Island hopping

Hello all! I am writing this entry from the rooftop bar of our hostel in Heraklion, Crete, where Gary and I are sitting and relaxing while the street below bustles with action as the locals sit down to their dinner at 10.30pm. The increasingly familiar sound of Komboloi beads (worry beads) is drifting up with the warm breeze, only barely distinguishable above the voices and laughter of the diners. It is amazing how loud the locals speak here! To foreigners it may appear, due to their agitated tone and volume, that they are engaged in a fierce argument of sorts, when in fact they are more likely to be making a general comment about the weather or how relaxing their day was. This recount of the day’s happenings would inevitably make reference to their mornings, where they sat around drinking coffee and talking, their lunchtimes, where they consumed more coffee and chatted, their afternoon siesta, then their early evening coffee where sitting, they conversed, and caught up with old friends who they hadn’t seen since lunchtime! Go figure why they need the worry beads!


Over the past week Gary and I have travelled south through the Peleponnese, and explored the contrasting, yet equally beautiful islands of Kythira and Crete. Kythira was an unspoilt island paradise, where rugged mountains roll down to secluded white sandy beaches and crystal clear turquoise water that teems with an abundance of sea life - the best I have seen thus far in the Med. It was made all the more special thanks to the presence of Gary’s parents, who knew the island like the back of their hand, and proudly showed off the place where Gary’s Grandparents had once lived, tending sheep and harvesting olives. We visited the place where they used to reside, a property running down from a height of a few hundred metres, all the way to the coast and a little pebbly beach. A small, largely decrepit dwelling stood on the property, as did a good number of mature olive trees, that hadn’t been tended to in decades. Oh and did I mention that the property now potentially belongs to Gary’s family? Nice spot for a little holiday house if I do say so myself!


At 4am, after 3 days on Kythira, Gary and I departed on a ferry bound for Crete, some 4 hours away. On Crete, we ran into a mate of ours, Ian, who we had met in the Peleponnese a week earlier. We also introduced ourselves to a lovely group of Dutch sisters, who accompanied Ian, Gary and I across the island for the next few days. We visited Hania, a beautiful old Venetian port town, Samaria Gorge (the longest in Europe), and the beautiful cliff-lined beaches of the south coast.

On one of our many bus rides together around the island, we had a bit of a run in with the bus driver, who had given me strict instruction while getting on the bus to not eat, drink or smoke throughout the duration of the trip. Easy enough advice, which I proceeded to pass on to my fellow travellers, who of course chose to ignore this advice. Coke cans were cracked open, and the pizza slices and bread rolls that had just been purchased from the bakery were consumed in great volume. All was going smoothly until Lilly, the youngest of the Dutch sisters, dropped her can of coke on the floor of the bus, spraying all the passengers sitting in the back half of the vehicle. The bus driver went mad! He pulled the bus over in the middle of the highway, stormed up the back and proceeded to yell at the lot of us for failing to follow his simple instructions. Gary played innocent, pretending not to have consumed any food, yet failing to realize he was still chewing when answering the bus driver’s questions. All food was confiscated, except for one water bottle, which Lilly had managed to hide in her handbag. Only minutes later, while attempting to consume this water, she dropped the bottle, and it rolled down the length of the bus, stopping only thanks to a bag which hung from a passengers seat and prevented the projectile from rolling right into the bus drivers lap. Miraculously the driver didn’t notice the averted disaster, despite being bemused by the hordes of hysterical laughter from the group of us at the back of the bus. A day later, we said goodbye to the girls, who jumped on a bus to head off to Santorini a few days ahead of us. To their horror, the bus driver was the same mad one who had confiscated all their food that eventful day.


Before I go I must quickly make mention of the howling northerly (close to the strongest wind I have ever experienced) whipping up seas over the past few days here on Crete. This afternoon in Heraklion there were 3ft sets hitting a number of little reef breaks and beachies along the coast. It’s enough to drive a wave deprived surfer mad. Looking forward to hitting the beaches back home in a month or so!

Cheers,

Matt.

Albania... ummm ok!

Well, to our surprise we ended up staying in Albania for 4 days instead of 2! It was just too good to leave. During my time there I went for walk in stifling heat around old goat herders trails in the nearby mountains, which brought me to an isolated Ottoman arch bridge in a secluded little valley. An amazing find considering I had no idea where I was going and there was no-one else in sight for the entire duration of my exploration. The unexpected continued at the dinner table that night when Gary ordered veal brain soup as an entrée and frogs legs for the main course. The brain was absolutely revolting (even the big fella couldn’t finish it) however the frogs legs were a pleasant surprise tasting like a combination of grilled fish and chicken. That night we ran into a couple of old friends who we had met in Greece, who in turn introduced us to a few peace cor. volunteers who were working in Glirokaster in the tourism sector. They told us about their desire to set up a tubing initiative in the nearby river and asked if we would be interested in accompanying them down the river the next morning. Ummm…. Ok!

 

So the next morning at 9.30am we met the boys in a nearby café, picked up the tubes, hailed a taxi and drove 5 minutes down the road (with one of the blokes inflated fluoro banana chairs tied to the roof) to the head of the river where it leaves the local mountains. The river was fairly narrow, however it was fast flowing in places and although being seriously cold, the water was crystal clear and very inviting considering the sweltering Albanian heat. So after a mandatory pre-departure beer we were off, floating peacefully down the river, lined by weeping willows providing shade for numerous herds of goats, sheep and cows, as well as a group of sunbathing girls, who apparently were being watched closely by their boyfriends. We discovered this quickly, as Seth, one of the peace cor. volunteers, asked them in Albanian ‘do you like my boat’, which was apparently frowned upon by their ever-watching male counterparts. As soon as Seth had finished the question two blokes jumped out of the bushes who, yelling with rage, began to pelt stones at the five of us floating by. We were helpless and luckily managed to paddle out of their reach before anyone got hurt. Poor Gary didn’t even know what was going on before there were stones landing within centimetres of him. Funny in hindsight, but rather scary at the time! Further down the river we were again confronted by a group of locals, although this time they were only kids, however there were swarms of them. As soon as they saw these strangers floating down the river (this was the first time anyone had ever navigated this section of the river) they decided it best to all swim out and try to jump on the tubes at the same time. Now this may sound like a kind of nice thing to have happened, trust me, it wasn’t! They jumped all over us, one kid was on my head and would have probably drowned me if the river was any deeper. A group of kids made off with Gary’s tube and he was left to walk down the bank trying to convince them to give it back. Somehow he managed to reef it off them and we were off again. A kilometre or so downstream we encountered a number of rapids, which although leaving a couple of bruises on the backside, were exhilarating none the less. We passed under old suspension bridges, and beneath towering rocky mountains, which seemed to grow as we approached closer to the valley around every bend. By the end of the day, we had travelled almost 20km down the river in a period of over 5 hours. We were all wrecked! We spotted a nearby town, Tepelene, and walked up a nearby embankment and a further few kilometres or so towards a couple of pizzas and well deserved beers. To get back to Gjirokaster we hitched a ride with a local policeman who during the course of our 20 minute ride back broke inumerous road laws, seemingly accepted a bribe off a passing motorist, and almost ran over a group of school children, all while casually offering us some freshly picked figs stored in the drivers compartment. What a day!

 

The next morning we finally left Albania at 5.30 am (after being woken up by the mosque blaring an hour earlier), to embark on a journey that involved 3 busses, a ferry, and a taxi, to Olympia in Southern Greece. Here we have discovered ‘touro central’ where whistles blow all day as apparently ignorant foreigners blatantly climb all over roped-off ruins and appear somehow bemused as to the reason behind their constant attention from officials. Anyway the ruins themselves where thankfully worthwhile seeing and we are spending the rest of the day here relaxing after the hectic days of travel yesterday.

 

Cheers.

 

Matt.

Greece

Yassas!

 

Arriving in Athens and meeting up with Gary at the hostel bar at 1am was great! He was already on his way and I soon followed suit with a complimentary couple of Ouzos and a few more cold Mythos (Greek beers). After a quick catch up chat (3 hours) we headed to bed waking up a little hazy and apparently sharing a room with an extremely attractive couple of French girls. It was a pleasant change waking up to such a beautiful sight as opposed to waking up on a boat with two blokes to the sound of Ben’s fart.  However life has since returned to normal as I have been waking up in remote areas of Greece with no girls in sight and more often than not to the sound of Gary’s fart!

 

We departed Athens early that morning to Delphi, a couple of hours north-west, to stay the night in the scenic mountain town and visit the ancient ruins, which included a 100 metre running track and stadium dating back some 2500 years. Quite a sight. After Delphi we embarked on a frustratingly long and hot day of travel, which included 4 bus changes, to Meteora, the sight of the amazing mountaintop monasteries.  We stayed in a hotel owned by an Aussie ex-pat who was a classic character with next to no social skills resulting in a hilarious exchange that evening where he would ask one question, then interrupt the response to his own question to ask another person at the table a different question! Gary could hardly contain himself!

 

The following morning we walked up to the nearby monasteries past a turtle and a massive brown snake (which Gary almost stepped on). What an amazing sight the monasteries are! They are perched precariously on top of enormous spires of sandstone that creates a landscape like nothing I have seen before. It is a little disappointing to see the amount of tourists arriving in chartered busses, however we managed to steer relatively clear of the hordes choosing to visit the most isolated sights – one of which was a location for the James Bond movie For your eyes only.

 

On a slight tangent, I should mention briefly that during our travels to and around Meteora we met two couples who were at the present time sailing around the world. They both independently explained to me how difficult they had found sailing the Med, as opposed to crossing the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. They each told separate stories, which mimicked my experience with the 70 knot winds accompanying the storm on the Isle of Corsica. One had met a couple who out of nowhere were hit by a 90 knot gust which severed their mast in an instant and sent it to the bottom of the sea before they knew what had happened. Another was hit on the side by a rogue wave that completely flipped the boat with the skipper steering in the cockpit! Apparently he was ok but just really shaken. The boat rolled back upright almost instantly with no apparent damage. Goes to show you how misguided the myths are about the sedate Mediterranean.

 

Anyway, back to Greece. After our stay in Meteora we headed up to Metsovo, another picturesque mountain village in NW Greece. It was a remarkable place, relatively untouched by tourism. Snow-capped mountains surrounded us on all sides and we enjoyed simply sitting in the square and watching the countless old men sitting and talking for hours while constantly fondling with their komboloia (worry beads). The following morning we headed off in torrential rain to Ioannina, a university town a few hours away, where we arrived to find it completely flooded. We found a room in a nearby hotel where the owner was mopping up after the lobby was engulfed in over 1 metre of water. To our dissapointment, the pub around the corner was also submerged, but like any good businessman, the owner shuffled us upstairs to enjoy the unbelievably overpriced beer and food. One 250mL Stella sold for 7 Euros! If you wanted to buy beer of a larger volume (for the budget conscious) you could purchase a 3L bottle of Amstel for only 48 Euros! Bargain! At least the food tasted good!

 

Monodendri was our next destination, located in the nearby mountains, where the world’s deepest gorge is located. Vikos Gorge is over 900m deep and only 1km wide. We did two walks while we were there; one along a precarious half-a-metre wide path clinging to the cliff-face with a vertical drop of 800metres, and the other down into the gorge which (although affording spectacular views)

involved the inevitable and exhausting climb 900m back up again! It was worth it though! We had to keep reminding ourselves we were in Greece as the scenery was not something you normally associate with images of the arid Mediterranean country. The gorge was fringed with lush vegetation and the dramatic gorge walls looked like something out of the lost world. Simply stunning! Unfortunately we are unsure whether the photos of our walks have turned out as my camera is broken, and Gary’s, with the help of some poor packing and my notorious clumsiness, was sent flying from his pack off a stone wall to the ground some 10 metres below. It seems ok, besides the cracked screen, so we are living in hope that the images have survived the tumble. 

 

Currently (and randomly) I am writing this post from the balcony of our hotel in Gjirokaster, Albania! We decided on impulse to head up here after Monodendri because we were so close to the border. The decision turned out to be a good one with the crossing being far less eventful and costly than we had expected. That is beside the taxi driver who drove a constant 140km/h in a 40 zone, overtaking trucks around blind corners, and all while Gary, I and a couple of elderly German backpackers clung to the inside of the old Mercades, which conveniently contained no seatbelts (except for the drivers seat of course). Anyway we somehow arrived alive and have since explored the beautiful old Ottoman village and the castle, which towers over the stone houses that cling to the side of the rocky hilltop. We will stay here another night before returning to Greece to make our way south to meet Gary’s parents in Kythera and eventually to Rob’s wedding in Santorini.

 

Cheers (and sorry about the length of this last post!)

 

Matt.            

The final days on the Med

Ciao.

Since my last post I have travelled around the Tuscan Islands of Elba, Giglio and Gionnutri, then down the mainland coast to Rome, where I said goodbye to Simo, Ben and Painkiller, and hello to Gary and Greece.

The Tuscan Islands were amazing! Beautiful little outcrops of land dotted around the coastline of western Italy, where there were plentiful little anchorages in isolated coves off picturesque white beaches. The main issue and noteworthy event to mention during my time on Elba, was the unexpected storm that blew over with horizontal rain, hail and winds of up to 70 knots! We were luckily moored safely in Portoferrio, however a number of other vessels were not so lucky; two boats sank and one big triple-master was washed ashore. One Aussie couple we met, who had sailed all the way from Adelaide over the past 8 years, rode out the storm in a nearby bay and at 4am had another boat smash into them after their anchor snapped causing extensive damage. They didn’t see the boat in the morning (after they heard the captain in tears on the VHF making continuous mayday calls) and as such were forced to pay for all the repairs themselves, which included a lost dingy, snapped anchor, and the destruction of their lifelines. The coastguard later told us of another disaster where a yacht anchored just north of Portoferrio sank and the captain was blown in his liferaft 20 nautical miles out to see where he was rescued two days later.

 

After departing Portoferrio we sailed to the southern side of Elba, then over to mainland Italy during which time we didn’t set foot on land for 3 consecutive days (serious case of sea legs when we finally took our first steps in a marina in southern Tuscany. However as this marina was full we  quickly got back on the boat and set off again for another of the Tuscan Islands further south (Gionnuttri) to anchor for the night. During this 2 hour journey, while consuming a number of Peronis, Ben’s stubby holder rolled overboard. He instinctively dived over, only to realise that he was listening to his ipod at the time, and as such it was destroyed due to water damage. Quite humerous to Simo and I, Ben saw the funny side of it a few minutes later while enjoying another beer in his much loved and now wet stubby holder.

Upon reaching Gionnuttri, we anchored in a calm bay and settled down for the night, only to be woken up at 5am by a howling wind and large swell driving us within a couple of metres of the nearby rocks! So we pulled up anchor and sailed back to mainland Italy all over again! This journey was much more pleasant than earlier anticipated as the winds became favourable, the weather cleared up, and we were accompanied by a large pod of dolphins who rode the bow with us for a few moments before they disappeared over the horizon as quickly as they came.

We finally reached Fumiccino (Rome) a few days later after favourable tail winds allowed us to ‘goose-wing’ down the coast at up to 8 knots and under faultless blue skies, calm seas and temperature in the high twenties. A brilliant last day of sailing! We celebrated the end of our journey, from Marseille to Rome, with a well-earned shower and a few (too many) beers on a pub-crawl.

 

The morning after I packed up my things, strapped on my backpack and headed away from the boys and Painkiller to spend my first night on land in over a month! What a trip it was – simply amazing! Life can’t get much more cruisier than living on a boat and sailing the Med. I’m going to miss so many things about that life - the constant creaking of the old boat, my tiny coffin-berth bed, the old ‘dump and pump’, constantly smashing my legs on the winches and hitting my head on the boom, pulling up anchor at 4am, and failing to not even once catch a fish! What a crewman I was – lucky the other boys knew what they were doing!

 

Cheers.

 

Matt.