Idhra to Epidavrous: Around Idhra, Spinnaker Sail

"Bongggg!" "Bonggg!" "Bonggg!" "Bonggg!" "Bonggg!" "Bonggg!" ... "Bonnnnnnnnnng!"

"BLANGGG!!" Bells, again.

Then:

"CLANGa- langle- langle- blonga- clang- BLANG- clanga- di- clanga- di- clangle- langle- blang- BLANG- clang- clong- clanga- CLONG- clong- blang- clanga..."

Alright, alright! I'm up! I'm up!!

The cacaphony of many bells lasts at least a minute or two: in Idhra, you get up at seven, dammit! Except for Danny and Rose - how they can sleep through the racket, I have no idea.

I float up on deck - the crew on the neighboring "Banana Boat" is already up and working. The forward gate is lowered, cargo is trucked out to the quay and stacked, donkeys are lined up, waiting for the loads.

I gather up camera equipment and stretch across the Aussies' boat to the quay and figure out where I'm going to go. There's light on the cannon bulwarks at the mouth of the bay, so I head there, first.

Around the east end of the bay, past the port control authority building - prefaced with many huge, black anchors - and up the stairs to the bulwarks. As I reach the first platform, the bells go off, yet one more time.

Someone must have hit the snooze button on the cathedral.

The cats are out, too - stretching, hovering, sitting. One big tom hangs by a terra-cotta statue of an ancient mariner, watching me as I pass by. "I'm here, you're there, and that's the way things should be," he seems to say. In Greek, of course. Others are scattered about the quay, loafing around the restaurant tables or at the dock, waiting for their ship to come in, hopefully loaded with fish scraps.

I explore further into the town, getting up the slope a bit and past the commercial district. The streets are cobblestone and windey - occasionally, a train of donkeys emerges, led by a single rider. People are out, but they go about their business quietly. There is no roar of motor vehicles to disturb the tranquility.

Scattered around the streets and the houses are literally herds of cats, if there can be such a thing. They're everywhere, wandering about - looking for a patch of sun or watching the passersby.

Back on the quay, the day is proceeding in earnest. The strings of donkeys have been led down by the cargo boats, and are being laden with their burdens. They're loaded with everything from cartons of milk and six-packs of Pepsi to 50lb bags of grain to stacks of terra-cotta roofing shingles. They bear the load, quietly, and are led off to other parts of the island.

Danny had noted earlier that there doesn't seem to be much of a young crowd - hardly anyone under forty, with the exception of the donkey-handlers. It seems to be true - there certainly are no crowds of kids at play around the town that we can see.

Sensibilities are different, though. Rose meets an English woman straight out of the expat handbook: she had come several years ago, fell in love with the place, and moved in, immediately. She has two children, so we know they're here, on the island. She claims it is a perfect place to raise them. We suppose in some respects, that might be true. Perhaps not in others.

Danny emerges and we find a restaurant for breakfast. I relate I had seen a few signs for bacon and eggs, American style. "That's for me!" he exclaimed, and we find one. When it comes, the eggs are simply cracked over the bacon, camp-style, but he's happy.

After breakfast, we get a few supplies and return to the boat to find Rose big-eyed. While we were at breakfast, the large motoryacht to our starboard had packed up and left. We had somehow managed to cross his anchor. That wasn't a huge problem - they sent out a dingy and lifted our anchor so they could retrieve theirs.

Well, a little bit of a problem - it didn't get reset on dropping, so we were potentially drifting if a breeze came up.

Next, another large boat was leaving and swept the rodes on our side of the bay too closely. Suddenly, the crews of half a dozen boats are on their bows, shouting and waving, but it was too late. He hit them all. So, another period of resetting anchors ensued.

The rode felt heavy - I hadn't felt that before. Step on the windlass, release, retrack again - it's still heavy... Nothing to do but keep reeling it in. When the anchor finally looms into view, I see the problem - we had hooked our far neighbor's rode (who was no up on his bow, pointing and yelling excitedly in our direction.)

Well.

I tried lowering the anchor and raising it again. It wouldn't free - his chain was tensioned tightly against out hook. I couldn't raise our anchor high enough to reach it - at least not without burying our bow. I called to Rose to hand me the boat hook. I reached down and was able to snab the crossed rode and pull it free, but now, I had a different problem: I couldn't get it off the boat hook!

Danny came forward and I passed the pole off to him - no dice, he couldn't release it, either. We finally had to let it go. We were free, but Poseidon had claimed another piece of our hardware. We were now down a boat hook.

Danny returned to the helm, and I re-secured the anchor, thinking what we might do next time such a thing occured. In post-mortem discussions, we thought of a couple of things:

1. Instead of using the anchor to pull us up, motor up directly over and try pulling up straight. That won't solve a rode crossed over ours, but it will prevent us from dragging the anchor and picking up someone else's rode.
2. If we manage to snag another rode, anyway, drop a bowline alongside the hull and use the boat hook to bring the line around the hooked rode. Then, you can use the line to haul the rode free and simply release one end of the line to retrieve it, thus saving one boat hook.

We're out of the harbor and set course for our next destination - Epidavrous. There's no wind, so we're committed to motoring. I take the helm - we could use the auto-pilot, but Danny doesn't like it because it's noisy and it tends to over-correct. No worries. I like driving.

No issues arise as we return around the southern point of the Pelopponesus Peninsula and push north. We watch the traffic - a mix of other boats like ours, commercial hydrofoils, and huge cargo ships off on the horizon. We track them absently, correcting course if anything looks like it will get too close. Except for the hydrofoils: we can't do anything about those, they move to fast.

Occasionally we try throwing up the jib to see if it will catch some air. Forget it - it backwinds and flutters in the wind of our own making. We pull it in and resume - we're motoring. Lunch is served and Danny takes over the helm for a bit. It's a long, langorous passage and we invent things to do or talk about. A question on fuel consumption occupies us for a while.

We round a third point, and now we can see Palaia Epidavrous on the western shore of the Pelopponesus. And, on this bearing, we seem to be getting wind, so the sails come up - back to Magic time. It's a tease, though, and before a half hour is up, it fades back to nothing, the sails start flapping and banging loosely again, for want of air.

Something new.

"Follow me," he says and goes forward. I follow, dutifully. He starts fiddling with a confusing tangle of snap-shackles and folds of colorful, billowing nylon, pulled from the bag. I wait with baited breath.

He hands me a snatch-block: "Go fasten that aft, somewhere."

"Aye, aye." I take it back, but can't find anything to attach it to. After much searching, a suspicious looking ring at the base of the stern pulpit qualifies as "somewhere". I fix it there and return forward to find Danny fiddling with some more complicated hardware and snarled line, and hands me another snatch-block: "Same drill - fix that one on the other side."

Off I go and find the complementary ring on the other side, and fix the block there.

Next, lines are run aft, around the outside of everything, a halyard we'd sprung from the mast made fast, and a stay made fast on the bar we'd released from the deck.

This is a lot of work. I'm wondering if it's all worth it.

Finally, one last check and Danny calls for me to raisxe the halyard. I hoist away, and suddenly the front of the boat is filled with a huge, curved panel of red and blue nylon. It looks massive, yet there is no mass.

It's not quite right - Danny calls to me to release the halyard and, as it lowers, he somehow manages to tuck and gather the genie back into the bag. He makes a few corrections, I hoist away, and the bow is filled with color, again.

Except, now, it's twisted. Is this really worth it, I wonder to myself, again. But, Danny springs forward, tugs a line here and a fold there, and then it's finally clear. I have no idea what he did, or how he did it. It's all a snarl, to me.

It's an asymetrical spinnaker, and is supposed to jibe easily. We try this and discover it's still not set quite right - a line is inside the jib sheet. "Ok," I declare, hopping to, "that's an easy to fix." I detach the jib sheet and walk it forward, pass it around the drifter line, and bring it back.

"Outside, outside," Danny reminds me as I walk past the shroud.

Right.

We have to do the same thing on the other side, after which we can prepare for the jibe. This thing is complicated! I'm non-plussed, looking at all that cloth up there and the tangle of lines that control it - I can't figure out how it's supposed to happen! Even after we do it, I'm still not sure how it happened!

This must be in the Sailing 401 curriculum. I didn't get that part. It's a bit more apparent when we do it again, but I would have to think long and hard before attempting it, myself.

We douse the drifter, but leave it rigged in the hopes we'll be able to use it later, then kick up the "iron wind", again, and make for "Old Epidavrous".

There are two towns suffixed with "Epidavrous": "Palaia E." - the old, and "Nea E." - the new. We want the old. It's a bigger town (although still small), and a more protected harbor.

We steam through the entrance channel - marked by two huge, painted concrete pillars - pick a point on the dock, and accomplish our med mooring without incident. Per usual, the light is good when we arrive, so I leap out immediately with the camera to explore the town.

There are the usual shoreside restaurants and hotels - this town is a little unusual in that between the dock and that is a small and pleasant greenspace. Folks are out walking the dogs and there are children here, accompanied by their parents.

South of the moorings is a sports complex with tennis courts and soccer pitch - always a soccer pitch. I watch a pair of tennis players, twinging slightly that it would have been nice to have brought a tennis racket. One of the players is pretty good, the other less so. I move on to a volleyball court where a gang of kids are playing not-quite-volleyball. They're serving with their feet. Did I mention soccer is holy, here? I even saw one of the tennis players kick a tennis ball.

There's also a campground further around the point, with a scattering of RVs. I find that very interesting, and note it for future possibilities.

There's more shops back in the town - bronze statues and attic helmet replicas from the Golden Age, the usual clothing and jewelry shops. One shop has a nice cream-colored straw hat - it's perfect and I pick it up for 6€.

It's all pleasant, but further up one of the back streets, I find what I'm looking for: A scooter rental shop! Now, we're talking. How much for a day? 15€

"15??" I ask, again. Then, "One-five?" holding my fingers up to make sure. "For the day?"

Yes, they nod, that's correct.

"I'll take one!"

Except I didn't have documentation or license on hand. So, I have to hot-foot it back to the boat to get those, and return before they close.

The shop is run by an old man and his wife. His english is practically non-existent, but hers is reasonable, and we work out the details. The shop is full of scooters, but he preps one already outside. It has a lot of damage and scratches on the starboard side. I don't want it. He shrugs me off - no worries. I motion that I'd really like another one - besides the damage, this one's silver and the others are blue. I like blue.

He's not going for it.

Well, a scratched, silver scooter is better than none. Especially at 15 euros. I sign and hand over my passport for security (Note: there's got to be a better way to rent cars and check into hotels than handing over your passport. Must investigate.)

Thus, I have procured me a scooter!

I ride everywhere I'd walked before to get the feel of it. I've had motorcycles most of my driving life, so it's not difficult. There are differences: no shifer, no clutch - it's all automatic, but it's mostly familiar.

I have niggling thoughts that I didn't have them sign off on the damage, but they're closed, now. I get too trusting in my enthusiasm - an easy mark for shysters, sometimes (this presented as a cautionary - it all worked out fine, for the record.)

Rose hails me on the radio.

"Oh. Hello!" I answer, all chirpy.

She's still sleepy. "Where are you?"

"Up on the hill where the church is! I got something!" I'm bursting with the secret, but she's impassive.

"Oh, ok," she says, "I'm getting chomped by mosquitos, down here. Are you coming back?"

"Um, right. Back in a few."

I zoom back to the dock, still excited about my scooter acquisition, but Danny's still asleep and Rose is in no disposition to receive the news, having been priorly engaged in a battle with the mosquitos. Nothing to do but cool my heels in the cockpit and let the excitement drain a little. Well, I'm jazzed.

At 10:00 in the evening, Rose emerges, still sleepy-eyed. Danny still hasn't moved - the day's spinnaker sailing must have really tuckered him out. We ponder what to do and remember his expressed desire to be waken for dinner: a soft call below, and he's up in an instant, ready for dinner.

"Yeah," I respond, nonchalantly.

We survey the restaurants - there are several, so we choose one off the greenspace with a reasonable menu, outside tables, and no soccer game on a big-screen TV.

We're slightly hungry, tonight - figure we'll go light. I order something innocuously listed as "chicken fillet a lá creme", Danny orders a ham and cheese crepe. Rose lingers over the menu for a moment and decides she really doesn't want dinner - and moves directly to the dessert menu. Ever the food adventurer, her eyes lock on something unfamiliar: "Ekmeck".

"What is this?" she asks the waitress, who responds, "Eckmeck". Her english isn't very good and she doesn't understand Rose's attempts at gaining elucidation, so Rose just orders it and hopes for the best.

When they come out, the platters are enormous. Danny's crepe covers his entire plate, my breast of chicken comes with a quarter kilogram each of rice and fries, and it's all smothered with a cream and mushroom sauce. Somewhere under all of that is a dinner plate, but I can't see it.

Rose's dessert-main likewise comes on a dinner plate. It consists of several boules of different kinds of ice-creams and glaces, with various kinds of cookies and profiteroles sticking out of them - and a slab of some sort of cake/cookie substrate under one of the boules. We surmise that's what makes it "Ekmeck". Rose tries a piece of the cake/cookie stuff and pronounces it good.

"What's it taste like?" we ask...

"Ekmeck!" she responds, and dives in.

"Yes, yes!" we exult, "Everything is just fine!"

She looks unconvinced. "Because -," she says with a worried look, casting her eyes at our still-full platters, "you don't eat much..."

It's the last straw. We practically fall off our chairs in laughter. We had barely dented the masses before us, and would not dent them for a long time to come - not to mention the backyard-garden's-worth of greek salad we'd ordered to share (just in case our orders weren't enough), and that remained untouched in it's wash-basin-sized bowl.

"No, no! Really!" we choked: "Everything is just fine!"