Donna & Nick visit Greece, 2007
a week on the clipper ship Star Flyer & 4 days in Athens area
Saturday 12 May
Not much to tell about getting here, a zillion hours of flying & waiting around in airports, Houston – JFK – Milan – Athens. Left the house at 8 am Friday, got to the ship at 4 pm Sat, even minus the 8 hour time difference = lots of time in transit.
We were taken to the port of Piraeus and checked in by ship personnel that we didn’t know then but became very familiar with as the week progressed. funny how strangers soon become friends whose names (& eccentricities!) you know, accents you understand (!), origins you find out about – Goa India, Philippines, Germany, Sweden, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, etc. Interesting that the crew & guests were from all over the world, & so used English as their lingua franca since it was the only language they had at all in common, however strangely they spoke it.
the way the personnel broke down was also interesting. Service people who cleaned cabins & served as waiters etc were Indonesians; cooks, purser & other office-type people Filipinos; wine stewards Turks; maitre’d Croatian; sports team Swedes (very blond & very tanned) & a German; cruise director a Bavarian who sounded a bit like Ahnold Swartzenegger if he were a lawyer with a blond ponytail; crew Goans; officers Russians & Ukrainians; and captain a Pole.
the organization of the ship’s crew was : captain – first officer/chief – 2 second officers – crew chief/bosun – 5 or 6 ABSs (able-bodied seamen) - 5 or 6 OSs (ordinary seamen). the officers were always in charge of the watches, the sailing of the ship, and had specific other duties as well – ship security & safety (life boats, life vests, muster calls, etc. there were also people below the decks that we hardly ever saw, an engineer & his guys who kept the engines going, etc.
I said engines, but don’t think that the ship used them much for sailing, they were really used to run generators for the electricity on board. the sailing was done by ... sails! this was a true clipper ship built to the standard of 5 main (square) sails & about a dozen triangular sails whose names I forget. Almost all of these were raised & lowered by hand (or I should say, by strong arms – they got the passengers to help out if they wanted, not such very strong arms but enthusiastic anyway).
Our cabin was in the cheap seats – only 4 cabins on board had no window & that was us, in the bowels of the ship! I think we were the only passengers in that part. With the lights off it was REALLY dark & we had to look at the clock to see if it was night or day. It was good for us though because well, it was cheaper, and also most of the cabins had fixed double beds, and ours was a bunk-bed setup, just right. There was a curtain you could pull to separate the tiny floor space, which we used so that we could both get dressed. The bathroom was about 3 sq ft, a toilet, tiny sink, and mini-shower with the floor slanted down to the drain rather than any separation from the rest of the room. The dining room was on the floor above us, & the lower deck (& bar!) above that, with the 2 top decks where the sails, bridge, anchors, & steering wheel (?) were above it all.
I have so many photos of sails. I love the way the sun shines on them & through them, their shapes, their stitching patterns, their creamy white against the blue sky. Also all the rigging – you never saw so many ropes of different types & sizes & uses. Also the pulleys that the ropes ran on – a few shiny metal ones, but mostly beautiful dark wood, with a metal triangle in the middle showing their year of installation.
According to where the sails needed to be positioned, folks in deck chairs had to get up & get out of the way of the process of pulling them in, letting them out, moving them from one side to another to catch the wind. During the day the crew would put up blue canvas covers to make shade on deck & I had my best afternoon of all there on Monday, reading a book for 20 minutes & then dozing for 2 hrs in the wake of monster jet lag.
Sunday 13 May
At sea
The first day on board was spent just sailing from Piraeus (the port of Athens) towards the eastern Aegean islands, where we spent most of the trip. We spent that time exploring the ship, resting, & …eating (well, it was a cruise after all). right after breakfast was a muster, where you have to wear your life vest & show up at your correct station to practice what to do if there is an emergency. Safety first.
Then the captain said a few words & introduced the main players – officers, sports team, etc – until he had to dash off & make some sailing corrections because we were going about 14 knots, which is mighty fast, so some of the sails had to come down. Then there was a meeting of anyone interested in diving, which ended up changing nick’s plans for the week.
I intended to dive & brought some of my own stuff (although of course not enough to avoid the equipment charge for each dive). I asked nick if he wanted to come to the meeting since they had a “try out diving” program that let you get in the water once without being certified, after a bit of an introduction to the equipment, safety, etc. I thought it might be fun for him to jump into the Aegean, and he agreed. So we filled out the paperwork & arranged for his training session the next day. (Turned out he really liked it & decided to get certified while on board, which required diving every day. So I dived every day too to be his moral support. More on that later.)
Then lunch. A goofy golf game on the 2 top deck levels, a massage, hanging out, then dinner, then early to bed after such an exhausting day.
Monday 14 May
Kusadasi, Turkey & Ephesus
Every day during the main part of the trip there’s an excursion in the morning if you want to do it, or you can go to the local town for shopping strolling etc, or you can go to the local beaches. You get to the excursion/town on a tender, a covered boat with space for about 30 people, or to the beaches on a zodiac, a motorboat with rubbery pontoon sides. The sports team runs this, as well as helping people with windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, and of course diving.
Nick went to the Ephesus tour & I stayed on board to nap in a deck chair since I saw Ephesus a couple of years ago & was trying to save a BIT of $$$. The napping in the sea breeze on deck was a high point of the trip anyway, it was so luxurious. Especially since I could have been at work on a Monday instead!
Nick had his first dive instruction after lunch. There are 2 tiny pools on the ship, about 4 ft deep & filled with fresh sea water every morning. He had to put on a wetsuit & get in, put on a BCD vest, regulator, etc., and learn some diving skills. The most fortuitous thing of the week happened at that point – a young (~14) German named Leon showed up too (more later). They worked together with Katharina, the German dive instructor from the sports team. She was an interesting combination of the strict German you’ve-got-to-do-things-by-the-rules and a looser well-it’s-close-enough-for-government-work attitude that was perfect for learning diving in a very constrained situation onboard without an Olympic sized pool with a 10’ deep end.
He was so cold he was shaking, a disadvantage of having so little body fat (about the only one, I imagine). The Aegean is quite cold in May – on the dives I registered 63-66 degrees. The coldest I’d done before this was in Fiji, about 75, & the Caribbean is in the 80s, which has American divers quite spoiled. During our dives we wore a 3mm long wetsuit with a 7mm hooded short suit over it. And still we were freezing, esp at the end of a 40 minute dive. It was like water out of the refrigerator. But excellent visibility.
Well! After that we were ready for an afternoon snack. On the ship in addition to huge breakfasts lunches & dinners there’s a snack in the afternoon & at midnight. No one goes hungry.
More lounging then dinner. Dinner is always 7:30 – 10, and it takes that long because there is a menu with several choices for appetizer, salad, entrée, & dessert, and serving individual orders to about 130 passengers takes a while. But it’s ok because you’re visiting. It turns out that Leon’s family adopted us & we were together for the rest of the week & visited & laughed through every dinner. The dad Guido was born in Egypt, he & Leon have eyes that disappear into slits when they smile – both look so merry - the mom and 16-yr-old daughter (just forgot their names) beautiful delicate & blue-eyed. Very intelligent, well-traveled, interesting & talented people. Our friends for the week, perhaps for life.
After dinner there is always some kind of activity. One night a fashion show (the shop lady asked nick to be in it as her escort, so he was on the stage), “frog races, quiz show, crew performances, etc.
Other typical activities – in the morning while the ship is docked, the cruise director Peter gives a talk about the area, its history, what it’s famous for, etc., and also a bit about sailing ships. In the evening before dinner there’s also a talk about the sea, sailing history, etc. these are very interesting & well-attended. And of course every evening you also can watch the ship pull the anchor up & set the sails, helping if you want.
Tuesday 15 May
Samos
This morning we took the excision to Samos, legendary birthplace of Zeus’s wife Hera and also real birthplace of Pythagoras of a-squared-plus-b-squared-equals-c-squared fame.
We anchored in the harbor at Pythagorio – except for Kusadasi & Piraeus, the ship stays in the harbor’s open water & you can see if from all around the island you’re on. A friendly sight.
We visited the Sanctuary of Hera, built in the 6th c BC by the tyrant Polycrates, who Pythagoras hated so much he left the island forever to live in Italy and found a math school there. This sanctuary (called the Ireon) has the typical structure of a sacred way (originally lined with lots of statues etc donated by wealthy folks), an altar for animal sacrifices, a temple, etc. it has fallen into mostly rubble, only one column still standing after centuries of earthquakes & the plundering typical of all ancient ruins – once they’re not in use people start taking a shine to this statue or that slab of marble, we could make it into a coffee table & wouldn’t they look great in the living room? But even the rubble is beautiful at this time of year, covered with all kinds of wildflowers, swept with a fabulous sea breeze.
Then we rode around the island past the main town (also called Samos, confusing) to a little seaside village Agios Constantinos for local wine & appetizers. We walked around a bit, then back to the ship. These islands are so small that around every corner you see the beautiful blue blue sea.
That afternoon our first dive. The water was shockingly cold so that as soon as you hit it you ripped out your regulator & shouted a few curses to ease the pain. Without result. Katharina worked with Nick & Leon on some skills & I just cruised around. There’s not much to see in a tropical-water sense of colorful corals & fish – mostly rock & grasses, with a few sea urchins & tiny shells. But the visibility is amazing. And you’re in the Aegean, where Odysseus sailed the wine-dark sea and saw the rosy-fingered dawn. what more can you ask for? Leon found a tiny bit of pottery with blue markings, which we immediately declared ancient. Nick ran out of air really fast, typical for a new diver since he didn’t know how to move through the water efficiently, and with his long legs kept getting ahead & then turning around to come back to the group – he swam about twice as far as everybody else. But at least he was checking his gauge & realized it. He enjoyed himself enough to go to the next level, which involved more training that night & another dive the next day – good for him!
Wednesday 16 May
Patmos
Well I am so excited to be here since it’s where the original Greeks in Houston all came from. This tiny island of 3000 people, about 5 miles long by 3 miles at its widest point, is shaped a bit like a seahorse, with its tail cut off. We anchored near the port of Skala, which is at his waist. (By the way, almost all Greek islands have a capital city called Hora, and so does Patmos.)
Patmos is of course famous for something else besides the Houston Greek pioneers – it’s where St John the Divine/the Theologian wrote the biblical book of Revelations, here called the Apokalypso. He was an original disciple who was exiled to this prison island by the roman emperor Domitian, and lived here in a cave. The voice of God came to him in a big boom that split the roof of the cave & he recited the revelations to his helper (name forgotten by me, not by the tour guide Nicholas, a very enthusiastic & devout Athenian with soft brown eyes). You can visit the cave & its tiny attached chapel and see the spot where John rested, the rock ledge where the helper recorded his visions, the split that quite conveniently forms three pieces (trinities are everywhere in Greece), etc.
We also went to visit the Monastery of St John, at the top of the island & a fortress besides. The island was granted by the church to a monk in the 11th century to build this monastery, which has a smallish chapel and excellent museum if you like that sort of thing, which we both do – icons, manuscripts, statues, carvings in marble, etc. There are 25 monks currently living here, & you could see them wandering about in their long black robes & almost-as-long beards. We talked to the monk named Constantine in the “gift shop” a bit – the conversation started when I said to him “Jersey?” and he replied, “No, Manhattan.” No language problems! To support the monastery I bought an icon of the virgin kissing the baby Jesus painted by one of the monks. Sorry George, another icon.
That afternoon the second dive. Just as cold. Nick stayed down longer this time. Afterwards Katharina said tomorrow you stay with your mom; don’t get ahead of her, pace yourself to her swimming. Of course that’s not what happened, but it was a good concept. “The boys” worked on more skills & I wandered about again. More dive theory training for nick & Leon back at the ship. I’ve been watching the videos with them for a review. It’s always good to stay up on dive theory & skills. The alternative is to take a nap in a deck chair. Decisions decisions.
Thursday 17 May
Delos & Mykonos
Delos is in the center of the Cyclades islands, physically & historically. It’s the mythical birthplace of the famous twins Apollo & Artemis, and as such was the site of temples galore, dating from the 8th c BC. Eventually Athens established something called the Delian League whose treasury was on the island, and which Athens ended up to control (duh).
As a holy place no one was allowed to defile it by giving birth or dying there – the person had to leave if either was about to happen. It was a huge settlement, with banking, shipping, trade, religious ceremonies, slave trade, etc and had I think about 50,000 residents at one time. The area was settled by people from all over, with Egyptian, Italian, Syrian, Jewish etc neighborhoods, each with their own agora (marketplace) & temples. It was razed in 88 BC by some pirates hired by the Romans, then there was an earthquake, then of course followed centuries of pillaging. Today it’s just an archaeological site, with a few workers living in cabins. There is also a nice museum holding things that were left behind by the looters.
This was such a lovely site – wildflowers everywhere! I took to photographing columns & rubble only if there were pretty flowers alongside, which was not at all hard to find.
Our guide was George, a knowledgeable fellow who studied metallurgy at U Chicago and archaeology in Lyon, so his English was beautiful, & French too I imagine, but what do I know? It sounded good to me. Nick ended up talking to him quite a bit, so we found out that he’s also a jewelry maker (metallurgy angle) of Delian designs (archaeology connection). He told nick where to find the shop that shows his jewelry in Mykonos. Uh-oh.
That afternoon’s dive was the coldest, 63 chilly degrees. We didn’t stay down toooooo long, about 25 mins, we were all shivering even in the heavy suits. It was a nice dive though, pretty rocks & a nice swim-though. The guys did more skills and are almost done with their certifications, just need one more dive.
Only last year Greece finally opened its waters to non-Greek diving schools, but only schools rather than individual divers. You have to receive permission to dive at an island from the harbormaster. We were told very specifically where to dive this afternoon because Mykonos & Delos are very close together & no one can go in the Delian waters because it’s an archaeology site, even including the water.
After the dive we headed to Mykonos to check it out. Its harbor has some famous windmills, which we visited before just wandering about. They look pretty much like the ones in Spain, in La Mancha.
This was the first island where we really saw 100% the famous Greek whitewashed houses with blue doors & windows, although there was a bit of brown trim mixed in as well. All the islands have had small churches every few steps, and Mykonos is no exception. Narrow alleyways surrounded by white walls, bougainvillea and roses everywhere. Tons of shops, since this is a mega-mega-touristy island. T-shirts, jewelry, shoes, art, you name it. Restaurants, bars, tavernas. We saw an octopus hanging outside one restaurant as well as fresh fish displayed on ice everywhere. It reminded me of Venice, which is appropriate since the area around the harbor is called “Little Venice.”
As we waited for the tender to come pick us up I walked about taking photos of boats in the harbor. Nick had forgotten to bring the card about George’s jewelry store, but at the last minute saw it on the harbor, so we dashed in to look. The proprietress (is that a word?) Dimitra showed us his stuff, and it was very nice, heavy silver in ancient Delian abstract forms that look modern, as does much of the prehistoric Cycladic art. So I bought a couple of things. Well, all right, a bracelet & a ring & 2 pairs of earrings. Nick tried on a ring like “mine” & liked it, but vacillated. He can’t be rushed, and the tender was docking. Later he was sorry, and might contact the store via the internet to get the ring anyway.
Friday 18 May
Sifnos, no make that Milos
This morning we were at Sifnos, but not for long because the winds were just too strong, so the ship headed for Milos instead so that people could at least get off the boat & wander around a bit. This caused trouble in our little scuba world though because the Milos harbormaster would not allow diving. He was not familiar with the new laws that allowed it, & couldn’t be swayed. So Katharina will get nick in touch with a dive school in the Athens area for his last dive & they will issue his certification. Good thing we have a free day Monday so that he can do it.
We explored Milos a bit, but it wasn’t anything special after the other islands we had seen. Back to the boat for nick’s final written exam for certification. Katharina gave him his paperwork & instructions about where to go in Athens, and we had our last dinner with the Germans (sniff sniff, lots of hugs all around), then went to the last activity, a talent show of the crew & passengers. We had found out during the week that Leon is the #2 young break-dancer in Germany (from a contest last year) and pushed him into performing, which we all enjoyed a lot. He hooked up his iPod to the sound system & danced to one of his “rangy-tangy” songs, as my mother-in-law would say.
Then packing, ugh. Nick skipped that part & until 1 am visited in the bar with the German kids & the sports team, Katharina & the 3 Swedes, Hakam, Niklas, & Johan. I have really enjoyed these Swedes this week. They have a great sense of humor & are not as … hmmm, lockstep as our kids. After high school they have worked in factories, on ships, as helpers for home-bound old people, etc., and are just now at the ages of 24 or so going to start university. Of course they’re big skiers & great athletes, which makes the water sports a natural fit.
Saturday 20 May
Piraeus again, this time getting off instead of on
Now we’re going to be in Athens for 4 days, with side trips into the countryside. We disembark & at 8:30 load on a bus for a city & Acropolis tour. The acropolis is amazing, something I’ve always wanted to see – should have come 20 yrs ago, just before they closed off entry into the Parthenon. Now you can only walk around the outside of this probably most-famous-building-of-the-world, but still … wow!
It threatened rain, but the rain held off until we got finished, so we’ve had good luck weather-wise. As nick said, the black grumbly clouds made you think that Zeus was right at hand, so the ambience was appropriate.
Like Rome, Athens has 7 hills (more like mountains), one of them being the huge mound of stone called the acropolis, which means high city. You can see it from just about everywhere in Athens, and is especially noticeable at night when it’s lighted.
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Well, I’ve been writing while Nick’s been at his check-out dive, and he’s just back - got certified! – so we’ll go look at some more ruins. Will try to write more later.
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