"My experience with seasickness is that at first you are afraid you will die, then after a few hours you are afraid you will not. "
nɪs--G. Yancey Mebane, M.D.
Sailing is a fun sport if you have the stomach for it. Monday - Oct 13 was another one of those long days. Two of our crew fed fish while many of us watched the horizon. A few iron stomachs actually went downstairs and slept in the galley. Thankfully, the waters calmed down around lunch and the rest of the sail was quite enjoyable. We landed at Astypalea right in time for dinner.
Astypalea is a very small island with 1200 people on it. The main tourist attraction is the castle built on the top of the hill. It was built in the 1400s by the Venetian Querini family to get away from the pirates that were inhabiting the Aegean Sea. We walked up to the beautiful castle on the hill in the dark. It was quite a walk--but beautiful. We stopped by a row of windmills, skirted our way through the small town with cobblestone alleys, and watched the old men and teenage boys fraternize together at the local taverna.
The next morning we headed off for Kos. The seas were almost like glass. Kos is considerably larger with 30,000 people. We arrived around 3pm and rented scooters once again to go see the Asclepieion (hospital) where Hippocrates was born on Kos and is thought to have received his training. Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, revolutionized ancient medicine in Greece by distinguishing it from other field, thus making medicine a profession. Hippocrates is most famous for writing the Hippocratic Oath. 
We also saw the Plane Tree of Hippocrates where he taught his students medicine. The tree is only 500 years old, probably a shoot off of the original tree that would have been 2400 years old. Scaffolding is holding up the ancient tree now.
After our historical tours, we headed into Kos town, which was the biggest town we've been in since Athens. It's a
harbour town with a huge fortress at the end of it. The wall around it is fascinating because it is built with leftover Greek ruins. For example, there was a block used in the wall with a carved head in it. The people who built the castle in the 1400s used anything that was lying around. We ended the night with Gyros and french fries and a hour plus scenic route home in the dark. On the way, we drove through an area that had just gotten rain. The smells of the herbs and flowers were so aromatic and incredible.Though we had rain and wind the night before, the seas were ca
lm and we ended up motoring with no wind to the island of Nisyros. This was a pretty interesting island because the center of it has an active volcano crater. We rented scooters again - this tim
e only 7 Euros, then off to see the crater. It was deserted when we got there. It looked like we arrived at the moon. It's quite different than seeing a crater in the states where we would stand behind a guardrail and look down into it. We were actually able to walk down to the caldera, where the crater floor is warm (and signs say unstable ground). There were small fumaroles where puffs of steam were coming out and yellow smoke from sulfur. The place smelled horrible. There was a small ash eruption in the 1870s, and some seismic activity in the 1990s, but it did go through our heads more than a few times that this was an active volcano.
We drove around the island to an itty bitty town with narrow walkways and tons of cats. We visited a volcano museum (not the greatest) and stopped on the side of the road where there was a very small geothermal cave. It was nice and warm --and it didn't even stink. It felt great since we were a bit chilly from our scooter ride. We ended up at another castle before having dinner on our boat that night. One of the unique features we noticed on Nisyros was the terracing all over the island. It's amazing! Almost every bit of the mountainous island is terraced with rock walls. The terracing provided them flat land to farm and helped preserve every bit of water since the summers are extremely dry...but this was incredible--the man hours alone to do this.
Jared & Barry Jenkins sporting twin shorts
Our next stop - Oct 16, Symi.Today we sailed in Turkish waters on our way to Symi. Lynn said we were officially in Asian waters...so this makes it a
3 continent trip. The Turks and Greeks hate each other. Probably because they have fought over land for thousands of years. The Ottomans controlled the islands for hundreds of years until their downfall in the early 1920s--then Italy came into the picture. Most of the Greek islands were not actually Greek until after world war 2.What a beautiful island. Probably one of our favorites. It is totally different than many of the others we have visited. It has a different look and feel. The houses were peach and yellow going up the mountainside with large stairs coming down to the harbor. Symi rivaled Santorini in a completely different way...a warm and sunny way. We walked the shop
s of the harbour, buying jewelry and paintings, looking at the sponges that used to contribute
the wealth of the island and then decided to head up to the old town square on top of Symi...which started off with a few stairs and kept going and going and going....Jared loved the photo ops. Everywhere we turned there was another picture waiting to be taken. The colors were so bright and vivid.
It was quite a hike to the top of the plaka. It's amazing these people still live here and walk the stairs all the t
ime. The views were beautiful. Although this island only has about 2,600 residents, there are 12 churches and 13 chapels on this small island. We were told each family would build their own church. Just 
amazing. Our next stop is Rhodes--our final destination. In some ways it will be nice to know we'll never get seasick again--at least not on this trip. But the sea has it's own attraction. It draws you to it...calling for the next adventure, demanding respect, promising thrills and offering tranquility and sights yet to be explored.
"I do not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now." -Henry David Thoreau - from Walden
No comments:
Post a Comment