Greece

Hubster walks the quay at Pythagorio, Samos.

Our "passage" to Greece was all of 15 miles. It would have been only a mile but we went up to Kusadasi to see Ephesus then check out of Turkey.

We didn't see vast amounts of Samos. We had our anchor windlass quit after snagging a giant chain in Pythagorio's harbor. We then spent almost a week in the marina while fixing it, during which Capt Hub came down with a form of "King Leonidas' Revenge". We found Samos to be brutally gusty and windy, so we left.

Speaking of wind, a constant fear in the Aegean during summer months is the meltemi (Turkish for north ), which is a strong wind that blasts out of the NW-NE. As a consequence, we worried the whole time we were crossing the Aegean that we would be caught by a meltemi blast and stuck in a nasty place. We wanted to visit many more islands in the Aegean but were concerned that if we took a southerly track we'd never get to Athens. The Aegean is just full of beautiful islands but one has to sail carefully, especially late in the season. We wanted to visit Patmos but after that decided to take the most direct westward course that would get at least some great islands into the picture. This meant not sailing to Amorgos or Santorini as they were south of our conservative track.

We definitely wanted to stop at the island of Patmos, famous for the Book of Revelations. We had envisioned a barren, windswept rock somewhere, but were pleasantly surprised. Patmos is actually rather large and no more barren than most Aegean islands. It has a famous monastery, which you can see as the gray fort at the top of the hill or "Chora", is surrounded by the usual whitewashed houses. The cave where St John was supposed to have had his revelations is off to the right, near the shore.

Patmos was used by the Romans as a place of exile, especially from nearby Ephesus, which is how St John ended up here. The monastery was fortified to protect the monks from marauding Muslim pirates. The island later became prosperous from shipbuilding.

The shot above is the harbor of Skala, visited by many cruise ships (who knew?). This was taken from the Monastery at the highest point of the island.

It's a fort - with bells on!

In spite of the walls and even with the protection of the Ottoman Sultan, Patmos was a target for pirates.

Inside the walls are covered with frescoes depicting Bible stories. As usual, we were not allowed to photograph interiors or the famous Treasury of books and religious objects. We actually saw some ingrates touching them!

We walked back down the hill and stopped at the church built over the cave in which St John had his revelations. We weren't allowed to take any pictures here either, but can tell you that the "cave" is actually just an overhang in the rock, maybe 8' deep. It has chairs for people to pray or meditate.

The Hubster just loves little trucks...

We had a wind problem in Patmos much like Samos, so we searched for a safe place to park the boat. We made an excellent choice in Naxos. Above you can see the famous unfinished Temple of Apollo on an island just outside the main harbor of Chora.

A major feature of Naxos was free dockage! You can see El Tubbo as second from the right. We used this safe spot as a base for side trips to other islands.

Our only shot of our next island, Kithnos. It was a bad meltemi day and we got bashed pretty bad trying to get to the anchorage here. In addition we unexpectedly ran out of fuel, which occasioned a bit emergency fiddling as diesel engines hate air in the fuel lines. Old Glory in need of attention.

Above is the famous Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, a promontory that juts out of the Greek mainland. Our all-to-brief visit to the fabled Aegean Isles was over. We wanted to see this huge temple up close but were anxious to get to Piraeus, the port for Athens, before nightfall, so we gave it a pass.

We spent several days in Piraeus, which entailed staying at the very expensive Zea Marina (over $100/ day). Here's a picture of some of the mega-yachts there, which are so expensive they fly flags of convenience such as Panama and the Marshall Islands. They may not look big but each is over 100' long.

This is the entrance to the Corinth Canal, the most expensive per mile on the whole planet. We had to pay over 300 euros ($425) to go just 4 miles. By contrast, the 90-mile, two day Suez Canal transit cost half that much and included a pilot. But we figured we'd be ahead in saving the fuel cost it would take to bash our way around the Peloponnesian islands.

You can see a sailboat just behind this small tanker. The tanker's being pulled by a tug because the canal is too narrow to control a ship under its own power. Right after the tanker passed us on the docks, the wake was so great it hurled poor little Amante against the dock and smashed 2 portlights.

As we said, the Canal is very narrow and we had to hand-steer lest we graze one side or the other, not to mention avoiding the occasional bomb crater from WWII. Nero tried digging a canal here but as you can see it's a rather deep cut through solid limestone.

The Isthmus here was all that connected the Peloponnese, the blob of Greece south of this narrow strip and the home of Sparta, to the Greek mainland. In ancient times a road was used to drag ships across to the Gulf of Corinth.

The walls of the Canal have some beautiful fault cuts, as can be seen on the right side, where the layers to the left of the fault have dropped down a few feet.

We spent a couple of days in Corinth visiting the ancient city of Corinth, which was situated near the base of the massive Acrocorinth, the sheer mountain in the center of this photo, an excellent defensive location.

Upon popping out of the Gulf of Corinth we had to really rush through the Ionian Islands in our mad dash across the Med. As a result we had to skip famous islands, e.g. Ithaca, because of time and weather constraints. You just can't go everywhere and see everything...

Remember the island of Skorpios, the one owned by Aristotle Onassis? This seems to be the main house there, although we must mention that the island seemed to have several houses of varying sizes. Probably guest and or servants quarters.

Facade to screen the stars from the hoi polloi. Some say it was Jackie's beach hut.

This house is found on just over the hill from the "hut" above. Without looking up the (in)famous shots of her skinny dipping in 1971 we can't say for sure which one is the hut with private beach - they both qualify. It seems just about every yachtie that passes by plays paparazzo and claims one or the other. We really don't care. Its just neat to sail by and tip our hat to the once famous and classy former first lady who graced the Med. No one beats Jackie O for Elegance.

What's this? The site of the famous Battle of Actium, which doomed the Roman Republic. The spit of land on the left was occupied by Octavian, the right side belonged to Antony & Cleopatra. The ships fought in the waters where the picture was taken.

We spent a couple of days in the mainland harbor of Igoumenitsa hiding from weather. While we were there a couple of seaplanes belonging to the Greek Coast Guard practiced "touch and go" landings in the large bay there. They would often land together, but we missed the best shots.

Our last island visit was Corfu, aka Kerkyra aka Corcyra; the first name is Italian and reflects the centuries this island spent in Venetian hands. The fortress above was the key to keeping Corfu as the only part of Greece never to have been conquered by the Turks. It briefly was occupied by Britain, who turned it over to Greece upon independence in the 1860s. As a consequence, it has a very Italian flavor, especially compared to the Aegean islands. The surrounding waters are likewise infested with Italian power boats who have no problems hitting you with their 30-knot wakes. After all, the Italian mainland is only about 60 miles away.

This is our last shot of Greece, taken from the lovely little island of Erikoussa. This was our jumping off point for our 50 mile passage to Italy. We wished we could have spent much more time in Greece, especially the Aegean. However, it was the 20th of August and we were behind as it was.

Please make sure to visit our pages on the Aegean, the Western side of Greece and Athens to see more detail on the many places we visited. Once you're done, join us in Italy!

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