Wandering in the Wet

The Epiphany on 6 January is a big celebration in Greece. Booths like this, decorated with cypress and palm fronds and crosses of threaded oranges are placed by the water in many places. After a morning church service the priest and congregation gather at the booth. The priest throws a Cross in the water, symbolising the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. The local young men then leap into the water to retrieve the Cross. Whoever finds it will be blessed for the year ahead. 

Symi is very quiet. The Twelve Days of Christmas are over and the children are back at school. Their older siblings have departed to universities and colleges in Rhodes, Kos, Athens and Thessalonica. Some of the locals are away, either on holiday or to attend to business and medical things. We don’t have daily ferries at this time of the year so getting things done often necessitates several nights off the island. The Best Western Plaza, which often resembles a Symi colony in the winter, is closed for refurbishment so alternative options are being explored. There are not many hotels open in Rhodes through the winter months and those that are seldom have the kind of restaurant facilities that the Plaza offers.

The Mediterranean does not have much by way of tides. The water levels rise and fall with barometric fluctuations. This time last year a big high pressure system hovered over the Eastern Med for weeks, causing abnormally low water levels. This year we have the opposite situation as successive lows and storm surges are pushing the sea up over the shore. The road around the harbour in Yialos is submerged in many places. Here in Pedi you can see from the photographs that the little jetties are submerged.

La Dolce Vita, the foreign charter boat that gained notoriety as a people-trafficking vessel in the early days of the refugee crisis about a decade ago, sank at her berth alongside the jetty in Pedi at the beginning of November 2023. Initially yellow floats were set up around her as there was a pollution control vessel in Yialos at the time. A week or so later these were recovered but nothing was actually done about raising the boat. In the meantime, with every storm she has settled further under the edge of the jetty and more doors and bulkheads are washing ashore as she breaks up. Quite what the plan is, if any, no one seems to know. Aside from the obvious pollution issues the boat is also a hazard for other ships and small boats using the jetty. As you can see, the angle of the mast cuts right across – a complication for the supply ships that come in every month to bring building materials and need room to swing their cranes.  We shall see…

Have a good weekend.