Season 2

(c) Lawrence Durrell, The Greek Islands If you ask a British tourist in Greece what they know about the Cyclades, they are likely to give a variety of answers, depending on their background. Your average ancient Greece historian is likely to tell you about Delos (the centre of the Delian League), an island deemed to be the birthplace of Apollo (the sun god) and his twin sister Artemis (goddess of hunting, childbirth, the moon, and interestingly, chastity). Her Roman equivalen

1. The lee of the mainland bares a lighter sea hue, we spy horses ahead frothing white o’er dark blue. The cape off port-bow portends wind’s sharpest teeth; “Reef the main, Missy Bear, and head east-by-sou’-east”. 2. The chart hints of isles lying oceans apart, but it’s line-of-sight sailing each morn‘ we depart. The far, craggy rocks loom for’d of her shrouds, their high peaks caressed by white duvets of cloud. 3. Shearwaters wheel freely low over the crests, and dolphins

Concentrating? I’ve probably said it before, but I’ll say it again. This is not a holiday; we are living on board. Although while we were in Poros, it feels like a strange mix with so many memories. We reached down from Epidavros. We had a glorious sail, and even gybed in through the gap to Poros island, although conceded the bigger part of the channel to the large car ferry from Athens. We close-hauled and tacked into Navy Bay as far as we dared with all the boat traffic. T

A shared Orthodox faith I made the classic mistake of asking a taxi driver for his opinion. What made it worse was that this taxi driver happened to be Greek and the question was, “ What do the Greeks think of Putin? ” As if it were possible for him to answer that! Well, his answer lasted the entire 15-minute journey from the sanctuary to old Epidavros port. And he barely stopped for breath. There were a few conspiracy theories thrown in, but in case you were wondering, his i

Badge of the Royal Army Medical Corp Have you ever wondered why a snake entwined around a stick has become a standard symbol of the medical professions? No, I thought not. But I’ll relate, in any case, what I told the flotilla guests at the briefing on the morning before the yachts arrived at the old port of Epidavros. Now, most people know of Epidavros because of its ancient sanctuary of the same name, which has probably the finest preserved theatre in Greece. That is what m

One of the most delightful forms of entertainment is being safely moored up, not going anywhere, and then watching other yachties trying to tie up or leave. For some voyeurs, it’s schadenfreude , but for me, it’s “ there but for the grace of God ”. We have all done stupid things when mooring, or leaving a berth. It’s very easy to get distracted, and we have learned to take it easy and work through our checklist. But mistakes or bad luck can still happen. We had a delightful

We have knowingly sailed past four active volcanoes so far on Missy Bear: two in the Aeolian islands and one on Sicily last year; and now one on the end of the Methana peninsular. Admittedly, the latest one last erupted about 250 BC, but it still bubbles out sulphurous waters that fuel the hydrotherapy spa at ‘stinky’ Methana town. Apparently, if you keep your boat there, you don’t need to antifoul the bottom, because the eggy-smelling waters will keep all the barnacles and w

Our Cadogan guide says that Portocheli (Porto Heli) “ has as much personality as a doorknob ”. Now, I’ve seen some interesting doorknobs on our travels, but I’m not sure that that was meant as a compliment. By contrast the same guide says that Nafplio is “ a rarity in the Peloponnese: a beautiful city ”. It was difficult to disagree with that summary. We only ever took the Setsail flotilla into Port Heli (PH) once, and that was simply to avoid some high winds that were foreca

For those who are too young to remember it, this is how Gladys Pugh (played by Ruth Madoc) used to introduce her broadcasts in the BBC sitcom ‘Hi-de-Hi’, set in the 1950s holiday camp of Maplins. Well, Skipper may frown upon me saying this, but sometimes boating is like having a caravan on water. You pack up every day, stow things away, and move on to the next place. Then, you unpack what you need, spend the afternoon, and certainly the evening doing stuff around the location

(or ’ Did we beat the other buggers here? ’) With Cape Maleas behind us, we could now drift up the coastline to Monemvasia. R has mentioned previously that Monemvasia is sometimes called the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, but I think that is rather unfair to Monemvasia (apologies to any Gib-lovers out there). The only similarity is that they are both large rocks connected to the mainland by a short causeway. [ Ed – and Monemvasia’s isthmus doesn’t include an airport! ] R and I had

Monemvasia (Malvasia to the Venetians) The memory that has remained most vivid from our 2004 post-flotilla road trip with Suzie and Bente is the cloud of pink covering the top of The Rock. On closer inspection, this violet carpet turned out to be thousands of large-petalled cyclamens. Each of them clinging onto the limestone with barely any discernible top soil for roots or sustenance. It was the end of October, and after that long summer when most Greek vegetation had seemin

or 'Third time lucky' The Three Fingers (C) Rod Heikell Thanks to the landslide which has closed the Corinth Canal, we have to round the three fingers at the bottom of the Peloponnese, and it’s taken us three different attempts. Our first got us as far as Koroni, which is at the end of the first, westernmost finger. We anchored, already knowing we weren’t going to try to get further east as the forecast was blowing up again. Our friends Judith and Al on ‘Money Penny’ had atte

The Mani - Limeni to Porto Kaiyo - via Cape Matapan (or Tainaron) I’ve been trying to keep the outside of the yacht clean and failing miserably. Every time I scrub the topsides down, the next light wind or short rain-shower deposits a new layer of fine, orange, Saharan dust on the topsides. This is then deposited, from the little rivulets of rain, into tiny pools where it morphs into a fine orange clay-like moraine. And so I repeat the process. Except when we are at anchorage

(or ‘Traipsing down mainland Greece…’) After leaving Zakynthos (Zante to give it its Italian name), our first port of call on the Greek mainland was Katakolon. According to Heikell, our pilot guide, the harbour was built in 1875 to support the thriving trade in currants. Zante currants (or Corinthian raisins) are made from small-size juicy grapes. The first written record of these currants was made by Pliny the Elder (who perished rescuing a friend from the eruption of Mount

The Arcadian Gate of ancient Messene The Spartans really did beat up the Messenians. One hopes that during the three-month truces ( Ekeheiria ) during the games at Olympia, that the Messenians got a break from their laconic and brutish neighbours. (See “ Stop the war, and have a wrestle”). The Spartans were so hard, in fact, that their own city didn’t have a need for defensive walls. The city walls of ancient Messene by contrast are nearly 6 miles long. And formidable in stat

The head of Constantine, the head of Constantinople, fell during the fall of Constantinople. (All my own work. I thank you!) [Alix: ahem…] Quite exactly how Constantine became separated from his head during or after the fight to save his Byzantine ‘capital’ from the Ottoman invaders is much debated. But separated they became. At that point, on May 29th 1453, the once mighty Empire now comprised only two morsels: tiny Trebizond (which would fall to Sultan Mehmed in 1461) and

[ Stop press May 4, 09:00: Ed - input charge down to 2-3A this morning and batteries cool at 21-22 degrees C. Reconnected bow thruster battery and absorption phase normal. So we just await Costas to bring the replacement battery for me to install. And then we watch again. But feeling positive. 11:00 - new battery installed. Seems to be absorbing normally. Happy days! ] [ Stop press May 3, 21:00: Ed - new battery charger installed (Costas is a lovely guy). So we are back on sh

Missy Bear running down the roadstead of Modon We were running under jib down the western Peloponnese from Pylos to the bottom of the first Peloponnesian finger. The low walls of the castle and the tower at the headland jutted out into the narrow strait between the finger-end and the islands. The battlements grew steadily more apparent and imposing. The later Ottoman tower and Venetian fort Then we gybed onto starboard tack and broad reached down the roadstead to what the Ven

Giolova Lagoon - the green wetland. Missy Bear is in the turquoise bay to the right with Pilos just visible "Knock knock." "Who’s there?" "Amos." "Amos who?" "A mosquito" We were just drifting off to sleep. We were at anchor, the sea was calm, taverna music from the shore played quietly, there was an occasional slapping of water against Missy Bear, when suddenly… Richard smacked his ear. That could only mean one thing. A mosquito! We both sat up and put lights on. Not a trac

South-West entrance to Navarino Bay The Scene : Navarino Bay, south-western Peloponnese The Cast and their Roles: Ivan Ivanov: To expand his Russian empire at the expense of Mehmet Turkman. Stavros Kleftiko: To gain freedom from Mehmet. Mehmet Turkman: To keep Stavros under control and maintain his Ottoman empire. Mustafa Ali: To take Stavros’ Peloponnese, as promised to him by Mehmet. Emmanuel LePenseur: To aid Stavros in his romantic, revolutionary freedom fight (having pre