Panormos, Steni Vana, and Planitis Harbor

Mon. June 8

Since I have so little power for my computer Pictures can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/allenloyd


Well the disco was thumping until early this morning. It was a holiday weekend so people were partying late. Finally it quieted down and I slept until the early church bells rang, and a little while later rang again and then a third time. That was enough so I got up. My father and I have some cereal and yogurt and honey for breakfast. The Greek yogurt is the best. it’s thick and rich like ice cream! Wonderful. We discover that Martha and Winfree and not well. Martha was sick all through the night. She thinks it’s from brushing her teeth with the local water. So we are going boil toothbrushes and brush with bottled water. Then Father and I go for a walk around town looking for an ancient statue of a bull.

After wandering around for a while we finally found it right next to the church where the bells were ringing. The service was going on an I could hear singing through the window. It was lovely. The bull was carved out of marble in the 4th Century BC. It’s a bit bigger than life-size. The horns are broken off and it’s enclosed in a glass house to protect it. There are also bits and pieces of ancient buildings lying around in the little park around the bull. The town is quite nice and peaceful this morning. After our walk we head back to the boat an d fill the water tanks, get our briefing for the day and cast off. My back is feeling better today so I spend some time steering the boat. We get out of harbor and charge the batteries and cill the fridge with the engine for a while and then hoist the sails. Soon we have a stiff breeze and reaching along at 7 knots ( nautical miles per hour) which is about 8 regular miles per hour.

It’s a beautiful sailing day. The wind continues to increase and soon we are heeled way over and steering is getting difficult. So we reef the sails and and are heeling less but still ripping along at 8 knots. We have finish up for lunch and eat up all the leftover that have collecting in the fridge. It keeps up for awhile but then dies out. We are over a mile off shore so we pump the holding tanks from the toilets into the sea. (it’s legal as long as you are at least a mile offshore) Soon we have to turn the motor on when it dies completely. My back is aching a bit so I turn the helm over to my brother had head below to lie down. Estill crawls in with me and reads some of Lois Lenski’s Strawberry Girl to me. Then we doze off for a while. The sound of the anchor dropping wakes me up and we are anchored by a beautiful beach on the island of Sangria. The water is about 40 feet deep and you can see right to the bottom.

We all swim except Martha who has been in her bunk all day except when we were heeled way over the wrong direction. Then she came up on deck for some fresh air until it calmed down some. We swim around the boat for a bit and then pull up the anchor and head on for Panormos where we are spending the night. We pull in. Drop our anchor and then back up and raft up alongside the other two boats and run a long line off our stern to shore and tie it to a tree. Then we tighten up the anchor. This will keep us from swinging into another boat in the night if the wind shifts. The lead boat had gone into Skiathos Town and out to the airport and finally my father has his clothes! Yeah! Now I get some of mine back. The lead boat also has a couple of water rings for the girls to play with.

We go in for a swim to cool off and I have a fresh water rinse as I came back on the boat. Then all of us except Martha take the dinghy to shore and find the market and buy a phone card and some supplies. We try a few times and two different phones. Finally my brother gets a call through to his company. Everything is good. We ate in a taverna. Captain Andy caught a nice fish and the taverna is always happy to cook fish for you.

They grill it and there is enough for Andy and crew for dinner and a taste for the rest of us. The locals called it something like a Lisa fish. hard to tell what they were saying but it is was delicious. I had some cod cooked with onions, (pretty good) my father has fresh red mullet grilled. He picked the fish out of the tank. They weighted it and agreed on a price and then they grilled it. Fish is very expensive here. Always have it weighted and agree on a price before it’s cooked! Chicken for the girls and pork souvlaki for Randy. We ate at a table right on the beach of small stones and watched the sun go down over the bay. It was spectacular! They had ice cream so got cookies and cream for the girls and fig for the adults. The fig turned to be pistachio but it was tasty. The we tried to pay but none of our credit cards worked. he had the newest credit card machine which was refusing our cards because they didn’t have an imbedded computer chip. All the European credit cards have them now. So we pooled our cash and paid the tab. We headed back to the boat by flashlight and crashed for the night. Winfree declared it another great day in Greek!
‘night friends.

Tues. June 10
My father and I were up first this morning, as usual, and went for a swim. The days get hot but at night you wake up under a light blanket which is great. Not too humid. The water temperature is not too warm or cold and always refreshing. Soon Winfree was in with us and Martha is up and feeling much better. We have cereal, tea, a Greek sesame bread ring yogurt and honey and tea for breakfast. Then I wash my dirty shorts in the sink and hang them on the line to dry. Soon we have our briefing. The wind is forecasted in the morning so we quickly get our boat ready and shove off. We have some nice wind in the morning and are dodging ferries and then we see a navy ship approaching from astern. it’s an aircraft carrier. We change tack to get out of it’s way and as it steams by we think it’s a NATO ship.

Once they are past we tack back behind them and are fascinated to see that the stern of the ship is open. Soon they slow down and all of a sudden hovercraft start flying out of the opening. Three\emerge and they are all buzzing around really fast. One comes within a couple of miles of us. Boy are they fast! We watch them for a while then our wind begins to die so we crank up the motor and head off towards Skiathos Town. We need to find a cash machine. As we come into the harbor entrance a small ferry is coming out and the a huge one is behind us. So we circle out of the way then enter behind the big ferry. We pull along side the dock and tie up. My father, brother and Martha take the garbage and head off to find an ATM. I stay on the boat with the girls and we eat Greek thin pretzels with sesame seeds and talk.

After hitting 2 ATMS the others are back a nd we cast off and motor on. There is no wind so we motor along. Finally there is a bit of wind so we hoist our sails and it pretty much dies again and we are late so we crank up the iron jenny and motor sail on to our next stop in the town of Steni Vala on the island of Alonnisos. It’s a tiny place and very beautiful. There is room for about a dozen boats and we are the last one in. Enough room for us and one more. There are 4 tavernas and 3 shops aong the harbor. I can hear Bob Marley playing from the shore. Lots of plants in pots, herbs, fruit trees and some beautiful purple bouganvilla. Lovely place. We have a quick briefing on the next few islands because we are off on our own for the next few days. It should be great fun. Then we chat fora bit and then I head back to Jules to cook dinner.

I threw together some leftover chicken, salami, pasta, onions, zuchinni, garlic and olives in a pan heated it up nicely then added, cold tomato slice, cucmbers, feta cheese, more olives and some eggplant. I drizzled olive oil on top and served. It was a bit hit and every milecules has eaten! My father and Martha did the dishes and I went looking for ice cream. After the wasing up was done. We did a bit of shoppi ng and bought ice cream bars. Then discovered one place sold Swiss dipped ice cream. Our lead guy ken is from Switzerland and told us it’s very good ice cream. We are too full for seconds. We look through a bunch of used books and then stroll back to Jules where I spend some time writing in my log. I have not been able to charge my computer on the boat so I ahven’t been writing much. Then I read a bit and off to sleep. It’s pretty quiet here.

Wed.
My father and I are up early so we enjoy the morning on deck then head back to shop. The are expecting fresh baked bread at 8:30. It hasn’t arrived yet (Greek time is like island time) so we have some of that Swiss ice cream. My father has cappuchino with caramel sauce and I have creme brulee with chocolate sauce. Yumm, Wheaties step aside! I can’t remeber the brand but it was good. We are also served a glass of water. We decide that enough tourists come here that it will be safe a drink it. Right as we finish the bread arrives. It’s still warm! We buy a flat wide loaf and some frozen chicken another bottle of red wine and some canned smoked mackrel. Not much meat for sale here. First I have seen in these little shops.

And only chicken and some ground beef. We head bac k for the boat sand have tea, fresh bread and butter, yogurt, honey ans melon for breakfast. Heavenly! Then we decide to head for the caves. I walk around a bit while everyoe gets breakfast and more supplies are bought. I walk up to the top of the hill and it’s lovely. All the house have grape arbor s over terraces and fruit trees and flowers in their yards. Lovely. Then we shove off and there’s a nice breeze so we begin to tack our way up this fairly narrow passage. It tackes about 8 tacks, but Jules points very well and we make good time. Just north of the narrows we spot a couple of the caves. The water in these islands is very deep right up to the shore. It’s 20 meters (60 feet) deep right near the shore so too deep to anchor safely. So we pull into a bit of a cove and the water is still enough to put the motor on the dinghy and load a crew. So will my father circled the big boat we went off to the caves.

The first couple looked to narrow and wavey but we motored right into the third one. It opened into a big room with a roof about 25 feet up and we paddled all the way to the back . Then the girls and I swam around and Estill and I swam back out. The color of the water was a beautiful turqiose b lue with the light shining into it. Amazing! Then we motored back to the other two caves and slowly backed into another and discovered that it wnet around a corner and way back so we paddled into it and explored. Then I swam back out of it. I was going to swim into the third but we were out of time so I climbed into the dinghy znd we motored back to Jules. Randy and family jumped about and took my father back to see the second cave. We back into far enough for him to see how cool it was and then back to Jules. We sailed on up the coast and into Planitis Harbor.