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The Eastern Mediterranean has seen great uprisings during our time here in Turkey, though Turkey itself has remained quiet and peaceful, despite a general election. The Greeks, having been living off the fat of the Germans for the past few years are now up in arms at having to cut back and work for a living. The Syrians are being massacred by their own army for demanding western style (?) democracy while the Libyans have had NATO to ensure that the oil is in safe hands. Egypt is looking forward to elections and renewed tourism, but the poor Palestinians are still being shat on by the Jews. One cannot but wonder who it is making the rules that allow one nation freedom while others are left in tyranny. The British just put up and shut up.
Our time has not been wasted so far this year following our six months commitment to a berth in Finike. Christmas came and went; Gay stayed in England for three months while I fettled the boat and learned a few chords on the guitar. On her return we took a trip to the local ski resort with some of the neighbours (see last post) Snowboarding was excellent but one day was enough this late in the season with lots of rocks and very little base snow left. Gay stayed on her feet and walked the empty, unfinished ski lodges from a previous time of plenty.Our old friend Nutty Norma came to join us for a couple of weeks, staying in the local hotel. We didn’t go far as her legs are 85 years old, her brain thinks she’s 35. We then went to Cappadocia as mentioned below, with Tony and Claire. Come May we had had enough of land travel and took the boat off to Rhodes via Fetiye with a good easterly breeze pushing Christina Lee at 5 knots. Mandraki harbour in old town Rhodes was chock full of Charter boats so we anchored next to a huge war supply vessel in the commercial port. It was bound for Libya, full of armoured vehicles etc. The following day we got on the wall, stern too, with some other Brits in Mandraki. I cheekily suggested to our neighbour that he might run us up to Lydl to get some supplies (Alcohol) while he still had his hire car. Top bloke! It was the quickest we had ever filled a trolley with beer and got back.
Rhodes is a fascinating City that I last visited in 1990 but since then cruise liners have made the place a tourist hell hole full of carpet shops and crap trinket outlets. We soon left and sailed down the east coast in 25 knots to Lindos Bay where we met some old sailing friends I hadn’t seen for about seven years since they went off on their circum’ from the Solent. What a very small world. It was great to meet them again and get an email address. From Lindos we motor sailed south and then west to get on the west side of Karpathos, one of a small group of islands that nobody has heard of between Rhodes and Crete. Next island south was Kasos, also barren but unspoilt by tourists. As we were in a hurry to meet our friends Kerry and Helen in Crete we pushed on the following day with three other yachts into 15 knots almost on the nose. We made enough to keep sailing to windward while the wind was good but as it slowly dropped we had to give up and motor straight into the weather.
We all got to Sitia eventually but the place was full and we were obliged to go against the wall at the end of the breakwater where we had to stay for five days due to the incessant westerly wind. We got to have our transit log stamped at last! Our Swedish friends (Eino and Annette SY Vicki) from Tunisia were also in port so we had a chance to catch up with their news of the previous 18 months since we last saw them . Though our next destination was not more than 40 miles, it took forever to get there with the crap wind that we tried to beat against. Poor CL does not do sailing to windward in less than 15 knots of wind so we tracked back and forth till I got bored and put the motor on for the last ten miles to Spinalonga.
This island used to be a Leper colony till the late 50’s but has hundreds of years of history as a fortification. It held out against the Ottomans for three months of bombardment till they were forced to capitulate due to food shortages. We anchored off in 4m of water and took the dinghy ashore for a quick tour with the boat loads of others from the mainland. It was another interesting but sad place, the small museum gave an insight into the pitiful lives of the Lepers. Spinalonga anchorage is idyllic, protected from all sides and very shallow all over so the anchor can’t get levered out of the silt. We had some reasonable westerly winds that made using the dingy a bit of a task. Dont like to use the engine when so close to the shore!
The local village/town, Elounda, was geared up for taking the numerous hotel guests over to the Leper colony, competition was hot amongst the boatmen to capture the few tourist that were available. Elounda also had a great butcher where we could buy frozen packs of bacon or pork chops. We also availed ourselves of a full English breakfast at the nearest hotel, it was very ex-pat! The trip south from Spinalonga to Aios Nicolias was interesting as we were blessed with a massive thunderstorm over our heads. Loads of rain but strangely no wind? It only lasted ten minutes and gave the decks a good wash. Couldn’t see a thing around us so we basically stopped where we were and waited for it to stop. The Marina staff were not responding to VHF so we motored in and used hand signals with the marinaro who was standing on the pontoon. All was well and they were very pleasant to deal with.
The marina is owned by the local authority so it was cheaper than most and the facilities OK. Our Swedish friends had got in a few days before and were soon round to say hello. We met also another Englishman, John who has a house in the hills and makes his own wine, very reasonable it was too. The Island is incredibly attractive in the spring as all the flowers are out and the multitude of birds are all looking for mates and singing their lungs out. I renamed it Blackbird Island as they were at least four singing at any one time throughout the day, as well as all the other songbirds. A car is a must as the busses can’t get out into the sticks where we wanted to explore. I did a deal with a local funny man and got an automatic Toyota for €100 for five days. It was pathetically gutless and I wished I had not been so tight fisted and got a car with an engine. We got used to crawling up hills and it was good for the trip to Lidl.
