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Monday, July 14th, Plaka, Crete, Greece
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Christy will have to fill in the gap between rocking and
rolling in Karpathos and arrival here in Plaka, but for
our part -- the old folks traveling from Seattle -- it's
clear something went right, since we had no more emerged
from our taxi in front of the Blue Palace Hotel here
than the Bofish clan emerged to greet us. They
were certainly a welcome sight some 20
time-change-adjusted hours after we first boarded our
KLM flight out of Sea-Tac on July 4. It was July 5
-- granddaughter Juliana's 9th birthday -- when we
arrived here around 6 pm local time and after a quick
shower we enjoyed a reunion dinner at one of the hotel's
several restaurants. Juliana did agree to
celebrate her birthday a day later nonetheless,
persuaded that her grandparents might be more pleasant
company after a good night's sleep in a real bed.
And so it proved as we had steak, carrot cake (a family
favorite for two generations of Fisher offspring as well
as for Gramps himself) and presents aboard Zia the next
night.
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Our reunion setup here is a lot like one we had the
first time during their adventure that we ventured off
to meet our sailors, in St. Thomas more than two years
ago. The Blue Palace has its own beach and Zia
anchors just offshore, usually a quick and easy dingy
ride from shore. This is the fourth time in the
last three years that the Bofishes have been cruising
that we've been able to join them. We met in
Portugal's Algarve nearly two years ago, after their
Atlantic crossing, and again near Split, on the Croatian
coast, last September. Wherever possible, of course, we
like for our hotel room and Zia to be physically as
close as possible. The arrangement here has been a
winner -- with one minor exception.
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You'd think that wind would be the sailor's friend --
particularly with boat fuel running the equivalent of
around $10 a gallon in much of Europe these days. Hike
the sail, turn off the engines and away we go. Zia
goes a lot faster in a decent breeze than it does on its
engines, anyway. But as we've learned, there is
definitely such a thing as too much wind, and apparently
the dividing line is somewhere around 25-30 knots.
It's definitely under 40-50 knots, which we've
experienced here on and off through much of the last
week. Zia is very well anchored in the little bay
here, but the force of the strong wind gusts has pushed
the "cat" around enough that one of its two anchors was
bent "like a pretzel," as son-in-law Joe describes it.
That said, the main anchor and a spare "second" have
kept Zia safely away from trouble, even as she is pushed
around by gusts strong enough to send some of the
hotel's beach lounges flying.
We
did enjoy a two-hour sail to Aghios Nikolaos our third
day here, and happily Gran continues to gain ground in
her life-long battle against sea-sickness. She
survived the trip -- and the significantly more
harrowing return -- unscathed and unbowed. The
return is when we hit some of those nasty gusts.
The wind is very deceiving. The skies have been
virtually cloudless and bright blue the entire time
we've been here. There's certainly no hint of bad
weather. The coast of Crete -- at least, this
part, on the northeast of the island -- is relatively
mountainous, and often seems to a neophyte to offer good
protection from the wind. But somehow those
blasts, which I'm told mostly originate from from the
north -- manage to find paths through or over the hills
and are strong enough to fill the sea with whitecaps.
Given those winds, we haven't eaten many meals aboard
Zia -- certainly not as many as has been true past
visits. We've walked several times the 500 meters
or so to the village of Plaka, which offers many good
restaurants at prices significantly better than those at
our hotel! A favorite lunch spot is Plaka Ilios,
run by a pleasant Dutch couple whose sign promising
"fresh, homemade apple pie" first caught Gramp's eye.
(Surprise, surprise!) The grandgirls love their
hamburgers, and a selection of baguettes include a BLT.
The owners say they are open from April 1 through
October, then go home through the Christmas and New
Year's holidays to spend time with family. They
return to do a little touring of Crete before reopening
the restaurant. "Not bad -- 7 months on, 5 months
off. But those 7 months on are 7 days a week!"
A
lot of the folks working here seem to be expatriots.
A Scots woman, formerly an executive for a company in
London, decided she didn't want to take a chance on
waiting for retirement to seek her adventure, so she
came here four years ago and opened a gift shop in Plaka
village. Clothes, jewelry etc. One of the
dive shop folks is Slovenian. And so it goes.
The old folks decided to take a full-day excursion to
Knossos, site of perhaps Crete's most important
archeological discovery -- the remains of a Minoan
palace. The tour also included a stop at a
cooperative that makes olive oil and wine -- Crete's
main exports -- and a visit to the city of Iraklion,
which is home of the island's main airport.
It was a very long day and we were both very glad the
Bofish clan decided to skip the trip as we have no doubt
they would have been miserable. While the
seemingly endless bus route wound its way past at least
a dozen hotels to pick up fellow tourists, the bright
side was that we got to see many of this part of the
island's beach towns. Young people filled the
streets, traffic was a snarl, and all in all it reminded
us of Southern California.
Of
course, our visit is not about touring anyway. We
very much appreciate the willingness of Christy, Joe,
Cassie and Juliana to welcome us in various places as
they continue their sailing adventure. We're
already talking about the next one -- probably somewhere
in the Carribbean next winter. We continue to be
impressed by the way the whole family has adapted to
this cruising life and proud of them all for saying
"yes, we can" to what a few short years ago was just a
dream they shared. (Yes, you may consider that a
political commercial if you choose.)
Well, Dan, aka Gramps, has filled you in on the factual
stuff, I'm here to report on what I see as the
personal and emotional side of life with the Bofishes.
Jose is ever vigilant concerning Zia and the safety of
his family. You can tell how seriously he takes
his job by his daily routine of "swimming the anchor"
first thing in the morning and later in the afternoon.
Joe is quite the swimmer and diver, so down he goes
twice a day to make sure Zia is firmly anchored in
place. Just yesterday after a full day of steady
wind of up to thirty knots with gusts in the mid
forties, he found a second small anchor twisted like a
pretzel from the force of the boat rolling in the wind.
Much of the morning was spent placing a second anchor to
replace the damaged one, all done without the use of a
air tank.
The second anchor is keeping Zia steady despite the
third day of winds that would keep normal people on
shore and inside but not the Bofishes. Noisy as it is,
they continue to sleep in their rocking beds with the
never ending wind shaking everything shakable. A
hardy quartet, they are.
Our lovely daughter does her magic with such grace and
poise, except when she's tired and had enough of the
normal family squabbles. She's such a hard worker,
so full of energy and the desire to learn. When
she couldn't come up with the correct Spanish word for
rain, she shook her head in amazement, saying that she
could read books in Spanish so why couldn't she speak
it! It's frustrating for her not to have a handle
on something she's given so much time to.
But, when it comes to cooking, there's no frustration
for Christy, nor for those who are blessed to share in
her talents. She and I were talking about cooking
the other day and she described her feelings about
cooking. It isn't that she loves the routine or
the hard work of the actual cooking. It's more of
what she can offer to others by bringing them together
at her table. Food is to be shared. Food is a common
denominator for all no matter where you go or who you
are with. Food and the sharing of it creates
memories. That's what it's about for her.
And, then there are the Grandgirls. Beautiful,
smart, inquisitive, happy, helpful and a handful at the
same time! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to
spend these fleeting days with them; watching them
laugh and fight and argue with their parents and charm
the pants off of everyone close at hand. Had we
not come to Crete to see them, it would be a good year
before we could catch up with them again. That's way too
long to not be in their lives for at least a few days.
They are changing so quickly now and they certainly have
had so many experiences that we haven't shared in over
the last six months, that to be away from them for much
longer just wasn't an option for either of us.
Cassie and Juliana are, if you don't know already, avid
readers. We brought books for them, just a couple.
Both were read by each girl within two days. Christy and
Joe can't keep them in enough books! That's quite
the good problem to have, if you ask me. Often
they discuss their favorite authors and wonder if they
would ever be brave enough to email them, would the
authors email them back?
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They miss their friends at home but don't dwell on the
subject. They make friends easily wherever they go
and they have each other. Most of the time, that
seems to suffice. I was greatly amused to listen to the
Grandgirls talk about their recent visitors, Larson and
Gav. Their eyes sparkled as they talked about how much
fun they had with the guys. Never did I hear a
disgruntled word about having to share their living
spaces with these young men. I suspect that in the
years to come, these young men will be in their lives,
because of the experiences that were forged aboard Zia
in foreign waters.
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As
I write this update, Cassie sits on the floor of our
room working a puzzle and getting ready to have
something other than a "marine shower" in our fancy
bathroom. Juliana is finishing up stitching a hand made
book bag, complete with her initials embroidered on the
back. JJB, it reads. She plans to use those initials as
her pen name when she becomes a published author.
I
couldn't be happier, well maybe a little happier if this
stinkin' wind would let up and we could enjoy dinner
onboard Zia!
Next Entry
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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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