Bodrum to Lesvos/Lesbos
07 August 2011 | Lesvos, Greece
Jane, weather perfect
Merhaba; or should I say Kalimera as we are currently in Lesvos/Lesbos, Greece. Gosh life can get confusing as they can have up to three different names for a place here, and then juggling between languages keeps us on our toes.
Aeolus, the god of wind, amazingly, has been with us all the way up the coast and we have enjoyed some spectacular days of sailing, normally the wind would be against us at this time of year and having stayed near the mainland we have also avoided the heavy winds and meltimis that occur in the summer months. The clear, sunny days have not been too hot; we had been advised July and August would get horrendous; which is why we headed north - a good decision. The icing on the cake is that there are also hardly any boats, except fishing, and even in the main towns there seem to be no charter boats and only a few international boats like ourselves to socialize with. Very few tourists too, although we have been told that it has been a very bad year for tourism.
We have found that Greece is quite different from Turkey. To begin with the language is more familiar, very like Italian with all the energy and yelling that goes with it, much easier to learn being Latin based. In Turkey the shops never seemed to close, and they hassle you the whole time, although we must look like locals, as we do not suffer much. In fact I kind of miss it J In Greece the shops are open in the morning, and some days they open again from 6-9 pm, however Sunday everything is shut! There is also a lot of Gypsy beggars and people selling trinkets in the bars and restaurants. They also charge next to nothing to tie up alongside the town quay and sometimes you even get electricity and water free, no wonder Greece is going down the drain.
Getting free water has its advantages as we have found in the Med that Ta-b gets horribly dirty and needs constant cleaning. Even when it rains the water has dust in it, and we have sand everywhere afterwards. The seawater is also very salty, much more than the Caribbean, and often we have thick salt to wash off as well. I love going swimming as often as possible, the water is not quite as warm as I would like being 25-27 degrees; however I find the salt helps me float although it can be tough on the eyes and one really needs to rinse off each time.
We have been very fortunate to find some beautiful anchorages, and have had them all to ourselves, but sadly there is a lot of garbage/rubbish on the beaches; which tends to ruin our walks and trips ashore. There are also the horrendous developments, huge ugly cuts into the hills with condos, hotels and houses; just left unfinished. What a waste. This area is so stunning, but the Greeks and Turkish seem to have no sense of design, although we have found some of the older buildings have a lot of character.
One of the highlights of our journey was an evening spent with a wonderful Turkish family, who invited us ashore and shared their beautiful home with us. We ate, drank, sang and danced the night away with a lot of laughter and were given a huge, hand painted, antique platter as a gift before we left, plus a big oregano/basil plant to stop any mosquitoes. Their generosity was overwhelming and we were blown away. The Turkish have huge hearts, we have lots to learn from them.
Each place we have been too has had its own character, not sure how many islands we have visited, but we have enjoyed them all. There is so much history to absorb, ruins to visit, villages to explore, people to meet, languages to learn and yes boat to keep clean with sailing too. People have said don't I get bored, not a chance. I have put nearly 50 pictures in our photo gallery (bit overkill, but I could not work out which ones to leave out) with details of each one for your information. We are now going to work our way south again, we have friends arriving beginning of September and we hope to be near Kos for their arrival. Have a fantastic summer, miss you all and thanks for keeping in touch.