The Planets Are Aligning

Finally the planets were aligning.

In a lovely anchorage at Sounion we were  reunited with the crew of Dragonfly under the watchful presence of the Temple of Poseidon. The reunion was a fairly short and intense 24 hours. They delivered us back our ‘best’ crew, Kara, and together with Jeff, Daniela and Heidi, we climbed to the Temple overlooking the anchorage to watch the sun set and a full moon rise and celebrate our friendship with champagne (and beer). The anchorage at Sounion was very ‘rolly’ (nautical term for waves that rock you side to side). In the middle of the night I was sea sick and very under the weather all the next day . We bid our boat buddies goodbye the next morning. They were off to Zea Marina in Athens and we had a few hours sailing to our next anchorage at Kithnos. The Sturgeron motion sickness drugs finally kicked in so I was feeling a lot better.

This beautiful anchorage was somewhat marred by charter yachts playing loud music and having no idea how to safely anchor. That evening we were preparing to go ashore to the taverna for dinner when a summer thunderstorm rolled in. Thunder and lightening and big wind gusts saw quite a few boats drag their anchors and unsurprisingly the anchorage cleared out fairly quickly. Don’t know where they took off to but don’t care either – as long as they were not in front of us. Early the next morning we headed off for Siros and found a nice anchorage, only to be bombarded by speed boats from the beach towing  tourists in blow up toys around the bay. The happy screams were fine (in fact it was quite entertaining to watch fat bodies get catapulted from their various blow up pieces of fruit into the water)  – it was the wake from these boats every few minutes that put paid to a peaceful anchorage. That evening after all the fun had stopped we watched the blood moon. It was a still, quiet and perfectly cloudless night. We saw the moon rise over the stern of the boat about 10 pm and then the blood moon eclipse which went on for quite some time. Photos just can’t capture the experience.

Next stop was the island of  Delos.

This small (5 km x 1.3 km)  ancient island and was supposedly the birthplace of of the twin gods Apollo (god of light, harmony and balance)  and Artemis (moon goddess). The town developed when it was declared a free port around 167 BC and almost all commercial activity in the known world went through this island resulting in it becoming the greatest commercial centre of its time and attracting rich merchants, bankers and ship owners who all tried to out-do each other with their grandiose buildings and temples. The island was a victim of its own success and less than 100 years later was sacked and looted resulting in it’s decline until it was abandoned.  The Island had limited water which was carefully conserved by  an extensive system of cisterns, aqueducts, wells and sanitary drains most of which is still visible today. Various areas were open air agoras (markets) and we saw remains of huge merchant’s houses and temples. They have been excavating the site since 1872 and this continues. You can wander the city for hours and still not see it all. We found some beautiful frescoes,

saw intact mosaic floors, and the greatest find (in my mind) were the huge fig trees heavy with ripening figs.

The EFTPOS machine wasn’t working so as the last visitors to the site (at 5.30 pm) we were given the gift of free entry (saving of EUR 36). We stayed until close just after 8 pm. All the archaeological sites seem to operate until sundown, which is about 8.30 pm so it’s a long day for the workers.

We had a near perfect anchorage here and were the only boat. I slept out in the cockpit for the first time and was woken at daybreak by the bleating of goats on the nearby island. The wind was up by the time we were ready to set sail – next stop –  Mykonos.