Spring is Sprung
- Richard Crooks
- Apr 24, 2024
- 3 min read
Spring is sprung…
…the grass is ris’
I wonder where de birdies is?
The bird is on the wing!
But how absurd,
I t’ought the wing was on de bird”
Swinging on the hook at the head of Ormos Almiropotamou, we were partly surrounded by a shrub-clad rocky headland, and well-sheltered from the expected southerly blow. From the greenery came the flitting, warbles of the many small, brown birds that were obviously excited by the prospect of another season. This verdant scene and twittering soundtrack sounded more like England than Greece.
And then a stranger, ethereal call: Cuck-oo…; Cuck-oo. “Alix, Alix, quick come up here - the Cuckoo”. “Oooh, where?” We held our breath for ages, straining our ears. And then beamed at each other as the “Cuck-oo” call drifted over the water towards us. Swallows swooped around the yacht, chirruping and gurgling. Spring was definitely in the air.
After sitting out a strong blow, we motored next morning around the headland, past the fish farms, and into the beautiful bay of Boufalo. It is a small village, with a tiny round bay partly enclosed at its mouth by a long sandy bar. It has four tavernas for such a tiny hamlet and anchorage, so I’m guessing it’s a lunch venue for local, land-based islanders as well.
We tender ashore in Ursa Minor, and left our guests in a taverna, while Alix and I stretched our legs with a walk around the bay. Some of the tamarisk trees that bounded the shore side were in flower. Cabbage white butterflies flitted and rested on the earth track before us, before flitting forward and coming to rest again. The colour palette was a mixture of greens and yellows from the flowering perennials and shrubs. Missy Bear sat peacefully in the centre of this bucolic scene, swingung gently to-and-fro in the breeze.
When we returned to the taverna, Tony and Lynn pointed out that the two ducks swimming just outside the taverna terrace had been in a frisky Spring mood. The ‘birds and the bees’ and all that. I pointed out that they were mallards and definitely both males! The only gays in the village?
Next day was a bit overcast, but a steady F3-4 from the east, helped us along the next, westwards leg of the Evia channel towards our next port of Chalkis, or Negroponte – black bridge - as the Venetians named it. Here we would have to wait for the sliding bridge to open at the narrow neck of the channel, at some unearthly hour of the morning.
We had a lovely gentle sail and then as we arrived at the start of the narrows, the wind back and fell and we had to tack slowly up into the next wider section. The wind died and we motored under the new suspension bridge, which is now the second connection between the mainland and Evia. Soon we arrived in the southern bay, and could see the tiny bridge across the gap. The tide was rushing against us and the eddies made Missy Bear twitch, as we approaching the visitors’ waiting quay.
Another sign of spring in the Aegean is the occasional strong, southerly air flow, by contrast to the steady northerly Meltemi of the summer. There was a huge low-pressure over the Ionian Sea. The isobars formed an immensely long N-S sausage from the Alps, down over Italy, across the Ionian Sea, past Libya and to the Sahara. The winds swirled anticlockwise and sucked the Saharan air from Libya and Egypt over the sea towards Athens and the Balkans beyond.
The sky over Chalki turned a deep orange-brown, as the sun struggled to penetrate the dust-choked air. Social media was filled with photographs showing Martian-like views all across Greece. Romanians commented that they too were experiencing the same.
As we walked around the town, our eyes felt heavy with the dirt, and the shower-trays filled with the same-coloured dirt that evening, to be then pumped away.
As for Missy Bear, she was an 'EasyBoat' again, and required yet another good wash next morning in fresh water hosed from the quayside tap. Oh, the joys of spring in Greece.
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