Thursday 7 July
We’re still marooned in Loutra by the Meltemi. More reading, swimming and sleeping. Loutra has geothermal springs and a little stream of hot water crosses the beach on its way to the sea. People built a little pool from rocks forming a permeable wall around its mouth to trap the hot water and let it mix with the colder sea water. Great place to sit, relax and enjoy the (healing?) water. Chris and Francis met a lovely Greek woman, her name was Antigone (indeed, named after Oedipus’ daughter out of Sophocles’ tragedy written 2500 years ago). You don’t hear the name often as it is not a saint’s name and therefore barred by the Greek Orthodox Church. After an hour or so we had her whole fascinating family history. Her grandparents had come from Smyrna and we learned how her father had met her mother along with a whole range of great stories. This is what we love the most about Greece: the warmth and openness of the people.
Thijs is an accomplished chef in his own right and enjoys cooking new things. As we had a fridge full of cauliflower, he offered to get rid of it. That night he made us a great dinner with cauliflower, potato and bacon in the oven, so we enjoyed his creation that night for dinner (top-left). He also made a great sweet and sour Indonesian salad and a great tzatziki dip (cucumber, yoghurt, and lots of garlic). Thanks Thijs, more recipes for the Clio cook book. Thijs and Annemarie finished off the day by going to Alkie's to watch the Euro football, while Chris and Francis went to bed.
Both Thijs and Annemarie seemed to hold out quite well given that we had to stay in one place for so long. They were partaking in the strenuous activities of sleeping, eating, reading and swimming without complaining or getting (overly) frustrated.


Friday 8 July
Last day today for Thijs and Annemarie, more swimming and sleeping. A bit late, but Thijs and Annemarie sat through one of the Clio mini-presentations. The Marine Biology introduction aims to give people a bit of context of the critters they encounter while snorkelling, including a little section of ten of the fish they were very likely to see. It also gives some pointers where to find them.
There is a second little beach in Loutra where mainly the locals seem to go. It has rocky shores on both sides of which one is protected from the waves and so ideal for finding many fish and underwater creepy-crawlies (invertebrate animals) and various species of seaweed, even the single-celled green algae mermaid’s wineglass (Acetabularia). After their snorkel they said that they did see many of the fish and had benefitted from the introduction in that they saw more critters than on previous snorkels.
That night Thijs and Annemarie treated us to a lovely dinner at Alkie's Xerolithia (Greek for drystone wall) restaurant.
The sea-side of the key in Loutra is formed by big natural rocks, forming a labyrinth that is populated by numerous cats living cat’s lives of feeding, fighting, and the other word starting with f (fornicating). They are fed by yachties and the locals but still look very skinny. When Francis stuck his head out of the hatch that night, he saw one of the cats asleep (bottom middle) on Clio’s nice cushion, it was so peaceful he didn’t dare to wake it and allowed it a couple of quality hours away from the loud and aggressive mob.

Saturday 9 July
More Meltemi and time for our crew to make their escape from this windy onslaught for a couple of days in Athens in air-conditioned comfort of museums and hotels (we are NOT jealous, OK!). Alkie ordered a taxi which arrived exactly on time to take us to the ferry. As it turned out, Alkie had ordered the taxi for two people so there was already another passenger in the car and only three could go. Chris offered to stay behind, but not until she handed Francis a list of groceries to buy. So after the obligatory crew photo (top-right), Francis went with Thijs and Annemarie to Merichas to see them on the ferry back to Athens (bottom left) and to find the items on the list to bring back. Thank Thijs and Annemarie for your patience with the Meltemi, your great company (and meals!) and we hope that you can come back at a better time and enjoy more sailing with us, of course after the treatment that you undoubtedly will need to process the Meltemi trauma on board Clio .

When coming back Francis had a long conversation with the neighbours, a Greek family on holidays in their RIB with 350HP outboards (it could do 50 kts, 92km/h, full throttle). The conversation started about his problems with maintaining the boat’s electrics using a solar panel but ended, as so often, about the political and economic situation in Greece. He works as an army engineer and she is a teacher. Together they could not earn enough in the ‘primary’ jobs to live off with their child, so he had a second job to keep them afloat (sorry for the pun). Such is life in Greece at the moment, and the 24% of VAT imposed by the Troika may help to pay the interest on Greece’s debt, but is not helping getting the economy started again or attract more tourists.
By the afternoon the wind had eased and the sea outside was starting to settle, so we hoped that there would be a small window opening up tomorrow where we would be able to get out early to flee to Poros, pretty much on the margin of the Meltemi region. That night we said our goodbyes to Alkie, Lita, Kallioppi and Geogios, before retiring for the night and an early rise tomorrow.

Sunday 10 July
Up early this morning, the sea is calmer and the wind has not picked up so we motored Clio out into the sunrise. However, before we got out of the harbour we realised that Cloe’s painter (rope) had wrapped itself around the rudder, so as soon as we were clear of the port, Francis jumped in and got her free so that we could get her out of the water and get under way to Poros, almost 50 NM (92 km) and about an 8 hr trip.

The sea was still unsettled from the days of Meltemi and we were motoring north, head-on into the short and steepwaves to round Kythnos before we could turn west on our way to Poros. It was a bit bumpy until we rounded Kythnos and then with the wind abeam we hoisted sails and cruised for the next few hours. As usual though, about half way into our crossing the wind died and so we motored for the next four hours to reach Poros, where we anchored in Navy Bay. Not the most attractive of places (busy, noisy, water not very nice), but no wind which was nice for a change.

Monday 11 July
Time to go ashore and stock up on provisions and to book a car for Wednesday to go to Athens for the next episode of "getting the residence permits". The weather is getting much warmer now so the wind scoop (it leads the wind into our cabin) over the hatch of our cabin is back at work and gives us a nice cooling breeze to sleep with.

Tuesday 12 July
More wind again so we are having a lazy do nothing day. When using the outboard yesterday to get provisions, skipper noticed only a small amount of water coming from the pilot outlet (shows if the outboard gets cooling water). This is of concern as an overheated outboard motor may be severely damaged and may take a fair bit of time to repair, if at all possible. The two main reasons are either the cooling-water pump is not working properly or the pilot outlet is a bit gunged-up. Francis dismantled part of the outboard to get to the water pump to replace the impeller (hallelujah for spare parts on board). The old impeller still looked pretty good but was replaced anyway. That did not really solve the problem, so after two hours work on the water pump, poking a paper clip into the pilot outlet and flushing the outboard five times with fresh water (administered in buckets as we were still anchored), the pilot water jet was back to its original strength. Time for some Simpsons (read: sleep)

Wednesday 13 July
Another 6 o’clock start today as we take Cloe ashore and jump on the €1.00 pp water taxi to take us across the channel to the mainland (remember Poros is an island separated by a narrow channel from the mainland). Then the 2.5 hour drive into Athens back to the Aliens bureau. When we arrived we asked the security guard zealously guarding the entrance what we need to do to see someone about our visa. He first pointed to the wooden benches indicating that we should sit there. This is not good, you will go nowhere is our experience. So we showed him some of our receipts and kept at it, so he handed us a number and pointed again to benches where a number of other people were already sitting outside. At least now we were in some kind of queue. So we sat clutching our number B-90 ticket and waited to see how this works. After some time another officious looking guard came outside and yelled out in Greek and a bunch of people headed for the door. Not understanding what he said, Chris went to the first guard and showed our number, is this us, no he indicated, sit back down. After another couple of times of this process, it was finally our turn and we got to go inside, only to sit again and wait for our number to be called. By this time, Chris had worked out the system and by looking over shoulders found the person with number B-89, so we knew when it was our turn.

At last we got to see a very friendly young man who very quickly put our Greek medical insurance policies into our application and again we had stamped pieces of paper, but still no permit yet! Come back in ten days after we have checked that the insurance policies are valid and then you will (may?) receive your visas. We are getting closer, aren’t we?

After a quick gyros lunch, we visited Christos, our friend and boat insurance agent who helped us very much by getting us into contact with the right health-insurance agent. We are very grateful for that as we had no idea where to start, given that it is a very specific kind of insurance for Aliens like us. We also visited Nomicos to say hello to Mr Harris and Christa and collected another parcel with more microscope bits for Francis.

We went to the large Carrefour shopping centre in Alimou where we have been to in the past to find life-improving things like our favourite chocolate and Illy decaf coffee. We were very surprised and saddened to see this once very busy store was practically empty and their stock severely depleted, many shelves were filled with water to disguise the fact that there was no stock. At the checkout we asked the operator what had happened and it seems they have been badly affected by the economic crisis and the staff are very worried that they could close anytime and they will lose their jobs. Yet another reminder that Greece is not out of the economic woods yet.
On our return from Athens we celebrated our ‘almost permitted’ status at the gelato ice-cream shop that offers 46 different flavours, tough decision, but coconut and chocolate for Chris and coconut and cherry yoghurt for Francis, very nice!