on that path

On completing the MSLS programme in Karlskrona, Sweden, a bunch of us went on a well-deserved sailing holiday in Greece. From June 8th to 22nd, Chris and I sailed from Athens around the Cyclades and back. We were happily joined by classmates Scotty, Ingrid, and Geneva on the first week, then Mel, Gunter, and Renee on the second week. We visited these islands: Aigina, Kithnos, Serifnos, Melos, Folegandros, Ios, Santorini, Delos, Paros, Tinos, and Kea. The following is the story of our absolutely fabulous trip!

On June 5 Chris and I got the bus to leave Karlskrona forever. We had a year’s worth of possessions with us after mailing a few books away, and trying unsuccessfully to sell Chris’ guitar back to the music store. He’s just as happy keeping it since it might come in handy on the sailboat. Goodbye Karlskrona!

We stayed the night in Copenhagen at The Saga Hotel which borders the red light district, and the owner agreed to store my big bags for free.....otherwise I would have paid $100 each way on the plane, or a similar amount for storage at the airport. Gotta love these family-run businesses!

The plan, after arriving in Greece, was to spend a couple of days in the town of Delphi before boarding the boat with the rest of the crew. In warm and sunny Athens, we got a car rental and drove out of town, taking an older, less busy highway to Delphi, a two-hour drive north-west of Athens.

The landscape was so dry-looking. We got lost along the way, asked a young woman in a “Kantina” for directions and thought we should at least buy a beer and souvlaki and sit for a while with the locals. Mmmm….beer and souvlaki in a rusty old cantina, under a raggedy old tent looking out to the dusty dry landscape and olive trees, sitting with a couple of old guys at the next table. They didn’t speak English like the cantina gal, but they took over the
responsibility of giving us directions with authority.

In Delphi, we were surrounded by mountains. We stayed on a main street in the Varanos Hotel, in a room with a fantastic view of the
Meditarranean with the little towns, like Galaxidi, twinkling below. We had a great meal with local greeks at a little place on the sidewalk: moussakas and roasted lamb (or mutton, really), greek salad and rose wine made locally. Stray cats are commonplace in Greece, rubbing up against your leg in almost every Taverna in any town. I got into the habit of giving them leftovers from my plate.

It’s quiet here in the mornings compared to the farm at Skarva that I got so used to over the previous few months. There are hardly any birds singing – at least no nightingales. Only a rooster in one of the houses surrounding the hotel crowed.

Got a late start for the Delphi museum and there were crowds of tourists, but it worked out OK because we could eavesdrop on the tourguides for a running explanation in English of everything. English guides were in the minority, and we were happy that we weren’t surrounded by Americans.

Many of the friezes on display were very badly damaged, either by earthquakes, but more often vandalism by overzealous Christians through history. The displays showed a good evolution of the art from 6^th century BC to 4^th century BC.

We went outside to see the original site of the town of Delphi, with many of the temples and other structures like an amphitheatre and stadium, still there. Outside the temple of the Oracle there was a large egg-shaped rock that people were placing their hands on mysteriously. Walker says it is to realign your aura, but I’ll have to look it up.

There were some tourists with extremely bad sunburns and it was a scorcher of a day. I went up to one and offered my own sun-lotion because she looked so bad and scorched and wasn’t even covering up, but she just ignored me.

The hike we decided on wasn’t exactly Mt. Olympus, but wasn’t an easy walk either. The European Continental Trail “E4” started at the bottom of the stairs right in the Delphi town area, following switch backs up the side of a mountain. We came across a large shy turtle sitting in the dry leaves and prickly plants, retreating into it’s shell at the sound of our voices. Her shell was about a foot in diameter, and looked like a helmet with flared edges – she did not look like the flat painted turtles in Ontario.

Further on at a spring cistern, we filled up our bottles. It was so hot and dry, the water was cold and sooooo good. We had a picnic of olives, bread, feta, and sausage, plus the ever-present beer. Continuing on, we came across a shepherds hut, fairly large, which looked more like a temple really, all mason work with a cross on top. There was a dog there – a large malamute-looking guy that need his undercoat to be brushed out (maybe I was just missing Buddy at the time). Unfortunately here you feel you need to carry a stick around unfamiliar dogs. We almost stepped on a large green snake that slithered away very spectacularly from under Chris’ feet.

Continuing up through dry grass, big purple bull thistle flowers, and tons of other prickly plants, we came across a coniferous forest of large trees, some of which had fallen and become deadwood. It kinda looked like a healthy mature forest. Lots of big colourful scarab beetles flying around too.

We never reached the ruins that were supposed to be there. It was 5:30 and time to go back because Chris really wanted to catch the sunset from our balcony and sip on local rose wine (I’m soaking all this up). We ate at the same great place that night, feeding our leftovers to the same feral cats under the table. Meow.

Time to go sailing. We sped back into Athens to the Kiriacoulis Marina at Piraeus, and met Dimitri, the owner of the boat we were renting – the “Karavaki”. We also met up with our crew, Ingrid, Scotty, and Geneva. The marina is very busy with many boats, large, small and elite-looking, with clouds of dust since the wind had whipped up to 25 to 30 knots. Chris needed to get our car rental back near the airport and, after spending about an hour and a half with Stavros going over the boat, he finally left at 2 pm and didn’t get back until 4:15! (Ingrid won the bet).

The wind was coming strongly from the west and we got the sails underway as soon as we cleared the harbour. We didn’t turn the engine on again until the wind had died quite a bit from the “5” (on a scale from 1 to 12 called the “Beaufort scale”) that we had started with.

That night we moored on the island of “Aigina” at the town, Perdika. There were many Tavernas on shore, all filled with Greeks and tourists, looking down at us in the fading light, as we tried many times to fit ourselves into various spots, hitting the bottom once, as it was quite shallow. We eventually settled in, and went ashore for Saganaki, squid, mousaka, greek salad, lots of olives, and spanakopita, with 2 carafes of white wine. The stray cats let us scratch their heads, but we had no extra food for them, though they did get a feast from the other tables.

Overnight, the wind picked up and changed direction. The anchor unfortunately didn’t hold as expected, and we woke at 4 am to the sound of the fibreglass bow scraping on the cement pier we were tied to. No damage however and Chris and Scott got us secured again, and slept in late after.

The next day we had a long way to go from Aigina to the next overnight stay on the island of North Kithnos. We sailed in high winds – up to 27 knots but quite acceptable for sailing; it was also threatening to rain all day. Kithnos means “good goat cheese” and the island has been known for this since antiquity. We anchored in a cove within a bay, and there were 4 other boats anchored here as well. Ours was the smallest boat at 34 feet.

Apparently one of these islands is inhabited by female vampires. We avoided these by paddling in the dingy in the other direction to a sandy looking beach. We hiked up the slope on a goat path where we had seen the goaties travelling presumably to avoid the vampires at night. We found the rumoured hotsprings and had a bathe while Scotty was back at the boat cooking dinner. Other huge boats/yachts with staff in uniforms on board were anchored nearby.

Before we left Kithnos the next day, we went for a little hike on the place where the vampires were supposed to be, but didn’t see any. Just a locked church and a greek man walking his donkey and two dogs. The island is dry, and even the thistles were having problems. I can’t imagine what all the goats eat, but ther droppings are everywhere.

Trying to disembark later, the sail was not rolled properly and we spent about an hour in a quiet bay trying to fix it. This involved Chirs sitting in a harness dangling from half way up the mast from a thin rope. A wooden spoon was the tool that finally got the mast unstuck. That day took us to the island of Serifnos after a 4 hour sail in 2 to 3 scale Easterly winds, and actually had to motor for a lot of that.

Serifnos, on a Saturday night under a full moon, was in a partying mood. The entire beach is home to several Tavernas and they became quite full after 9. We had another round of cheap local rose, greek salads, souvlaki, and lamb chops, pureed fava beans for Ingrid the vegetarian, and very thick and garlicky tzatziki sauce. We didn’t stick around in town that long, except Scotty and Chris delivered us back to the boat in the dingy at around 11, and the two of them went back into watch the soccer game. Us gals held back on the boat to drink vodka.

The island overall is quite touristy, abut 1300 people live here, and there are a lot of jewellery shops and other tipico. We found the food good, and slightly more pricey than other places we’d been. Thre are a lot of boats moored here and big ones, some owned by greeks. There is a lot of money here.

There were no cats to feed the fat from my lamb chops to.

Our next stay was on the island of Melos – we managed to moor at the pier at Adamas for 2 nights. It’s a larger town, at almost 5000, situated in the bay where a large crater was formed 1000’s of years ago after a volcano blew. Quite touristy, the place was really shaking late for a Sunday night, and often by greeks. Chris and I discovered a church where a celebration was going on. We had a good spot above the church courtyard which, when we checked back later, had filled up quite a bit with greeks. The band played with a bouzuki, and a fiddle played horizontal on the knee, with singing, to which a circle of dancers, mostly women, danced in a circle, back and forth in either direction. The dance resembled one we learned from Onur (from Turkey) back in Karlskrona on our last night there, at the party in the school’s Rotundan. Greek and Turkish cultures are so similar. It looked like a lot of fun.

All the next day we zoomed around on rented scooters up to some Mycean settlements/ruins where a forgotten (?) archaeological dig had been underway, and the broken ancient pottery was everywhere on the ground, along with obsidian flakes. There were caves along our journey as well, active mine sites further inland, and we spent a lot of time on a beach under some magnificent cliffs of red and yellow, and very hot hot hot springs here. Lots of caves and holes in the volcanic rock in the water too, attracting an octopus that we saw slurping back into his hole.

Scotty snuck back up the stairs into the tabepna to watch Australia play soccer against Japan, and won, as we could tell from his hollering while we played Frisbee on the beach. We continued on scooters to the Plaka high above the bay, the old town, and had greek salad and olives with some yummy white wine in the dying light. We did manage to climb to the church to watch the sunset where it was perched, high on the highest point, with excellent views of the Mediterranean.

We left Milos on June 13 and went to a smaller island, Folegandros to the town of Karavostasi to the east. We moored at the pier, then later on walked 4 kms up to the Chora, or old part of town. It’s very pretty, but very barren and rocky with only about 650 people living here. Its always been a place of exile in modern and ancient times, and most recently used as an open prison for opponents of the dictatorship (1967 to 1974). It looks as though the island is on the verge of greater development for tourism.

On June 14, we left Folegandros for Ios. The trip was windy and we had to do some tacking for the first time on the trip. At Port Ios we got the last mooring closest to town which turned out to be right IN town, with stores and tabepnas only 10 meters from our boat.

Next day we boarded a “Hellenic Seaways” fast ferry for €16 each to Santorini, arriving 40 minutes later. Renee was supposed to be at port, but we missed her and the many buses heading to town. It turned out to be a good thing, since it got Chris and Ingrid on the car rental hunt, which turned out to be a lot more useful over the next 24 hours than taking a bus.

We later met up with Mel and Gunter at the centre square and the 7 of us had lunch at a cozy little spot with excellent yummy mousakas with nutmeg. We also tried sardines, white house wine, eggplant, and of course, greek salad. It was a scorching hot day as we walked through the treacherous traffic in the narrow streets with no side walks, to Gunter’s family’s summer house. The house was perfectly situated on an outcropping above the caldera, 18 kms acros, from which we could see ferries and boats coming and going far below. The caldera has steep cliffs that Thira, the town, is perched on. This was a fantastic place to watch the sun set, and the house has a swimming pool, bouganvilla and other flowering trees, a patio, and lots of space for all of us. Gunter’s stepmother’s family owns it, who I believe are greek, and are a musical family, hence the piano and cases of other instruments in the house.

We did try doing some site-seeing that afternoon in Santorini, but the site of Acrotiri was closed since last year; someone had died in an accident involving collapsing ruins. The site of ancient Thira was closed also, but only because we got there after closing hours (they close at 14:30 – who would have thunk it?). However on the switchbacks on the way down from the site, we took a different path down and found a tiny temple clinging to the rocks; it’s doors were open, was full of icons and offerings to all sorts of images of Christ. A cave was right next to it with natural springs. The long beach of black sand was far below, and we eventually went to it for a cool dip (Kalamari Beach I think).

Back at the house that night we had a grand meal of grilled sausage, chicken and pork, veggies, greek salad and beans with local rose wine. Stray dogs and cats found their way to the patio, but the cats were the only ones to get any scraps since the dogs, a couple of greyhound puppies, were too shy and skittish. Chris said he threw them some bread once and they just ran away, even though they are obviously starving with their ribs showing.

Next morning we said goodbye to Scott, who was off to Berlin for a bike trip with our other classmates, and Geneva and Ingrid who were going back to Athens, then Karlskrona.

That afternoon, Gunter, Mel, Chris and I made it back to Ios on the fast ferry from Santorini, and met up with Renee who had found our sailboat without any trouble, thankfully. We stocked up at our favourite store and headed for the island of Paros right after noon.

The wind was now not in our favour and we needed to do some tacking, and anticipate a lot more of this in the coming days as our new direction travel was in the opposite direction. A dophin accompanied us part of the way!

We got into Pisa Lavadhi on Paros in the evening, and moored at the large breakwater there. This is a small town on a fairly big island. This was Chris’ choice as he had worked here 20 years earlier as a charter captain. He had many stories …We went to one of his old hang-outs, Fusilanis, above which his girlfriend used to live in an apartment. The owner, George, was there and claimed he remembered Chris. Someone from a nearby table came over and introduced himself as someone who had gone on one of Chris’ charters 20 years ago.

The next day saw favourable winds that we wanted to take advantage of, and we regretted not spending more time exploring the island. Chris and I did get to do some jogging and swimming while Mel, Renee, and Gunter had some fish stew with some Egyptian fishermen in a nearby boat. These fishermen did not speak English but were very hospitable and made each of them necklaces and bracelets out of fishing net string.

We got a late start and that night was spent again on Paros, this time over at the town of Naousa, on the north end. It was a great little bay, and we all had a morning swim then cruised over to Naousa for water and ice. It was a frustrating little place – much construction going on, and services have not caught up with the town’s growth. Mel saw a large swimming turtle in this bay.

North East of our position was Mikonos, which is the direction we headed that day. We needed to tack much of the way, and ended up in a bay just off Delos at Rainia at around 7 that evening. Another boat – about 50 feet long – with a large American flag was anchored here as well. Some beautiful ruins were still standing on a barren rocky point closest to us in the fading daylight.

While at Naousa earlier that day, Mel had bought a large batch of fish from some fishermen (for 10 euros and a bottle of coke), and her and Renee cleaned them for dinner. They were very small, no longer than 6” in length, and a variety of species. The only kind I recognized was mackerel. Mel ate a raw fish eye!

Since Delos, an ancient ruins site that was second in importance in antiquity only to Delphi, was only a km away, we headed over and anchored in. The ruins were visible from the boat, and blended very well with the surrounding rocky barren island - no white-wash cubic buildings here. Our “Greek Waters Pilot” says Delos should not be missed, but after reaching the island by paddling over in the dingy, someone used a loud whistle and yelled at us that the site was closed that day.

Tinos was the next destination of choice, and we again needed to tack since the winds came straight at us at about 26 knots. It took longer than expected to get to the town of Tinos which really wasn’t too far from Delos and Mikonos.

We saw another sea turtle just below the surface and narrowly missed hitting it! She must have been 3’ in diameter. How do they survive the boat traffic here?

Mooring at Tinos was not unlike mooring at Ios – we were right in the middle of town with main street just meters from the plank connecting us to the sidewalk. We had a larger sail boat on our left with one rather reserved Swiss guy (later seen running around excitedly waving a Swiss national flag. They had just won the soccer match on TV). And anchored on our right, the boat with the enormous US flag from 2 nights before.

Mooring in Greece at public piers is usually free, except here at Tinos. As we backed into our spot between the American and Swiss boats, an older greek man in a yellow shirt shouted directions from the sidewalk. When we met him onshore, he demanded 4 euros and our “papers” from the boat. We gave him the money, and said that our skipper, “Steve,” was over on Mikonos and would be arriving shortly with the papers. This satisfied the intense little man, who was rumoured by the Swiss guy to have spent time in the Greek army.

The street was very busy with traffic and was quite noisy, but the streets leading further up the hill looked quiet and inviting. They were narrow and packed with shops, ascending to a large church, probably a nunnery. At the foot of this on the street, was a young woman on her hands and knees, crawling on the ground toward the church. Chris figured she was cleansing herself, doing some kind of penance for her sins. We tried not to stare. Later we came across a statue of a woman doing exactly this. There is also a carpet leading all the way up the side of the street, specially placed for this purpose?

The next day we attempted an early start from Tinos to Kea, a 40 mile stretch in a straight East West direction. The wind was North Westerly, but was so weak that we had to use the engine as it came and went. As we were attempting to go around a smaller island called Yiaros (“navigation prohibited”) on it’s north side, the engine died. Chris spent 3 hours below taking the engine apart, as the rest of us tried to figure out the sails on our own, all of us non-sailors. We did our best to use the odd gust of wind to move ourselves further from Yiaros so that we didn’t eventually crash into the rocks there.

Chris was familiar enough with the engine thankfully to figure out that the fuel filter was plugged with the algae growth, which started in the fuel tank. In warmer climates, you need to use additives in the fuel to deal with algae growth, which obviously had not been done for a long time. He just took out the primary filter, and let the secondary filter do the job. Dimitri, the boat’s owner, was embarrassed later when we told him about it and didn’t charge us to re-fill the tank. It could have been a lot more embarrassing for him if we had to call the coast guard!

That night at the island of Kea, we moored at Nikolaos in Vourkari, on the NE side of the island. In the bay opposite of us at Korissia, where the ferries come and go, it was much busier looking. Chris and I walked to Korissia later, and his intuition for finding interesting places didn’t fail. On a small road we found a recent archaeological dig, still with string marking off sections. It was an old grave site that turned out to be 1000 years older than Delos (at around 5^th century BC); both adults an children had been carved out of the rocky ground, each framed with stones.

The way to Korissia led us through a neighbourhood of expensive looking houses, large gates, security systems, lots of flower gardens and new housing construction sites. The town is very busy at dusk, the butcher was still working, the cafes full of people drinking their coffees, soft drinks and beer, large tables of greek men eating their dinners. We had souvlaki, greek coffee and beer as the greeks cheered for Sweden, and Chris for England on the big screen TV. It was a tie, 2 all.

The greek boys are beautiful here!

The cats here were getting into the trash for their evening meal as we walked back, also lots of grasshoppers flying around the streetlights. They’re huge and it was fun watching one cat leaping after them.

The waters were calm the next day, but we didn’t have to go far. We originally headed for Aigina, just of the mainland west of Athens (where we spent our very first night on the boat) but after 2 hours of sailing, coming around the southernmost tip of the mainland at Sounion, we decided to anchor in. Here the temple of Poseidon overlooks the bay, perched high on a cliff.

We were still in plain view of the temple from our anchored spot in the bay. Later on that night, someone lit a campfire in one of the caves on the beach, and it looked so primitive and beautiful with the cave walls lit up from the warm glow of the fire. The temple was also lit up with artificial lights high on the cliff in the distance, under the starry sky.

When we hiked up to the temple the next day, it was sunny and really hot. The temple has been rebuilt since its columns and blocks of marble were dismantled and scattered by Persians and other destructive forces long ago. Lord Byron was supposed to have carved his initials in one of the pieces here. Lots of carved grafitti covered the temple pieces.

The taverna down on the beach was so inviting in the heat. We finally retreated there on the path through wild oregano with purple flowers and honeybees, for a frappe, beer, pepsi, a plate of olives, and bread. Several toasts to our trip and ourselves were made, and we all felt very happy about everything!