartering with us for the next 10 days. Robert has sailed with us for the past 3 summers. He is a fun guy and we always enjoy having him along. They travel with us, visiting some of the special spots we discovered on the way down and exploring some new spots along the way back up north. We are headed to Feteya where we will pick up some Canadians who will sail with us as well. We have both enjoyed meeting new people and sharing this adventure with them.

Our Last Stop

We would like to keep going further east, but Syria is not that stable right now and we are running out of time. Antalya is the furthest we will get this season. It is a city like many others in this area that has been around since the first century and has a pedigree that includes the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Italians and finally the Turks. There is a fairly new harbor that handles all the commercial shipping, ferries and most of the visiting yachts. But it is at the far end of town, miles from the city center. We really want to stay in the tiny old fortified Roman port. It is a long shot but we roll the dice and head to the old port. And in typical can-do Turkish attitude, they find a place for us, help us with the mooring lines and make sure we have everything we need. So we find ourselves surrounded by small brightly painted fishing boats, traditional Turkish gullets and a stoned wall fortification rising a couple hundred feet around us. The call to prayer echoes every couple of hours as young kids cool off by swimming in the harbor water.

It’s father’s day so Steve and I treat ourselves by visiting the local Haman that is over 600 years old. We get a rough body scrub, followed by a soap down a drenching from the marble carved basins and finishing up with an oil massage that is more like a oil beating. The guy giving the massage takes his fist and pounds the stress away. Is all I can think about besides the pain is what color my legs are going to be when this is over. It is a bit tense, but I do feel incredibly better. Afterwards we relax at a little restaurant for a soft drink and home made apple tart made by the hostess’s mother. It is Turkey at its finest.

This Coast Just Keeps Getting Better

We head for a quiet little bay further up the coast. The pilot books tell us where it is but from the sea, you would never even see it. It is tucked away behind a majestic mountain. When we sail into this bay, the only thing I can think of is Yosemite. Yeah that is what it feels like. The walls around us are sheer cliffs towering around us. And deep in the bottom is this little bay with a small sandy beach. I could hang out here for a week.

Total Eclipse

We are anchored out in a large lagoon. Boats are scattered around the water with their mooring lights on. It looks like a lit forest of skinny trees all topped with a Christmas star. The moon rises over the horizon early in the evening just as the sun had set. It was one of those spectacular blood-red moons so brilliant that I had to take a picture of it. Later that night I am looking up at the sky and the moon had completely changed. It was very faint in the sky, almost like I was looking at it through a veil of clouds. But the evening sky was crystal clear with stars cut like diamonds shimmering all around. I checked on the moon a half hour later, and finally it all made sense. Because this time, half the moon was glowing brightly and the other half was still dull. Yeah, I didn't realize it, but I was watching a spectacular eclipse.

Since we are not so connected to the news, the event took us totally by surprise. It made me feel like an ancient Greek who was unaware of the predictability of such things. I just finished a very interesting book on Greek naval power during the Hellenistic period and was already feeling a bit of a connection as we visit many of the ancient islands where these historic battles took place. This experience was just another nudge in understanding what life must have been like a thousand and a half years ago.

Ho Ho Home of Saint Nicholas

As we sail up the coast, the sea literally turns turquoise and the beaches a creamy sandy color. We sail a 7-mile stretch of sandy Patara beach. At the end is the ancient town of Patera itself, the home of the kind 4th century Byzantine bishop Nicholas, who slipped into legend and finally myth as Santa Clause. It is an ancient Lyceum turned Roman city with many of the stone remnants of past greatness. Sarcogus built on towers rise up 15 feet in the air to punctuate the landscape. Well preserved arches attest to the grandeur of this once prosperous city. It is here also where St. Paul and St. Luke stopped on their gospel spreading missions to change boats. Is there something ironical about a guy that grew up in a beach town being sent to the North Pole forever?

We rented a motor scooter so we could visit all these historical sights. It was just as small scooter, but the handlebars and headlamp looked iike it came right off a Harley Davidson. Just as we were climbing the hill outside of the town of Kalcan, out of nowhere a dog snuck up behinds us and bit Steve on the ankle. It scared the heck out of us, and Steve received a pretty bad puncture bite. I took him to the town hospital but it was closed. So we decided to continue on our visit of the other quite large Roman towns of Letoon and Xanthos.

In between the ancient sites, we stopped at a small local restaurant in an equally small town. There are no tourists here. But everyone makes us feel more than welcome. You don’t order from the menu, you just go into the kitchen and point to the traditional dishes that are simmering in pots. Sooo good. The table next to us tells us we have to try the special desert of the region. You can only get it here. So we are game and out comes two little cakes. One is brown with some kind of dusting of bright green. The other piece looks like shredded wheat. They are both soaked in so much honey that you can’t really taste anything else. It is like you are eating honey with different textures. The desserts are so sweet in Turkey we rarely order them.

Towards the end of the day, Steve’s ankle starts to swell and become painful to walk on. So we head back to town and stop at a local pharmacy. You gotta love the treatment pharmacies are able to give. Two young assistants in white lab coats wash the wounds and disinfect it. Then they put a salve on it and wrap it all in a gauze band-aid. They are also able to sell him antibiotics and a pain killer/anti inflammatory. The next day he goes to the hospital and the doctor gives him a tetanus shot as well. Steve asks about rabies and the doctor tells him he doesn’t have the rabies shots. Not to worry. They haven’t ever seen a case of rabies around here. So Steve asks what signs to at least look for. The doctor tells him, don’t worry. If you notice any signs of rabies, you are going to die by then anyway. Yikes.

The Turquoise of Turkey

We head southeast to the Turquoise coast of Turkey. It is spectacular. Wait, more than that. It is a showstopper. Humm, I am just not giving this part of the world it due. The coast seems like it was created specifically for sailing. Steep plunging cliffs, sandy beaches, verdant green pine forests and bays that look like they are carved out specifically to shelter sailboats from the rolling waves of the cobalt Mediterranean Sea.

The Turkey is Not Quite Done Yet

Like a boomerang we keep returning to Marmaris Turkey this summer. This time we are there for only a couple of days. This is just such a great place to get things done for the boat. I have been thinking that it was time to replace the cushions that Malorie made when I first got the boat. They could have lasted a couple of years more, but we would never been in such a great place to have new ones made. So we contacted a well recommended upholsterer to redo the cushions. And I didn’t stop there. We had a new sunshade structure fabricated as well as a new bike cover to protect our bikes on the back of the boat. I also designed a system that we can change the cushions in the cockpit of the boat to make a big sunbed. There was one more thing I wanted to do. The helm seat really needed to be designed differently to make it more comfortable. So I redesigned it and had the shop build a new seat. And what a difference these changes made. It all really turned out fantastic. We can now snap the cushions in place and not worry about them being blown off the boat. The helm seat is so much more comfortable which is important given the number of hours I spend sitting up there. And the sunshade makes the space back there so much more comfortable when the hot sun is melting us. I am going to use the cousins that Malorie made up front on the trampoline area. So for all those that have been on the boat before, you are going to have to come back and enjoy our new décor.

Creeping Along the Northern Coast of Crete One More Time

I am always underestimating the distances along the Crete coast. It is much bigger than it seems. And while its history is one of domination of other countries for centuries, it still has strong Greek roots that date back literally centuries ago when the city of Athens dominated this part of the Mediterranean. The people think of themselves as Cretans first and Greeks second. While we were there, a big political rally was held in the center of the capital. It is actually the first signs of political activism I have seen since being in Greece. Everyone is yelling about the austerity program imposed by the EU. But in reality, this is a government that needs a bit of a reality check. The locals tell us there are far too many people employed by the government through political connections, but actually do very little work.

We spend the next couple of weeks retracing our steps back along the northern coast of Crete, and retracing our steps all the way back to Rhodes. We visit the friends we met on Kapathos who were delighted to see us again.