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Bozcaada, Turkey
to Kéa, Greece
September 12-25, 2001
We have covered a lot of miles
since the last log. We sailed from Bozcaada to the Island of
Lesvos, alternate spelling Lesbos, which is the most NE island
in the Aegean and only 4 miles from Turkey. Our intent was to
sail in and enjoy a short day of moving, some Greek food, a trip
to a Greek grocery store, etc. We have been told that a short
stay in a Greek port, one is not expected to check in and there
is never a problem. When we entered this very small harbor we
found that there was only one parking spot remaining, directly
in front of the Greek Coast Guard boat and in fact there was
a gentleman on shore that would gladly take our docking lines,
he was the Port captain. I decided not to push my luck, did a
180-degree turn and headed for Turkey. I wasn't in any mood to
clear into Greece nor was it time to do so. We sailed for an
archipelago near Ayvalik where had been told it was a great place
to stop. It is a great place but again it had a sea bed of marble
with a thin growth of sea weed for holding. Think of a large
parking lot with alfalfa sprouts growing, no roots just a surface
covering. I was very uncomfortable but we stayed and had supper
and a short rest before hitting the road again and doing a night
sail. We sailed to Focha, where we had stopped before and were
to enjoy a great anchorage. We napped after arrival and then
had a good stroll through the town and I almost succumbed to
another carpet salesman. It was my own fault, he had a great
carpet that I really still want, but he would not reduce his
asking price to my buying price. We were different by quite a
bit. I am sure it was worth what he wanted but he sensed a need
on my part and played too hard.
The next day we sailed to Cesme
and visited Pepe and his crew for a day. There is a great place
to eat pasta in Cesme and almost worth the stop in itself. Pepe
recommended that if I was going to buy a carpet that I should
visit a Seden Carpet store. I did and I did. This man has a larger
store in Izmir where he says he has 11000 carpets. I know he
has 4000 carpets in this location. He is a very interesting man
who speaks 11 languages.. I thought I wanted a wool carpet but
he showed me the error of my ways and I bought a carpet that
is 50% wool and 50% silk. It is about 5 ft by 7 ft and is truly
a beautiful piece. Pepe confirms that the man is who he says
he is so I tend to believe what he says. He provides his weavers,
in far eastern Turkey, with the wool and silk. He also provides
new weavers with the frames necessary and all the carpets they
weave are his. He pays each weaver $1 per day and that is the
going rate. The people have all the food that they need and they
have lodging so the ladies are working for spending money. $30
per month is a lot of spending money over here. They weave for
6 hours a day for the $1. We concluded our business with Pepe
and left the next morning for Kusadasi.
This was sort of a homecoming
sail and we were again in familiar territory. We arrived , filled
with fuel and were directed to our usual place on the docks.
The locals greeted us as old friends, we had been gone a month
exactly. A stroll through the town, eating supper and going to
bed are the order of the rest of the day. We have now made up
our mind that we are leaving for Greece for the reasons that
we gave in our last letter. For two days it is preparing to leave,
using our last lira, using up our phone cards and saying good
bye to our new friends. They clearly disagree with our reasoning
and try very hard to persuade us that it is really safe here
and there is nothing to worry about. They don't understand that
we are concerned with being able to return in the spring. We
depart on the morning of September 19, 2001.
We sail to Pythagoria, which
is the birth town of Pythagoras of theorem fame. Here we officially
clear into Greece. This group of officials, port police, tourist
police and customs, are as friendly as the officials in Itea
and Lavrio were ugly. It was a pleasure to meet nice officials.
Perhaps it will be the tone of our current trip in Greek waters.
The necessary trip to the market for food and we find different
cereals and that great cheese dip that we have had before and
of course good Greek wine. This is a short stay in that we have
miles to cover before we settle for the night. It is a pleasant
sail down the south coast of Samos island to a small archipelago
called Fournoi. The anchorage is well tucked in and we feel safe.
We are in a bay where the ancients mined marble and precut the
material to a rough shape of a column or whatever. There is a
lot of debris and a clearly identified area where the marble
was quarried. As you may have concluded, there was also marble
down into the bay and in fact we were again anchored, so to speak,
on a parking lot with a lot of debris. Our anchor chain wrapped
around several pieces and made us somewhat secure, for a while.
The wind blew at 15 to 22 kts down from the hill in front of
us. About 5 am we are up and sailing for Mikonos where we were
in 1998. Our Kusadasi friend, Fred from Germany, and his group
are also going to Mikonos and we meet on the south side of Ikaria.
This is the island where Ikarus had the wax melt and his wings
fell off. Fred has a boat made in Sweden and it is one of the
most sailboat looking sailboats I have seen. It is not only a
beautiful boat, it is fast. He says that he is 76 years old and
has to have a fast boat to cover the miles necessary in the remaining
few years of sailing that are available. He has kept his boat
in Turkey for 10 years and next spring he and his wife will sail
from Kusadasi south around the Peloponnesus and up into the Adriatic
where he will continue to sail until he is 80. The upper end
of the Adriatic is but three hours from his home in Bavaria.
He has invited us to his home and I sure hope we get there. He
lives on Lake Chiemsee and has a sailboat there also. We are
in Mikonos and had a very pleasant night on the hook, tour of
the village, and visit with Fred & crew.
The sail on from Mikonos to Siros
was a delight. We had wind and it was a 25-mile sail, so we were
not out in the afternoon high wind period of the day. We are
in Finikas, which is the southern bay on Siros. There is a small
contingent of charter boats but not too large of a village. We
go stern to and wash the boat before mid afternoon. A brief walk
about in the village and we find time to visit some of the charterers
and hear more about the follow up re the WTC incident. We are
still out of touch. I ask around the dock to see if anyone knows
a Kostas Ghiokas, this is the charter captain that we had on
our first Greece vacation in 1998. They all know him or of him,
he is somewhat widely known. One of the captains gets Kostas’
cell number and I gave Kostas a call. When he answered I said
“Kostas” he said “ne” which is yes, we did
that several times before I realized he thought I was a Greek
and perhaps did not hear him. I then identified myself and he
was clearly surprised. When Kathy talked with him he said that
he still had the picture of Kathy and Mary Ann and Kostas, on
the boat. He is to be in Nicolau, which is the northern bay on
Kea, on Monday at 4 PM, so we are to meet him there. This adds
a day to our travels but we really do look forward to seeing
Kostas.
Sunday morning and we are thinking
of being in our own Church, we do miss that part of the weekly
routine. We leave just as the sun rises and have a very pleasant
sail to Kea, southern bay where there are many boasts here for
the weekend. It is only 40 miles to Athens and this island is
a weekend favorite. The anchorage has a not so favorable wind
for spending the night so we eat lunch and sail to the northern
anchorage, where we will meet Kostas. This is a really bustling
village where we have been before. It is the village where we
spent the first night out of Athens in 1998. This is a great
night aboard and we sleep well.
We took a taxi to the main village
of the island, Chora, which is about 4 miles up the mountain.
They built their city far from the sea as protection from the
pirates of so many thousand years ago. There is not much there
and all of the traffic sort of stops at the gate entrance to
the city. A very small car and of course motorcycles can pass
thru the gates but nothing more. We are a bit early for the town
folks but have a fine stroll up and down the very narrow walkways,
some as narrow as 4 feet. It is common for homeowners to span
the walkway with logs and build rooms to form a covered walkway
below. The main object in this town is a Lion, which was chiseled
from slate some 2700 years ago, 600 BC. The Lion of Kea is about
18 feet long and takes advantage of a normal outcropping that
had to be trimmed a bit here and there. There is a face with
whiskers, eyes and a mouth all very well done. We have finished
visiting the village and purchase some fresh bread and take a
taxi to the boat. Now we will keep ourselves busy waiting for
Kostas to join us.
This place emptied of the weekend
sailors by 10 AM and now at 2 PM we are one of 4 boats at the
quay. If like yesterday there will be 15 by nightfall. We are
all Med Tied to the quay. A Med tie, for those who are unfamiliar
with the term is a specific way for boats to be attached to the
dock. For simplicity I will describe it in terms of automobiles
parking in a parking lot where everyone backs into their position.
But boats must put an anchor out some 100 to 150 feet from shore
so as to hold the boat off of the dock. Once the anchor is out
and securely in the sand on the bottom one backs the boat into
an unmarked position at the quay. You only let enough anchor
chain out as is needed to get the boat to shore. Once you are
close to shore, 3 feet or so, a line is thrown from the stern
(back) of the boat to someone ashore or a person on the boat
jumps off and takes a line with them. This line is passed through
a steel ring that is fastened to the concrete quay. The loose
end is then passed back to the boat where it made to be tight.
Thus the chain and anchor hold the bow out, each of the two stern
lines holds a stern quarter of the boat to the dock and you are
Med tied. One would then retrieve anchor chain until the stern
lines were as tight as you would want them. When Med tied you
would have fenders, large cylindrical cushions, deployed on each
side of the boat. The boats will be in close quarters and this
keeps boats from banging directly into each other. By the way,
this definition if for those that receive the letter and are
not boaters, so skip this if you already know it. Med tying will
permit more boats to tie to a quay than would the way we are
used to in the states which is to have a solid walkway between
each boat.
Now that is the way it is, but
let's throw some reality into it. To do this, let automobile
parking scenario be the parking lot covered with ice and a crosswind
blowing. Now you can't back straight back, and steering is a
bit complicated. It gets to be a circus when there are 3 or 4
boats backing into spots at the same time, some are good some
are beginners and it is easy to tell the difference. The volume
and pitch of voices is directly related to the experience of
the crew. They put anchors down too close to shore or at the
proper distance from shore but 50 feet to the right or left of
directly in front of their parking place to be. When the anchor
is not directly in front then it is most likely over someone
else’s anchor chain that is properly anchored. They also
forget that they continue to float after ceasing to be in gear
and they are drifting down onto the boat whose captain is so
kindly telling them to do things differently. Of course there
are all nationalities: French, German, Dutch, Italian, Greek,
Swede, Norwegian, Brits and Americans. It is a multilingual circus.
Kostas arrives at about 5 PM
and parks on our starboard. There are several spaces to his right
and about 4 to my left. In the next 30 minutes these fill up.
They don't fill easily; the German who parked on my port side
got an ear full when he put his anchor across mine and Kostas’
anchor. The boat was 60 footer with 8 Germans on board. The shouting
and threat of suits was a piece to hear. I was the one in most
peril but Kostas took care of it. After the German parked, a
second boat was preparing to park on his left. Kathy pointed
out that the next boat was crossing his anchor with the newly
parked German. He then understood the implications of proper
positioning the anchor, and untied to park again in the same
spot but with an anchor directly in front of his boat.
We had a pleasant evening with
Kostas and his mate Lynda and were invited to join the charterers
for an evening meal.
We are now just a couple of hours
out of Aigina, an island just south of Athens, where we will
again find an Internet Café and post this message. We
are proceeding through the Corinth Canal tomorrow and sail for
the west end of the Gulf of Corinth.
Frank |
