Greece, June 2016.

We picked up some friends in Avyalik, Turkey and left the marina in quite a blow.  The water in the marina was churned up and once out in the bay, there were short sharp waves in the shallow water – a baptism of fire for our guests.  We sheltered for the night behind a little headland and although we got up several times that night to check for dragging, our new Rocna anchor held firmly.

The next morning it was off to Greece for a week, before taking the boat to Thessaloniki where she would remain for a month while we were back in Turkey.

On arrival in Lesbos, we were met by a very excitable customs officer who instructed us to move from one dock to another for check-in.  The poor man seemed very harassed by all the tourists arriving by ferry. However, his stress level did not seem to abate, as it was the same story when we left the harbour a week later. He got very excited when we tried to leave before first reporting to the Port Authority…

We rented a car in Lesbos and traveled around the island, then went into the large bay of Kolpos Yeras.  We had a lovely cruise up the bay, watching the sun set over the hills with villages dotted all about and spent the night in Skala Loutra. Loud music from bars and restaurants, that continues until daylight,  is a phenomenon we have encountered throughout the Mediterranean.  Unfortunately sound carries very well over water, and we have had many a disturbed night.  This night was no exception and the next day, when we asked the restaurant owner if there would be music again that night, she said “What loud music? We only have a wedding on this evening”. That was enough for us to pull up anchor and sail off to opposite side of the gulf.  Apothekes, a tiny village in the  Kolpos Kalloni was a delight.  This tiny village  only had one taverna run by a family. On the waterfront were some  ancient warehouses (apothekes), just waiting for a tender hand to restore them.  We had a lovely village lunch here and thereafter spent some time out of the heat, sitting in the cool under the vines, drinking ouzo.

At Sigres on the west coast, we visited the excellent  Petrified Forest Museum. This museum has an excellent display of petrified trees many of which had been found still standing in their original positions in the ancient forest.  The huge trunks had been broken off  by volcanic activity 20 million years ago as the forest was flattened and were then covered in pyroclastic material and ash. This resulted in them becoming petrified (fossilized).

Fossilized tree trunk

We dropped our guests off here to catch an early morning bus back to Mitilini and we set sail for Thessaloniki, in the northwest of the Aegean.  We stopped in the late afternoon, under the shadow of a castle in the port of Milina, on the island of Limnos. Since our dinghy was packed away, ready for the next leg to Thessaloniki, we decided to have a swim to the beach. Once we got there, we stopped for a drink at a beachside taverna and then took  a walk through the town.  We were quite a sight, walking along in our wet clothes! We ended up doing some shopping and the shopkeepers obliged by wrapping our goods in several plastic bags to stop them getting wet. We were an item of interest to the sunbakers on the beach as we paddled back to the boat with our bags held above our heads.

We left early the next morning for the next leg to Thessaloniki. Mount Athos appeared out of the mist in the early morning. 

Mount Athos

  Again we stopped at sunset in a very secluded little inlet, Porto Koufo.  The entrance is narrow and hard to see but once inside it opens up into a wonderfully sheltered anchorage, with once again, a delightful little village at the head of the bay.

Porto Koufo

With no wind, we motored most of the way to Thessaloniki the next day. An hour or two from our destination, we could see a thunderhead approaching. We tried to race it in, but half an hour before we arrived, it hit us with a howling front.  We sat out an extra hour until the blow was over before going into the marina.

Our destination the next day was the tomb of Phillip of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s father.  We drove through cherry orchards and fields of sunflowers and strawberries to get there. It was harvest time and the farmers were out with their tractors and trucks, collecting the fruit.  

The tomb and several others, of queens and princes, were uncovered fairly recently.  When discovered, they were still intact, complete with gold wreaths, silverware, weapons, furniture.  The tombs were found in burial mounds and the museum has been built over them as a large burial mound. One goes underground into the museum. The entrances to the tombs still have painted friezes on them. It is a moving experience to stand before a tomb that Alexander the Great would have stood before after the funeral that he had organized for his father. Somehow the pathos seemed to flow down through the ages….Unfortunately no photos are allowed of this magnificent place but look some up on the internet, it is well worth it.