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Tuesday, November 6th, Athens, Greece
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Saturday afternoon, sitting outside the entrance to the
Corinth Canal, waiting for permission from the Canal
authorities to make our transit, I have some spare time
on my hands to start this week's update. Actually,
time has been on my mind a lot lately. Ever since
we arrived in Greece, I've been particularly aware of time's
ubiquitous presence. Hour by
hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, decade
by decade; the inexorable passage of time propels us
relentlessly on. Certain decisions we
make allow us some degree of control over our own time.
Other timely events, such as a child's tenth birthday,
are inescapable, regardless of our chosen paths.
Two years ago when we started this adventure I had no
doubt that our decision to go cruising would give us the
maximum amount of control over our own time; perhaps
even free us from its bonds. Now, I'm
realizing that those bonds aren't quite so easily cut.
We
arrived in Greece on October 17th, about a month after
our friends on Cenou. Although we miss having our
traveling companions with us, we are benefiting from
having them blaze the path before us. Not only
are they full of good tips on where and where not to go,
they also help us to avoid some frustrating
mistakes. After acquiring a new Greek cell phone
number on our second day in the country, we called up
Cenou to check in. They are also heading to Turkey
for the winter and we keep hoping that we will catch up
with them. It quickly became apparent that our
chances of seeing them before they take off on their
winter adventure are pretty slim. Towards the end of the conversation, Claude
generously
reminds us, "Don't forget that Greece is an hour ahead
of Italy. We kept commenting on how nothing in this
country is ever on time until we finally realized a week
after arriving that we had crossed a time zone!"
We
had the same problem when we went from
Portugal to Spain.
We got stuck not once, but twice, waiting for locks and
bridges to open up for us. We kept showing up an
hour late until we finally realized the problem.
When we crossed the Atlantic we picked random days when
we would declare a time change, based mostly on how
early the sun rose in the morning. When it started
getting light around 4:30am we knew it was time to jump
forward an hour. It is a unique problem
experienced by cruisers who travel without the benefit
of a published timetable to keep these details straight.
On
the other side of the Corinth Canal, we face a simple
time-related decision. It gets dark shortly after
five pm these days and we need to decide where to go for
the night. After a little over an hour's wait, we
were told to proceed through the canal just after two
o'clock. By the time we made the three mile trip
and stopped on the other side to pay the fee (248 Euros
based on the length of the vessel), we had only a couple
of hours of daylight left. Given our limited
options in the immediate vicinity of the canal, which is
surrounded by industrial factories and very few harbors,
we opted to continue on to the island of Aiyina, 15
miles south of Athens, where we can expect to arrive by
7:30pm. Normally, we would not plan to arrive at a
new place in the dark, but time and experience have
broadened our horizons on the boat so we will
occasionally venture into a new anchorage in the dark.
With extra care and careful navigation, we will avoid
any disastrous consequences that might affect both our
short term and our long term plans.
Greece ended daylight savings time, as usual, on the
last Sunday in October. We've had a full
week's worth of shorter days already. The distance
we can travel during day passages is dramatically
reduced. Perhaps even more significant is the physical and psychological impact of the shorter
days and colder weather. The latter eliminates many of our normal daily
activities and the former makes our remaining options
much less palatable. Venturing into a new city in
the dark isn't nearly as simple or comfortable as
learning your way around in the daytime. So we are
spending much more time in and around the boat.
This is perhaps the most challenging part of cruising.
Being confined to our relatively small living space, all
four of us, together, 24/7, is not always a pleasant
proposition. Last year, Barcelona was a great
interlude. We are hoping our winter plans this
year will also provide a break, enabling us to come back
to the boat in the spring full excitement for the next
phase of our adventure.
You can close your eyes while voyaging through Greece,
and travel a long way back through time.
Transiting through the Corinth Canal we imagined the
captured and enslaved enemies of Corinth, straining with
all their might to drag a ship across the 3.5 mile strip
of land from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea. The
Romans, with the help of yet more slaves, dug the actual
canal in the 5th century AD. Since then, ships of
all shapes and sizes have traveled down that narrow
waterway on their way to dozens of different ports.
We can now add Zia to that list of vessels.
Its history also spanning millennium, Delphi is home to
the Oracle of Apollo. Carved out of a steep, rocky
hillside, the Temple of Apollo which housed the Oracle,
and the various "treasury" buildings where the
different
city states stored their offerings to the god, along
with a theater, sports arena and temples dedicated to
other gods, all stand in testimony to the incredible
past of this nation. Delphi was thought to be the
center of the world back in Hellenistic times: the
earth's navel at the meeting point of the flight of two eagles
dispatched by Zeus from the ends of the universe. It isn't hard to imagine the origin
of this legend as you gaze across the valleys along the
mountain ridges that paint the background in every
direction. The Oracle, a peasant woman, sat
at the mouth of a chasm that emitted intoxicating fumes.
When presented with a sacrifice and a question, Apollo
would speak through her and priests would interpret her
incoherent mutterings. Imagine the money, politics
and manipulation involved in that process. How
little things have changed over the centuries.
We
held off on our visit to Delphi for a day because Cassie
didn't want to spend the whole day touring on her
birthday. Instead, we timed it so we had a nice
sail in the morning from Navpaktos to Galaxidhi and spent the afternoon engaging in
more leisurely activities such as eating ice cream and
searching for sea glass. Cassie made her own 10th
birthday apple crisp for dessert. Joe and I spent
the day trying not to think of the implications of
having a daughter entering her second decade of life.
We
have moved on to Athens, a city whose character
continues to mature from its ancient origins through the
modern day Olympic Games. Time has not been
particularly kind to Athens, with massive urban sprawl
and severe pollution issues. We spent the day exploring
Piraeus, the port city next to Athens where we are
docked at Marina Zea. Its fun being in a big city
again. But in the back of our minds, time is
weighing on us as we near our anticipated haul out date
in Turkey without a confirmed spot at a marina.
I'm sure it will all work out, but only time will tell.
PS:
Sorry
for the lack of pictures but our internet connection is
pathetic!
Next
Entry>>>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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