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Sunday, 7 June 2015

On our way to Crete

Greece, ah Greece, what can I say!  It is so beautiful and the people so friendly….

For the last few weeks we have been drifting (actually sailing or motoring) from one Ionian island to the next, with a few stops on the mainland as we work our way south towards Crete.
The Ionian islands are like beautiful green jewels floating on the horizon between an azure sea and sky.  Some have high mountains, often with a halo of white cloud around their peaks and a narrow rim of houses at the shoreline around their base. The towns and villages on the islands are very small and quaint. Life moves at a very slow pace on the islands.
Opening ceremony-Giostra do Zante
We called in at Zakynthos town, on the island of the same name. There we met two Aussie couples, all members of our sailing club in Sydney. As luck would have it, there was a festival of Medieval Games between the Greek Ionian islands & the Italian Aeolian islands, the Giostra do Zante.  On our way to dinner, we witnessed Italian flag waving and traditional Greek dancing from various islands, the dancers all wearing traditional dress. We had a typical, traditional Greek dinner accompanied by bouzouki and dancing.  A good time was had by all! 


Next day our friends left, and we toured the island by car— we saw beautiful mountains, bays and beaches including “shipwreck beach” which is on all the tourist posters of Zakynthos. The water is the milky colour of glacial water from a freshwater spring and the beach is surrounded by a semi-circle of tall cliffs. The skeleton of a ship lies in the middle of a fine white, sandy beach. Nearby are the “Blue Caves”, also with the same milky blue coloured water. Some of the beaches are protected, as turtles still breed there! 
"Shipwreck beach, Zakynthos
When we returned to town, we noted a moped going down the main road, with the pillion passenger holding the reins of a handsome horse trotting alongside! The Italians were practising  for the games with horse & lances and it was fun watching them.  That evening a falconer brought a falcon to the games and had him swooping just above the heads of the crowd!  It was quite an awesome experience. Zakynthos is a very pretty island, but it has only a few safe anchorages.
We went on to Pylos on the mainland.  It is situated at the mouth of Navarino Bay.  This was the site where the famous battle of Navarino took place, where in 1827 the British, French and Russians sailed (knowingly) into an ambush  and anchored in the centre of a semicircle of  89 hostile Turkish and Egyptian ships, also at anchor.  The European superior crews ended up destroying the foe, resulting in the liberation of Greece.  There are memorials to  the British, French and Russians who died in the battle. The youngest of the crews were the cannon loaders – 10 year old boys who could fit into the narrow cannon gaps.  After the battle, France built Pylos and today it has a very French feel, nestled on the slopes of a valley overlooking the bay, with a beautiful piazza cooled by 150 year old plane trees.  We were walking through the square when a little old lady stopped us and asked where we were from.  We told her.  She welcomed us to her village and asked us if we liked it.  She told us that “It is beautiful but only small and at the end of the world as, look, from here you can only see the ocean!”.
Sunset on Navarino Bay

Pylos village square
Just 25 miles inland from Pylos,  amongst the mountains, is an ancient site, reputed to be the palace of wise King Nestor from Illiad times.  It is the best preserved palace from Mycenean times. We took a walk up to the Neokastro (new castle, built by the Venetians in 1600  and later extended by the Turks).  In it is the office of the Centre for Underwater Archaeological Exploration.  They have a small museum of artifacts found from ancient shipwrecks in the waters around the Ionian islands. Of interest was a group of six statues and several columns found by tourists in 1980 and also a complex artifact which they think was probably the world’s first computer. Only in the Mediterranean can you go swimming or snorkeling and find ancient artifacts!

Underwater exploration centre museum

On we sailed to Methoni, where there is an very large fort and tower at the end of a long peninsula. This was a Venetian fort,  known as the “eyes of the Republic” until captured by the Turks. Cervantes was held captive there and wrote of this in “Don Quixote”.


Fort at Methoni-the "Eye of the Venetian Republic"
We moved on to Koroni, where there is another Venetian fort, the second ‘eye of the Republic’, which now houses a monastery. We checked in at the coast guard (as  foreign yachts need to do) and the coast guard suggested we see the Caves at Dylos, on the opposite side of the bay, 20 miles away. They are over 14 km long, and we took a ride 1.5 km into them on a small boat.
 
Inside Dylos caves

As we move south, and now that we have entered the Aegean, both the islands and the mainland are becoming drier, with few trees. We are also experiencing our first Meltemi, a strong northerly wind, common in summer in the Aegean.  This wind can get up to hurricane force and is not to be ignored! 

We have been anchored off a southern beach on the little island of Elafonisos (Deer island – I guess there must have been deer here in ancient times, but unfortunately not anymore!) waiting for the wind to ease before we make the hop to Kythira.  The upside is that the beach is lovely, long enough for a good walk, with crystal clear water and, of course, a taverna just behind the sand dunes.  This taverna is in a camp site, the first we have seen in Greece.  It has cabins and spaces for caravans and tents.  There are a lot of young people here at the moment as the universities are on vacation.  A lot of them are in the taverna as the beach is not pleasant in the strong wind.  They are a quiet bunch, playing cards and computer games and interestingly, although it was lunchtime, not one of them had an alcoholic drink on the table – just bottles of water, juice and frappe.  We, good Aussies that we are, were the only ones with beer on the table!

That’s all for now folks.

Fair winds.

Artemis and Dimitri.