Autumn Rains on Symi
Category: Greek Nature
Symi Surprises
Today’s featured image may have you puzzled but yes, it is indeed on Symi, just underground! Symi’s caves are very fragile and dangerous to access so their locations are not publicised. If you want to see more extraordinary photographs of Symi’s ‘underworld’ go to Barry Hankey’s blog.
We haven’t had anymore rain and the forecast looks dry as far as the Panormitis Festival on 8 November. Tiny things are continuing to germinate and delicate miniscule narcissi and other small flowers are poking through. Mind where you step in the Pedi valley!
And in other news… There was a shipping strike in Greece on Tuesday which has deranged the Blue Star schedule for the entire week. Tomorrow is Ochi Day, a big public holiday in Greece with marching bands and fly overs. As it falls on a Friday this year Symi is likely to be quite busy with Rhodians coming over for the weekend.
The beaches are wrapping up now. The water taxis have finished, the excursion boats have put up their ‘thank you for a great season – see you next year’ notices. Many restaurants and tavernas are either already closed or will close after the long weekend. (Only a limited number of venues stay open in the winter, to cater to the needs of the locals.) Likewise many of the seasonal hotels have wished everyone a good winter and started plastic-wrapping the outside lights. Down in Pedi both hotels are now closed until the spring. Next week the focus will switch to Panormitis as the monastery gears up for the big festival of St Michael on 8 November. The market stalls and food outlets start to set up next week and the car ferries will bring a cavalcade of vans and trucks from Rhodes.
The Sebeco finishes its service for the year on Monday 31 October so there is no longer a daily shuttle between Rhodes and Symi. After that we will be dependent on the Blue Star three times a week, the Stavros whenever Symi occurs on its circuit (variable and much influenced by local weather conditions in various small island ports) and Dodecanese Seaways (mainly weekends).
Some October Postcards from Symi
After the First Rains
Last weekend, on Saturday 15 October, Symi had the first rains that triggered the start of the island’s ‘second spring’. Heavy rain was forecast but fortunately missed us. Symi received about 15 mm over a 24 hour period, not a lot but enough to get things growing. Parts of Crete, on the other hand, received heavy down pours that triggered flash flooding with cars washed into the sea, significant damage to property and tragically the loss of two lives.
The combination of rain and sunshine has brought up the first flush of green. Seeds are germinating. The locals are digging over their vegetable gardens, ready for the first plantings of the new growing season.
Even the ants are busy, preparing for the winter ahead.
October Haze
Symi is suddenly very quiet, particularly down in Pedi. In the evenings all we hear apart from the roar of the power station is the occasional cat fight and the hooting of owls. The marina is no longer party-central. ASymi Residences has put up the storm shutters for the winter and apart from a few dedicated sunworshippers the Pedi Beach Hotel seems to be winding down.
Agia Marina beach has already closed down and St Nicholas will soon be following – even if there were still lots of people around, Symi’s steep terrain throws most of the popular beaches into shadow for much of the day from now until April.
The weather is quite mild. Mid to low twenties most days, with the occasional 29 thrown in just to keep us on our toes. Evenings are cool. There have been some shipping disruptions due to gales in the Aegean. Rain and thundershowers may hit us this weekend, or they may pass us by and hit Rhodes and Turkey instead.
Here are some photographs I took with my old Nikon around 10.30 this morning. As you can see, my Huawei phone actually takes much better photos than my camera but I wanted to use the zoom.
Symi in the Snow
Late in the afternoon of Monday 24 January 2022 the first snowflakes started to fall on Symi.
The next morning we awoke to this.
July Postcards from Symi
March Postcards from Symi
A glimpse of life on Symi in the turbulent and blustery days of mid-March, when we can have four seasons in a day.
February Postcards from Symi
Some recent photographs of life on Symi in February 2021, during the second extended Covid-19 lockdown in Greece.
The Symi Bubble
Greece went into its second lockdown on 7 November 2020, initially until the 30th of that month. The figures continued to rise and the lockdown was extended – and extended – and extended again. Since that date no one has been allowed to travel to or from Symi unless they have very specific reasons to do so and can produce documentary evidence of that reason. Effectively we are living in a very efficient quarantine bubble with nary a winter cold or sniffle to be seen. What keeps coronavirus out also keeps colds, flu and other contagious diseases out too. This could be the island’s healthiest winter ever – even if also the most boring!
Retail restrictions were partially lifted in Greece a couple of weeks ago but on Symi that has made little difference – it is in Athens and Thessaloniki that shoppers starved of retail therapy have thronged Hermes Street and in Rhodes that people from outlying villages have queued to get into Jumbo and Zara.
Meanwhile, on Symi where retail excitements tend to focus rather on who currently has the freshest root ginger and whether the Chinese shop in Chorio has cheap fleeces in the right size, there is no sign of a shopping frenzy. Instead, as there is no limit on the number of times one can send SMS code 6 or how long one can stay out for personal exercise, as long as the regulations are obeyed, Symi people are rediscovering their island in a big way.
Remote mountain chapels, abandoned farmsteads, long forgotten archaeological sites and indigenous forests are seeing more activity than they have in decades as locals and expat residents alike go hiking every sunny day. A spin off of this is that Symi’s vast natural resources are finally getting the attention that they deserve and the rationale behind walking trails and attracting walkers back to the island is being understood. One can only hope that this does not precipitate another rush of hastily laid concrete paths but leads to a controlled project to restore the old kalderimis and to reinstate the access points that were destroyed when the road to Panormitis was tarred. Symi is not just a beach destination and there is more to the island than the neo-classical harbour.
As I write this we are once again waiting to find out if the lockdown regulations are changing. Will the high schools reopen on Monday as intended or will the increase in cases in Attica roll this back? Will the shops be closed again because people in Athens cannot be trusted to behave responsibly when given the opportunity to buy Marks and Spencers knickers in person rather than on line? Who knows. The only certainty is that every sunny winter’s day there will be people walking up and down Symi, from end to end, enjoying the views from mountain tops and counting how many islands they can spot on a clear day.
Adriana Shum 