Fay, Obama and water crisis

One of the joys of living on board for me is having time to read. I have read some fantastic books including Barack Obama’s book - Dreams From My Father, a book that everyone should read. What an amazing man Obama is. His analysis of situations and his own very confusing heritage is incredibly interesting and thought provoking. He writes with humanity and generosity. There is no blame, no accusation just a battle in his mind to work out why things are the way they are. His white mother and white grandparents are such incredible people to have brought him up with such a love of his father who in effect abandoned him. If he cannot make a difference in the world as the most powerful man on this planet then I truly believe no one can. Everyone should read his book and perhaps we should all join together to help Obama make that difference.

******************************************

We have Fay on board with us. She is such a joy and she is so enjoying a proper relaxation with trips ashore after 1 year of hard graft on Windrose. She is chomping at the bit to get on with training for a worthwhile job and we have been helping her sort out her UCAS application so she can go through clearing in August for a Nursing degree starting in October this year. Now she is feeling more relaxed about her future she is thinking of staying on with us for an extra week.
We have been exploring the Chalkidiki Province of mainland Greece with Fay. We have based ourselves in Marmaras on the Sithonia peninsula and hired a car. This region is beautiful with fertile valleys, rugged mountains and thick forests. Variously the coast has reminded us of the North coast of Cornwall, houses and mountain roads of Switzerland, the farms of France, lakes of N. Italy and the countryside roads of leafy Cornish lanes. The beaches in this area are beautiful golden sand and we have spent afternoons lying on sun-lounges under dappled shade cloth drinking Frappe with the occasional plunge into the sea to cool down. Otherwise we anchor off and dive from Deep Blue. The weather has become extremely hot and humid - at times unbearably hot despite being as far north as possible in the Aegean. In future years July and August will be months to avoid here. Many live-aboards who have the choice do not come to the Med in these months.

****************************************

We slipped into Panayia on the North East side of the Sithonia peninsula last night in search of water. Water is a constant issue for us. Very few places in Greece have easily obtainable water for boats and often when we find water we are told it is non-potable. So once again we are looking for somewhere to fill DB with sweet water. As we sailed into Panayia gulf we saw an unusual sight - new floating pontoons fully loaded with new boxes with taps and electricity connections. Several yachts and boats were either alongside or stern to and it looked like a proper finished and used, albeit chaotically, mini marina. We managed to find a space to squeeze into and triumphantly jumped onto the pontoon to test the taps. Nothing. Andy went up and down the pontoon and tested all the taps. No water. He asked a fellow skipper and was told that the nearest water was one tap a mile away on the town quay where the ferries were.

So that evening we rowed our baby tender to the town quay to find the tap. We saw a hose going to a pleasure ferry so I went up to the men sitting plying their trade
“I hope you don’t mind, I am not a prospective customer but we have a boat and need to know if we can fill up with water here?”
“Are you English? How big is your boat? Only 10m and you have lived on it! My father has a 19m yacht and even that is too small to live on! You must be a teacher.”
“No - not a teacher. Why do you say that? And anyway our boat is 10.7 m long.”
“You must be a teacher to be living on a boat and teaching your little girl” indicating Fay and unimpressed by our extra 0.7 metres! “Tomorrow morning we and these two Gullets leave at 9.30 and you can come here then to fill up with water. You can see where we get it from can’t you?”
“Thank you and good luck - I hope you find lots of tourists for your trip.”
“We need 750 tourists” he yelled after me as if I could help him find some “For tomorrow we have 300 - not bad but not good. Goodbye.”

You have to understand that Panayia is a tiny place and very isolated. Where do he and the two Gullets find so many tourists - nearly 2,000 between them everyday! We were astounded.

We thought we had better taste the water. It was sweet but someone saw us and told us we could not drink the water. “But why not?” I retorted “It tastes sweet”.
“Because … I don’t know it is full of things… bugs. You have to buy bottled water to drink”.

Andy and I find it very hard to believe that here, on the mainland of Greece, the water supplied is not drinkable and generally out of the tourist areas people tell us their water is good. Does the whole population of Greece drink bottled water? And if so, where does the bottled water get bottled? As the water is sweet we will treat it and drink it as we always do and so far with no ill effects.

So the saga continued. Next morning we were woken early - an entire fleet of fishing trawlers arrived noisily into port and rafted up alongside the new pontoons to off-load their case upon case of fish. The boats were Greek but the crew were Egyptian, calling and talking cheerfully to each other as they first formed a human chain to pass the boxes of fish off the boats and then clean their nets. As we watched them while eating breakfast it slowly dawned on us that the nets were micro-mesh, you could have used them as mosquito nets. What is a whole fleet of about ten large boats doing fishing with miles of this netting here? Surely, we said to each other, this is illegal in the EU?

After breakfast we left the fishermen to it and motored off to get water. We had seen the motor pleasure boat leave but the gullets were still stern to so we reversed, in an increasing cross wind, into its place next to the gullets. I noticed a red and white tape on the quay and Andy noticed the ambulance, fire-engine and police van but neither of us thought anything about it. When a white suited official told us we had to leave we tried to explain that it was OK - we had permission to come and get water. He persisted and he was joined by a policeman and the port master all asking us to leave. Eventually a lady came and explained that there had been a bomb alert and we could not stay. It was then that we realised that a small area around the gullets had been cordoned off - but not in a British way where everyone within half a mile would have been asked to move back but in a truly Greek way - about 2 metres back with crowds jostling to look. As we took up our anchor the press were there taking our picture. Luckily the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club ensign was not flying!!

The forecast is for lots of wind so we found a small bay and anchored to windsurf while we rethought our water problem. There is a tiny beach here with a shower, we still have 50 litres plus our emergency 25 litres so we can make it last at least two days if necessary. We can walk from here to the village for food and internet and it is truly beautiful here. So we have decided to slum it and stay in our private bay until the bomb scare has passed.

********************************************

No bomb - just lovely relaxation before sailing down the Eastern peninsula with Mount Athos, the most religious corner of Greece, with over 20 monasteries dotted at regular intervals around the coast line. These monasteries date back to the 12th and 18th centuries and are pretty impressive feats of architecture. The only way to view them if you are female is from the sea - women are prohibited - and probably if you are male too as permits to enter the peninsular are hard to come by, just 10 per day are available.

The weather was calm and we spent a wonderful afternoon with DB’s self steerer guiding us along the coastline while we sat on the side deck with binoculars and guidebook.

******************************

We then set sail back to Limnos to show Fay this pretty island before putting her on the ferry back to the mainland and then on back to Cornwall. We arrived at 2 in the morning and anchored off the beach of Myrina.

Myrina has a very impressive fort and on Fays penultimate morning the two of us left A in bed and climbed up before it got too hot. The wall has had some renovation work over the years and we circumnavigated it taking in the far reaching views. Deer and goats seem to have made it home and we saw several of them. We were alone though below us the town was already awake at 7.30am. The people of Myrina ,and indeed the whole island, seem to have a sense of purpose, are friendly and busy. With Fay we toured around Limnos in a hire car - it was easy to see the whole island in a day as the island is a maximum of 20 miles long and 10 miles wide. It is a rugged island with few trees but has a distinct moor-like beauty which Andy and I find appealing. The villages are well kept and picturesque and the beaches and clean and sandy.

After a delicious meal in one of the best Greek restaurants we have eaten in we had to say a very sad good bye to Fay after one of the best two weeks we have had on board DB. Fay is going back to Pontoon where she will sort out her future - hopefully by the end of August see will know what she is doing for the next 3 years - and we will start on for Istanbul. We are meeting our good friends First Class Suzie and Lee there in two weeks time.