The waterman is on the dock. He is so cute, he walks down the dock with a hose and calls to each boat “Hello Captain!” “Waterman!” 5 Euros for water. A better deal than ice.
We were about to leave when we saw our British friends leave the dock, minus a crewmember. When the missing crew came down the dock he said he had been to the Port Police to deal with the paperwork before leaving……ummm, what paperwork we asked. We haven’t visited the Port Police or paid any fees since arriving in Greece. He said “Oh you must or they will come looking for you, you wouldn’t want to send your last few night in jail!” Good enough for us, Kirk took our papers up, they took a couple of Euros from us, stamped some papers and sent us on our way. Since then, we haven’t seen any Port Police and when we have tried to go to the office, it’s closed…like everything else in Greece. They seem to open and close at bizarre times, completely arbitrary.
Off to Siphnos today …..maybe an internet connection?
We made it to Siphnos …tried to sail but the winds didn’t cooperate ….today not enough. BUT, while we were under sail, we had a visitor. A lone dolphin played around us for 15 minutes. It was amazing!
We made it into Ormos Kamares and found some friends from yesterday. Pauline and Luke from Holland. They helped us get settled and then we all took a bus to Apollonia where we waited for a taxi to Kastro. While waiting a young woman walked up to wait for a ride back down to the port. I looked at her bag and it looked suspiciously like MEC ….I asked her where she was from …Vancouver! Finally, a Canadian!
The taxi to Kastro arrived and we headed off in that direction. Kastro, an amazing place…and hot as an oven! The city was all but deserted and perched high on the cliffs The taxi never came back so we all hiked back to Apollonia…..here we FINALLY found and Internet Cafe! (That was open and compatible with my laptop!). So this island has TWO computers on it!
We should be able to find an internet cafe in Paros, larger island, bigger population….so hopefully we can get the photos from today (dolphin and all) up tomorrow.
May 11th 2005 continued…….
The computer upload appears to have been successful. We did a little bit food of shopping in Apollonia and then caught one of the three island taxis back down to the port of Kamares. When we arrived we thought our boat had been moved but we realized another boat had come in and docked sideways. Rather obnoxious we thought initially. We saw that the Cosmos, a huge boat owned by some people from Amsterdam and captained by a Greek fellow who looks like a pirate…complete with missing hand, had berthed in between us and our friends from Holland. Luke said that the sailboat that was docked sideways was in the charge of six Italians who had a dickens of a time getting in and fouled their prop on a mooring line. It apparently took them 1 hour and 20 minutes to get where they currently are and that they used our boat and its anchor in the process. We don’t seem to be any worse for wear though. We chatted on the quay with the captain of the Cosmos and Luke and Pauline for a bit and then we wandered off with Luke and Pauline to explore Kamares. We found a lovely pottery shop and bought a couple of bowls before we parted company, they to seek a restaurant, us to cook on the boat.
There are cats everywhere here but most of them are very timid if not downright feral. We found a couple of friendly ones here and shared our leftover dinner with one.
Luke and Pauline joined us for a nightcap and now the day is close to over. What a wonderful day ….a short sail in the morning, a dolphin playing around us, a lovely hike around an ancient city, a good dinner and some good conversation.
