The Cyclades, football teams and washing

45. Greek Islands and fishing - Vlikadha, Santorini, Cyclades, Greece

We are in the “marina” of Vlikadha, on the South side of Santorini. In fact, as happens with most Greek marinas it has been taken over by the fishermen and they take priority over us yachts - so as they come in we get shunted around to make room for them. Here, as in Turkey, families live on board these small boats and we have been watching them land their tiny haul of fish and sort their nets. It is a tough live and in the desperate search for ever smaller fish the boats are scouring the seabed and much of their catch is the rockbed of the ocean.

The women here in Greece are as involved as the men - in fact on the two boats next to us I would say the women are the skippers. Both are attractive women but very different in character. There is the Amazon with a wild mop of very long curly hair, talking continually to her men folk (husband and sons perhaps) and then the quieter lady with her rubber gloves on and neat swept back dark hair and her two sons I guess. Both women are perhaps 40- 45 years old. They are well dressed and well fed. So different to their Turkish counterparts where the women appear to be subservient assistants and the fishing is much more subsistence level - perhaps no help from the government in Turkey while many of the Greek boats fly the European flag. Our Turkish custom officer friend told us that the Turkish fishing families live on the boats for the summer then take the money they have earnt (he believed quite a lot at the equivalent of €5,000) and live off the land in the winter. However, when we over-wintered in Karaç a SÖgù t there were fishing-families living on their boats with their small children, so he does not necessarily know all the story.

Yesterday we visited Thira - the Hora (main town) of this island. We walked some of the way in the heat of the afternoon until we found a bus stop and luckily the bus stopped for us. There is a very good bus service on the island though the ticket seller was very surly - in fact up to this point we had not met one friendly local. Even the lady from whom we bought coffee at the bus-stop was unfriendly and could not tell us if the bus would come soon despite her friend getting on the bus with us 5 minutes later!

Santorini is a volcano which blew between 1460BC and 1450BC. It must have been some explosion and put an end to the civilisation that lived here at that time. Now all that can be seen of the still active volcano is a half moon rim and the plug in the middle. The crater is filled with sea water and Thira sits high above this crater. The view is spectacular with the town a dense covering of white buildings cascading over the rim. 300m below there is a port of sorts where the cruise liners pick up buoys and discharge their vast cargos of people. We were very lucky that there was only one liner in port so the town was relatively empty. The cable car or donkeys are the easiest way from port to town and there were certainly a lot of donkeys!

We found a LOVELY restaurant with the friendliest family running it and the nicest food we have eaten out in Greece, overlooking the crater which faces West. While we ate our meal and drank the delicious local (homemade) wine we watched the sunset. We caught the 10pm bus back along the main road and walked the half hour back to the boat. When we got to Deep Blue we were seriously smelly after a day of sweltering heat so decided the best way to wash off was in the sea. The phosphorescence made the experience even better! Our motor yacht neighbour thought it “cool” that we had been swimming in the middle of the night.

At last we were beginning to meet some friendly Greeks. Today I climbed the cliff to the road above the marina and it was like a switch - everyone was so friendly and helpful. We needed to buy some stores and the lady in the Demitris taverna organised a shopkeeper to come and collect and return us with our shopping while we drank coffee. A really nice guy came to collect us - big and fit with a long, well kept ponytail. He told us that the shop belongs to his uncle and he runs it for him in the 8 summer months then joins his wife and daughter in Athens in the winter. He does some buying for the shop during that time but otherwise concentrates on his family. His daughter and wife join him during the 4 month school holidays and we met them and also his mother who lives with his uncle. A true family business. His wife was a very tall lady - and it turns out she used to play basket ball for Greece and we could see why! The whole family were smiley friendly people. We also spent a lot of money there so it was well worth his while collecting us.

That night we ate tapas in the very friendly Demitris Taverna and watched another spectacular sunset before retiring to bed aboard the good ship Deep Blue.

Santorini - Vlycadha to Nisos Thirisia
We wanted to spend a night or two in the crater of Santorini itself and so we motored the 6nm round (not worth getting the sails up!) and ate lunch while looking up at the Hora of Sanorini / Thira itself before picking up a buoy at the base of the Western crater rim island of Thirisia. Tourism has passed this place by despite very regular Gullets stopping here off loading its cargo of people. It is very down-trodden but there is a spectacular walk up to the Hora and sunset - good exercise if you decide not to take the donkey, and being the fit-family of course we did not.

We shared a beer (luckily we took our own) in the sad garden, strewn with rubbish, of a once grand and now abandoned hotel. What is it about the islanders here - there were signs for this hotel which indicated that neighbours had tried to stop people going to it. It was the only big building in the tiny village and could have brought prosperity to the place - or maybe I am missing something here. It certainly had a prime position with views both East into the crater and over to Thira and West to the sunset. It made us wonder what made an island successful as a tourist destination and what the critical mass of investment was. It cannot be difficult really as they have the essentials of sun, beautiful (warm by the way) water and spectacular views. All they need to provide is clean accommodation and a smiling face. Sadly the smiling face is largely missing with very notable exceptions.

We spent a further night anchored in the crater but this time under the town of Oia, at the Northern tip of the main island of Sanorini / Nisos Thira. Again it was a steep and long climb up the crater rim but we were so glad we had made the effort because it must be the prettiest town on the island and probably in the whole of Greece to date. Whitewashed churches, shops, boutique hotels and restaurants and houses, cobbled walkways and not a car in sight. Granted it was PACKED with tourists watching the sunset (what another one!!) but we found our way to a piece of hidden wasteland (even here they managed to let this field remain coated in plastic with a forlorn looking donkey tethered in the centre - but hey, out of sight, out of mind) to drink our boat beer and watch the sky once again turn red.

Nisos Folegandros
On Tuesday 14th September we set sail for Nisos Folegandros. We had a brilliant sail at high speed in a building Meltemi. Another pretty island and very different to the last one. There is a small part completed “marina” but no where safe for us to tie up so we decided to anchor. It took a while for the anchor to bite and even though we were not quite where we wanted to be we decided to stay put. We had an interesting time. The harbour walls - such as they were - did not protect us or any other boat from the swell and it turned out to be somewhat busier harbour than we were expecting!

First a Gullet arrived and manoeuvred around us so close I had a conversation with a crew member who assured me we were not in the way but then proceeded to drop its anchor just where ours was before reversing onto the quay. You have to bear in mind the tiny size of the harbour but height of a very hard quay which had put us off tying up PLUS a strong wind gusting across the mountains in a very unpredictable direction and a large swell. The gullet crew had a lot of difficulties getting their stern lines ashore - they tried lassoing the mooring bollard! And no-one came to help. Once secure they rocked and rolled just like us and in the night they slipped away without us noticing. We had a big shock when we woke the next morning, despite a broken sleep checking DB at regular intervals as we were blown around our anchor. There was the biggest fuel barge meters away from us alongside the quay - how on earth had it negotiated around us, another yacht also anchored, the quay and shallows without us hearing him!!

The previous evening we had walked the 3 km to the Hora - another pretty, pretty place. We somehow couldn’t face cooking on board a small boat bobbing around its anchor so we ate hearty rabbit and vegetable stews at a small family restaurant before returning to the beach and deciding to stay ashore for a drink. We were glad we did because we met a lovely (and handsome) young man who told us his take on the Greek situation. Alex has an English mum (Helen who we also met) and a Greek father who was also in evidence but not feeling sociable. Alex is dark with goatie beard, long dark hair pulled into a tie and like his mum tall and slim (actually he looks very like his English mum) - he told us that in Athens he has been picked up several times as a suspected Arab terrorist. Until he said he was schooled on the island I thought he must have gone to an English public school! Alex grew up on the island, his father was born on the island but he told us he was always an outsider, the English boy - even the school kids used to taunt him about being English.

He told us about catching his first octopus - in his hands - in the sea just by our table. “The sea used to come right up here but the sea walls changed the whole bay. It was badly designed and the sand moved from over there to over here. But it would have been very nice never-the-less. But a rich man on the island did not want it so he fought it through the European courts and the European funding was withdrawn”. What is left is a mess of huge concrete blocks and yet another part European funded part built marina. We hope that the man in question is happy with the sight.

But he felt that the Greeks were changing.

His theory is that the financial crisis has got through to the everyday Greek and the culture of everyone for their own is changing. Note, he said, how everyone gives you a receipt now (true). The link between taxes and service has got through to people at last . Some corrupt politicians are being put in jail too, making the culture of stealing European money and taxes less acceptable. Slowly, slowly he believes the Greeks are changing. They are angry with the old political elite and so perhaps the politics will change too.

Alex was helping his parents out at the bar though we got the impression he now lives in Athens and has certainly been an English teacher there. He is a nice guy and it was interesting to get his perspective as a near insider.

Sadly we could not stay - another night like that one on anchor and murder would have been committed so the next morning we sailed East to Nisos Sikinos and a sheltered tiny harbour on yet another pretty little island - this time with a fantastic beach.

Nisos Sikinos, Cyclades, Greece
We needed our laundry washing. 10 days without being able to wash clothes and bedding had left us scrabbling for clean things. We asked at the local mini market – the lady there seemed to be the font of all knowledge – but on this point we drew a blank. She knew of no-one who would put a wash into a washing machine for passing sailors.

We walked to the hora. Actually it was a walk that turned into our usual scramble and clamber cross country until we found the old donkey way. Two hours later we found our way into the hora and I was seriously low on the blood sugar front. We had the devils job to find ANYWHERE that sold ANYTHING. The place was beautiful, clean but devoid of people. We wandered the empty walkways until we eventually found the cutest bar with a seriously cool dude running it who spoke excellent English. I cross examined him ... where was he from, did he know the island. Well he was not local, he was from Athens, he did not know the whole island as he had only lived there 10 years (!) (Sikinos is only 5 kms by 10 kms max) but we could try him. Did he know anyone who could do our washing! Actually yes he did know a lady who took in washing he would go and ask her how much and if she could do it.

So it came to pass that we were introduced to a dower looking lady who seemed pleased that she may have some work but was not going to make too much of a fuss about it. We told her we would be back in the morning. Luckily there is an amazing bus service between the port and the hora because we ended up getting to know the bus driver and the bus route pretty well!

Next morning, relevant to this story is the fact that we were the only boat left in the port (actually small village harbour) until an hour before we left for the bus, when a small ferry boat moored behind us – we thought it was a party boat because it was full of mainly male young men - emptied noisily. The boat stayed and the party got on the early bus to the Hora.

Anyway, walking boots on and two large bags of washing in hand we caught the 9.15 bus to the hora and dropped the bags of laundry to our washer woman. She barely acknowledged us but said “afternoon” when we asked when to collect.

We went for a fabulous walk and returned at 12.30 to find a few pieces of our washing looking very well wrung on the line. I started to worry about how our washing would look when it was eventually returned to us. We hoped it was still work in progress. There was a bus at 1 and another at 2. We rather optimistically asked her if the washing would be ready in half an hour and for a moment thought we were in luck until we realised that no, she was asking us to return at 6pm!! We caught the 1 o’clock bus back to the boat.

There was a bus back at 5.45, so after lunch, some work and a swim we caught the bus back to the hora. The bus is an old coach which rarely gets out of 2nd gear due to the steep road (the only road on the island) between port and hora. There appear to be two bus drivers that take alternative days and then drive backwards and forwards the 10 minute but 2 hour walk distance about 8 times a day. We were getting to know today’s fit driver in his wrap round glasses pretty well! The washing was waiting and when we gave her the money, a fortune for us both, she actually started to smile very broadly! We were all happy – we had clean clothes and she had €30 euros!

We decided to go back to Georgeo’s bar for a beer to celebrate. We were greeted like old friends by all the regulars (old men drinking coffee) though Andy thought it may have been more to do with the low neckline on my dress than the fact that they recognised us from yesterday. We decided to catch the 7pm bus back, our fifth bus journey in less than 24hour! We duly got on the bus early because the Greek buses always leave early - but just to prove me wrong this one did not! He then took a road we had not previously seen. This was going to be a magical mystery tour! Imagine our amazement when we stopped at an Astro-turf football pitch complete with flood lights on the only flat piece of land on the island in the middle of absolutely no-where!

The bus driver got out of the bus and said “5 minutes”. We all followed thinking he was going to join the game and that this was going to be an elastic 5 minutes. All ages were playing from a tiny boy who was like Beckham to a seriously old man - a proper motley crew. To the amusement of the other passengers I start to shout “come on the orange team” but it meant they came to talk to me. It turned out that the footballers were a mix of islanders who had come by the “party” boat to play an inter-island football game. The bus was waiting to take them back to the boat moored behind us which in turn was due to leave any moment.

Eventually the happy footballers piled into the bus and we were on our way to the port. We waved them goodbye as their boat left and we were left the only boat in port to sort our clean washing.