I forgot to mention that we made it to Tarpon Springs. No biggie, right? Whoops. So we've been here since... The first, so six days. Yeah. I've been distracted by everything else on the internet, since we've got internet at the dock here. We're at Belle Harbour Marina, which is very small and definitely not high-class, but it's nice. There are bathrooms, showers, and a covered picnic-table area outside the office. There is also a washer, but no dryer. The owner and the guy that runs it are here almost every day, and they are both very nice.
We've spent the past several days going into the touristy area of Tarpon Springs, which I love. We bought soap, which is supposedly handmade in this city, and sponges, which the town is known for. Actually, we bought loofahs, which turn out to not be sponges at all: Loofahs are a vine, grown on land (duh), that resembles a cucumber. They are cut off the vine and let to dry out completely, giving the usual look of a loofah you may see in the store. Also, they are cut. Loofahs are grown to be about three feet long! Upon selling them to distributors, farmers will cut them down to size. Who'd have known.

Today we went to Epiphany, a local ceremony held once a year. The town is, as a majority, a Greek-Orthodox town. The gist of the ceremony is this: In the beginning, the entire church files down to a dock on the water. A girl, from the ages 15 to 20, releases a dove, which symbolizes the Holy Spirit. After this, a man prays aloud in a chanting sort of way, in Greek. Then he says "Young people, go!" and twenty or thirty teenaged boys leap into the water and swim to a procession of wooden rowboats, which are tied and anchored in a semi-circle around the dock the priest is sitting on. Next, the priest (or whatever the spiritual leader of the greek orthodox church is, I don't know what he's called) gives a small speech and prays, then throws a wooden cross into the water. All of the boys dive in after it, and they search for the cross. The one who finds it is said to be blessed by God, and he and his family have good luck for a year.
That's what we saw today. We got to the waterfront where the cross-tossing would happen (I hope that's not a disrespectful thing to call it) at around ten o'clock. Now, the thing didn't start until one o'clock. My mother is to blame for this. So we arrived way too early, but got ok seats, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. And the entire ceremony took a good thirty minutes. Also, the priest had to throw a second cross, because no one could find the first.
Next we went to go eat Greek food. I got a chicken souvlaki sandwhich, which I apparently don't like (mostly because the sauce, tetziki sauce, tasted like some sort of pesticide mixed with cucumber and mayonaise) but everyone else liked theirs. We'll sail out tomorrow morning, since the weather's been holding! :)
Love,
Annakah on Kama Hele