SV ICE BEAR

It seems everyone here has named their wind in Croatia last year we watched for Bora and Jugo. There are Sirocco from Africa bringing hot air and red sand and Maestral in France.
In the Aegean there are Meltemi. Everyone we talked to that have cruised the Aegean all said the same thing everything you have been told about the Meltemi is true only worse. This wind starts around the Black sea and heads south gaining speed as it goes. It can last a day or in extreme cases weeks. bringing big waves and strong currents with it. Meltemi is usually something you need to watch for in July through August. We had heard tales of unusually early and strong Meltemi last summer and had hoped that this year wouldn't bring more of the same. However with a handful of days left in May we found ourselves weathering our first Meltemi of the season in Nafplio. We didn't just accidentally find ourselves here there was some planing involved.
The original plan was to skip this town it was farther down the Peloponnese then we had planed to travel this early in the season but when the forecast started to show the weather
front the decision was made to go there. It was a very good choice. The first thing you notice as you near Nafplio are the two big fortresses on the hill then as you come
around the corner you see a third fortress guarding the entrance to the bay. The Venetians were serious about keeping the town safe. Nafplio is a big town with everything someone would want The old part of town had the mandatory small streets covered in brightly coloured bougainvillea many of which could be mistaken for trees. Above the town was the Palamidi fortress. There were two ways to enter this fortress either by car or 999 steep stairs up the face of the cliff. pfftt ya 999 stairs straight up no. It was 8 euros to take a taxi to the top and except for the one time a bus came around a tight corner in our lane it was a uneventful trip. If I had the ability to learn a language fast I would have learned several colourful Greek words at that moment. The fortress was actually several fortresses with one big wall surrounding them all the view of the country side and the Argolic Gulf was commanding. Except for a low spot in the wall above the steep part in the cliff that the Ottomans used to take it from the Venetians and then about 100 years later the Greeks used to take it from Ottomans. It seemed pretty much impenetrable. You would think if you captured a fortress you would change the spot you came through but apparently in this case it wasn't deemed important. We did take the stairs down neither of us counted but Im ok with their claims of 999.
We rented a car for three days with unlimited mileage muahahaha fools.... day one we drove to Epidaurus. The most celebrated healing center of the Classical world. They would try to heal anyone unless they were pregnant or terminally ill seems the odds of death with these diagnosis were high and they didn't want the bad press. The big draw was the very well preserved theater. When we stood in the very center of the stage and clapped the returning echo was flawless. After lunch we drove to Mycenae while not as visually stunning the age of the structures, the massive size of the stone blocks used to make them and a well prepared museum made up for it. Day two we drove for three hours over some mountains with Top Gear worthy switchbacks. We saw two tortoises walking along the road and briefly thought about stopping for a picture but I wasn't brave enough to get out of the car. We passed through Sparti to the caves of Diros where we sat in a small boat.
Our guide talked non stop describing the formations and telling amusing antidotes about
how some of the names were picked at least I think that what he was saying. Every so often he would say lean left, lean right, stop leaning or crouch down in English then go back to his Greek language tour
I didn't think much about this until the tour was over and we were back in the car. That's when I found out that someone had been picked to sit at the back of the boat and was being used as movable ballast and every English command I had heard was
being followed by a poke or prod from our guides paddle. On the trip back through Sparti we picked up Leo our spartan rosemary and took a few pictures of the statue of Leonidas. Day 3 we drove to Athens to check out the Ikea, Jumbo and Leroy Marlins. None of the stores disappointed and the shopping list was completed. The look on the car rental guys face when he checked the mileage was priceless.