Tag: Symi

Symi Gold

Well, it has certainly been quite a summer here on Symi, ‘post Covid’. Not that it is really ‘post Covid’ – the platform for the next round of shots has opened for the over 60s and we will be reporting at the clinic on Wednesday for ours. What I really mean is that for the first time in years Symi has been open for business – and really busy – since April. This wasn’t just hitting 2019 levels but more like being back in the good old days before the economic crisis and the banking collapse. May and June were positively humming and people who have not been to Symi at that time for years made a point of being here. Fear that doors may close again as quickly as they opened may have been a driving force. Also frustrated travel-lust finally had free rein.

For the first time in three years we heard Australian accents in Yialos as Diaspora Greeks made the long journey from Oz to visit their ancestral homes in July and August. It is also ‘business as usual’ with our Turkish neighbours as far as yachting is concerned and many of the big shiny boats in Yialos and Pedi this summer have had either Turkish or tax-haven US Delaware registrations. (Delaware has particularly favourable yacht registration laws so many of the ‘US’ boats you see have never been further than 30 nautical miles from Bodrum!)

October looks to be a bit quieter. We are not seeing the ‘digital nomad’ phenomenon of 2020 and 2021, where people who were working on line anyway decided they might as well combine it with a few weeks in Greece as it didn’t matter where they were working from. This autumn most of the people I have spoken to have definitely been on holiday rather than riding out a lockdown at home in more congenial surroundings.

Steak on the hoof – one of a half dozen or so bullocks in the Pedi valley.
A boutique cruise ship lying off shore.
Equinoctial high tide in Pedi last week.

2022 has also seen the best ferry connections ever as the Blue Star has been through on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday during the peak weeks, the Sebeco has been providing a continuous daily shuttle from 7.45 a.m. to 6.50 p.m, the Sea Dreams King Saron has been shuttling between Symi, Rhodes and Marmaris, the SAOS Stavros has been chugging along, the Panagia Skiadeni has been in daily and we have had the Dodecanese Seaways catamarans over weekends. And if you feel exhausted reading that, that’s how we have all felt as tourists have arrived and departed at all hours of the day and cleaners have battled with fast changeovers between guests. The buffer imposed by Covid protocols has all but fallen away and incoming guests are coming off the boats before the outgoing ones have waved their farewells. If you ask anyone in the tourist accommodation business what their plans are for the winter, ‘sleep for a week’ is likely to be the reply!

The leaves are falling, the squills are poking their way through the hard-baked earth and there is an autumnal feel to the air. The angle of the sun is low and the shadows lengthening. We had a strange interlude of thundershowers on 24 and 25 August but no signs of rain since then. Temperatures are around 18 degrees at night and 24 at midday with a chill in the wind. Apparently it will be a bit warmer next week as the wind shifts to the south.

Who knows what October will bring?

Open for Lunch

 

As you can see from today’s photographs, more shops and tavernas are opening up now that there are a few tourists coming over from Rhodes. The bus service has extended its schedule so the last bus is now at 9 p.m. from the harbour, 9.30 p.m. from Pedi.  Not quite conducive to a night on the tiles but until there are enough people around to justify running later that’s it.  If you are on Symi this summer, think local for your evenings out or reckon on a stroll home under the stars.  If you are travelling on the bus, a mask should be worn and every alternate seat left empty.

On the subject of masks, it is now once again mandatory to wear masks in supermarkets.  As these are the businesses most often frequented by everyone, we spend the most time in them and they are air conditioned which seems to be conducive to the spread of the virus, it makes sense.

Before I forget, in my previous blog I said the information therein was valid at time of writing but came with no guarantees that it would remain unchanged.  Well, forget about King Saron as a means of getting to Symi.  Evidently a ferry license is not forthcoming and they are sticking to day excursions.  While there is nothing to stop you buying a day excursion ticket to Symi and then not using the return leg, the problem is that they are not allowed to take luggage and are subject to police inspections so turning up with your wheelie bag for a day trip to Symi is just not going to work.  Spare underwear and a toothbrush in your handbag is about as far as it goes.  Meanwhile Dodecanese Seaways continues to adjust its schedules on a weekly basis and a cloud of uncertainty continues regarding Sunday travel.  Compromise is the name of the game this summer and anyone travelling this year is going to have to take it as it comes.  Someone said, don’t sweat the small stuff…

Direct flights have started from the UK and will soon be starting from Sweden.  After a few hiccoughs the PLF and QR system seems to be functioning fairly smoothly.  Airlines are now responsible for making sure that passengers actually fill in the PLF form 24 hours before travelling and get their QR codes so they are more motivated to get this done.  The bottle necks are at their check in desks rather than in the arrivals hall as the airlines have to foot the bill for anyone who travels without one.

According to an article in one of the Greek papers yesterday, one of the difficulties with the Covid-19 testing process in the island airports is that the swabs have to be sent to Athens to be processed which obviously takes longer as they are sent in a batch once or twice a day, whenever there is a flight back to Athens and then have to be processed.  As it says on the government website, you will be notified if your test results are positive and you are asked to self-isolate and practice social distancing for the 24 hours or so it takes for your test to be processed.  Another difficulty that the authorities are experiencing that is totally within the control of travellers, however, is people giving bogus addresses and fake phone numbers on their forms or ignoring the phone calls from the authorities.  As people are only contacted if their test results are POSITIVE this means selfish individuals who think they have outwitted the system, for reasons known only to themselves, could be blithely spreading the virus as they disport themselves in bars and beaches.  For anyone reading this considering such irresponsible behaviour, just remember, they still have your passport number and there is probably a special place in Interpol hell for super-spreaders!

And on that cheerful note I shall leave you to mull over the madness that is the summer of 2020.

 

 

Summer, but not as we know it.

“It is like winter, only with better weather,”  a recently-arrived friend observed to me a few days ago.  The days are long and hot and there isn’t much happening.  Anyone visiting Symi for the first time probably won’t notice much difference as Symi has reverted to the sleepy charm of the 1970s and 80s.  The gulets and yachts that normally fill the harbour in the summer months are conspicuous by their absence and apart from a few Greek flagged sailing boats visiting from Rhodes and Kos, the anchorages are empty.   Until the sea borders can safely open up with testing procedures in place at a greater number of ports, this is unlikely to change.  The sea border between Greece and Turkey is still firmly closed so there are no ferry connections between the two countries either.

Most of the cafes and bars in the harbour are now open, as are the two pizzerias, the gyros and grill houses and several restaurants and tavernas.  We were invited to dinner at Tholos in Harani on Saturday night.  The number of tables has been reduced by about a third so that they are more widely spaced. The staff all wear masks.  Sanitiser is brought to the table so you can clean your hands, particularly after handling the menu.  As this was the only restaurant open in the Harani area they were full, mainly with Greek tourists.  The food was excellent, as always, and they have not succumbed to the temptation to make up the shortfall in income by hiking prices.

Water taxis have resumed operation on a limited scale along the lines of one trip out in the morning and another back in the afternoon.  The Poseidon goes out 4 times a week. The Maria is also advertising day trips.  The ferry schedules are still a bit skimpy.  Dodecanese Seaways is not operating the Panagia Skiadeni and their official on line schedule shows no service to Symi on Sundays.  Sunday is actually marketed as a Facebook ‘event’ for a day excursion from Rhodes to Panormitis and once they know they have a good expression of interest, then it goes live.  The Sea Dreams website is advertising the King Saron for a daily route to Symi, starting from tomorrow, 15 July, and they are selling one way tickets.  Although this shows as running every day, this will be subject to demand but they have made their booking conditions very flexible.  As only 80 of the 450 hotels on Rhodes are actually open at the moment, and they are by no means full, it will be a while before there are enough tourists to fill day boats on a regular basis.  The Blue Star comes through 3 times a week.  There is still no evening boat from Rhodes to Symi apart from the Blue Star on Wednesdays at 18.30 (Mondays and Fridays, the Blue Star currently leaves Rhodes at 16.00). The Stavros seems to be more reliable than initially anticipated.

Direct flights from the UK commence from tomorrow, 15 July.  Direct flights from Sweden from 22 July and there is the possibility of direct flights being allowed from certain parts of the USA at the end of the month, depending on infection rates and so on.  Everyone has to fill in a PLF on line 24 hours before travelling and they are then issued with a QR code on their smart phones which they must show in order to travel.  This code determines whether one will have a mandatory Covid-19 check or a random one and the contact details provided are so that you can be notified of your test results and also, should anyone you have travelled with and been in close contact with, test positive, you can be informed.  Stricter controls are now being implemented at the land borders due to a recent increase in the number of people arrived from the Balkans who have tested positive.  You can find all the information you need about travelling to Greece on a new government website.

This is all as up-to-date as it can be, but it could all be totally different tomorrow!

 

Symi Summertime Blues

Well, here we are in July. The days are long, the sun is hot, the sea is warm. Normally this is high season and the bay is full of yachts swinging at anchor and Yialos full of gulets and gleaming megayachts. This year both are empty.  There are still restrictions in place regarding yachting movements, many cruising yachtsmen are in the vulnerable over 70s demographic so reluctant to travel, flights have to be booked, anti-fouling applied, boats launched – it will take a while for the summer time parade of visiting yachts and gulets to appear, if it ever does this year.  At the moment, due to Covid-19 testing protocols, Symi is not a port of entry for non-Greek yachts so even if sailing between Greece and Turkey were to resume, it would have to be through Rhodes.

Katsaras in Pedi has been open for a while, as you will have gathered from previous blog posts, and the sunbeds are also out at St Nicholas, even though the water taxi is not running as yet.  Apostoli’s is now making the transition from boatyard to waterfront taverna.  The last of the caiques is in the water and the bobcat is landscaping the beach.  The chairs and tables are getting a lick of paint and the sunbeds are ready to roll.

The Pedi Beach hotel is still pretty much deserted although I saw a pink bathing costume hanging out to dry from one of the umbrellas (sorry, no photo, my batteries were flat).

The general trend at the moment is that the old people head for the sea early – 7 a.m. or thereabouts – and time their walk back up the hill before the heat nails them to the tarmac.  From about 4 p.m. on wards the younger locals make for the water – parents with small children, groups of teenagers, local teachers and so on.  In the middle of the day it is just far too hot at the moment for anyone to move.  Temperatures are in the 40s and only the cicadas are busy.

There is some anxiety on the island at the moment.  In the usual state of Covid-induced paranoia, the news that two Greek-Americans who managed to get to Karpathos in June became ill with Covid-19 after their arrival, infected several relatives before they themselves were isolated in hospital in Crete and resulted in an entire village being put into lockdown has not gone down well.  This was followed a few days later by the news that of the 9 new cases of Covid-19 announced yesterday, 7 of them were tourist arrivals from abroad, and the land border with Serbia has been closed due to an increase of cases there.

Meanwhile, as I write this, my laptop has just pinged a notification that will bring joy to the hearts of any readers from the UK who have flights booked for this month.

Good luck!  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Socially Distant Symi

Carnival, Clean Monday Easter and May Day came and went discreetly during the Covid-19 lock down. The same cannot be said for Greek Pentecost which was celebrated with great enthusiasm last weekend. The first holiday since Epiphany in January that could be celebrated in any way, Greece saw its first real surge of domestic tourism.

In Mykonos, the famous party island, Athenians flocked to the beach bars that had opened for that weekend.  The inevitable happened and at least one was fined 20 000 euros and closed for 60 days for violating the social distancing regulations.  Symi, on the other hand, was a place of pilgrimage and Dodecanese Seaways brought people over from Rhodes to go to Panormitis monastery.  Rather more sedate and the photographs emerging on social media were nothing like the jam-packed throngs we usually associate with events like the Panormitis festival or even Sunday church-goers from Rhodes.  Those tavernas and cafes in Yialos that have opened finally had some customers and there was a bit of an ambient hum to the island that has been absent since last summer.

Katsaras in Pedi is one of the few organised beaches that is open at the moment.  As you can see from the photographs, the umbrellas and sunbeds are widely spaced.  The beach has been extended slightly seaward with more sand so that the front row of sunbeds is further out that usual.  The taverna is now open.  Apostoli’s on the other side of Pedi bay is still in boat-yard mode although most of the boats have now been launched.  Locals go along and help themselves from the pile of sunbeds in the corner.

Although the water taxis are being launched none of them is in operation as they don’t have their 2020 licenses as yet and in any case there isn’t really anywhere for them to go until the beach tavernas open and there are enough tourists to justify the service.  The beach and taverna over at Toli bay on the west coast of the island opened for Pentecost but that is accessible by road.

At time of writing, the Nireus, Aliki and Pedi Beach hotels are still closed.  Of these, the Pedi Beach looks the most promising as work is continuing on upgrading the rooms and there are staff around, doing things, even if the hotel is not actually open.

No word about what is or isn’t happening at Agia Marina.  No signs of any activity at Petalo.  NOS beach, the town beach, is not open yet but there is activity going on.

Technically the 2020 international tourist season starts from 15 June which is next Monday and travellers arriving from the approved list will not be subject to quarantine measures, only random spot checks.  All international flights will still be going through Athens.  Local airports like Rhodes will only start receiving international flights from 1 July.  Travel between Greece and Italy is supposed to start opening up from next week, although some Italian airports are still on the high risk list.  Main arrivals are likely to be on the big Super Fast ferries coming from Ancona.   All ferry travel, both domestic and international, requires the completion of a special form before departure, answering various questions regarding health as well as providing contact details and addresses so that in the event of anyone having the virus, all likely contacts can be traced and notified as quickly as possible.  Speaking of ferries, Symi won’t have daily ferries until the Panagia Skiadeni comes on line on 30 June to fill some of the gaps.  This is dependent on there being enough tourists in Rhodes to justify day excursions from Rhodes to Symi so there is a strong element of wait and see there.  The word in the harbour is that we won’t be seeing the ANES Sebeco shuttle this year.  Apparently it is most likely going to serve a potentially more lucrative route off the the mainland.  Of course as this is the year where no one really knows what is happening from one day to the next this may well change.

No one knows for sure yet what countries will be allowed in without any kind of quarantine requirements after 1 July as so much depends on epidemiological profiles elsewhere and these change daily.  There is also concern at all levels because there has been an increase in the number of new cases of Covid-19 in the last 10 days or so, many of them associated with arrivals from abroad (Greeks returning rather than tourist travellers).  The daily government briefings on TV have been reinstated and the situation is being monitored closely.  Specific areas may be isolated or locked down if there is any danger of them escalating into hot spots.  Qatar airlines is only allowed to resume flights into Athens after 15 June as a flight from Doha on 1 June had 12 positive cases out of 91 passengers.  Emirates only resumes on 15 July.  Other airlines are cancelling or rescheduling flights as they go, depending on changing regulations and reduced demand.  I have been receiving emails from mainly British regular visitors to Symi, telling me that their holidays have been cancelled or that they have been rescheduled.  With the UK now implementing a 14 day quarantine period for travellers returning from abroad, it is not surprising that the UK package holiday companies are cancelling June and July holidays on a rolling basis.

Once again, all we can do is wait and see – and do our bit to maintain social distancing to keep ourselves and others safe and well.

 

 

Strange Times

Today’s photograph is of the thermal beach on Kos.  If you dig a little pit in the sand it fills up with warm water from the thermal springs just below the surface.  Put it on your wishlist for when things return to normal.

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  Travel restrictions have been brought in to prevent passengers travelling on ferries to the islands unless they are actually permanent residents on the islands. This was brought in to stop Athenians and others from the mainland bringing the disease into the islands.  So far most confirmed cases are in Athens and northern Greece.  The only confirmed case in the Dodecanese, a health worker at a clinic in Karpathos, was traced back to a visitor from Athens.  As the islands don’t have serious medical facilities – on Symi for example we currently don’t even have a qualified doctor, only interns – it is important to maintain a cordon sanitaire.  When travelling you have to show your passport, your residence card and also your tax certificate as this shows your official place of domicile whereas the residence card simply shows that you are either a temporary or permanent resident of Greece and the EU.

Another big change is that with effect from 6 a.m. yesterday, 23 March, we cannot leave our homes without authorisation and that is for a very limited range of criteria.  The rest of the time we are to stay home.  If we do go out it is singly or in pairs with a distance of 2 metres between us.  When travelling by car only one passenger is permitted in addition to the driver.  People going to work have to complete Form A if self employed or get their employer to fill it in and stamp it if they are employees. This is a one off form to be carried at all times, along with ID or passport and residence permit.  Other activities fall under Form B which can be either a printed form, an SMS or a hand written piece of paper if there is no technology available and this has to be done for every single time one leaves the house.  More details on the official government website link.

 

The number of customers permitted in supermarkets has been further restricted to one every 15 square metres.  This doesn’t apply so much to Symi where the shops are small and people few but in Rhodes the big supermarkets have implemented a system using numbered cards.  Based on the square meterage of the shop they have calculated how many customers they may have in the store at any given time.  There is a staff member, suitably gloved and masked, at the door who hands out a card to each shopper until all the cards are gone.  As each shopper leaves again they hand back the card which is duly sanitised and handed to the next person in line. Simple but effective and nothing fancy required to set up.  Countries like the UK could implement this to reduce the locust-line stripping of supermarket shelves as well as reducing the progress of contagion.  Street markets which are a common shopping venue in Greece are limited to only sell foodstuffs and the stalls have to be 5 metres apart.

Apart from ferries, there have also been major changes to flights with drastic reductions in the number of domestic flights and even bigger ones between Greece and EU/International destinations.  Apart from repatriation flights and freight, there is little movement at the country’s airports.

On the home front, Symi is quieter even than it is in the depths of winter.  The lambs and kids continue to frolic in the daisies.  Solitary people walk their dogs as this is one of the approved activities.  Parents endeavour to home-school their children and various on line classes are streamed.  The churches are closed.  Tomorrow is Greek Independence Day as well as the Annunciation.  Normally this is marked by blazing braziers all round the harbour and leading up to Evangelismos church in Harani.  This year locals will mark the event by putting lanterns on their balconies in the harbour and hanging out flags as all parades are cancelled.

The sunny mild spring weather is expected to break on Wednesday evening as the cold front currently over the Ionian, the mainland and the northern Aegean heads our way.  We could be in for as much as four days of rain.  Psychologically it is much easier to be indoors when it is wet and miserable outside so as long as this is not accompanied by floods this rainy spell is welcomed.  Meanwhile we are all spending far too much time thinking about food. That is probably a universal thing as boredom drives us to the fridge.  Fortunately I have always been a keen reader and thanks to Kobo and Kindle these days one need never run out of books.  Apparently Netflix has reduced the resolution on its streaming service so that the European bandwidth does not collapse under the weight of so many subscribers.

Keep well, keep safe, keep sane and stay at home!

 

 

Life on Symi in Self-Isolation

Here we are on our little island, waist deep in daisies, chamomile fragrant under foot and the hillsides pungent with sage blossom.  When I first came here in the mid-90s March was already a fairly busy time, with walking groups, photographers and artists revelling in the spring spectacle.  This slowly faded away as the tourist season contracted and in recent years Symi has been quiet well into May.  In that sense things don’t feel too different to last year or the year before.  In others, however, the change is dramatic.  No more shopping trips to Rhodes.  No more sociable coffees in cafes.  The old boys can no longer hang out at the cafeneions.  They hang out in their vegetable gardens instead and if the tourist season fails totally a lot of people will be dependent on the family orchard and vegetable plot.  The hairdressers, hardware stores, builders’ merchants and other stores are all closed.  Only supermarkets, bakeries, pharmacies, the bank and the agricultural suppliers are allowed to remain open.

I was going to post yesterday but kept delaying as we were all waiting to find out if the speculation in the press that the international flights would be stopping with effect from Sunday would be confirmed. So far, however, this has not been made official.

What has been made official is that ALL hotels, not just the seasonal ones for tourists, have to close on Monday until at least the end of April. This was announced at the same time as a fiscal package to help the country get through the difficult times ahead.  Something else that is official is that anyone arriving into the country now has to go into enforced 14 day quarantine.  They have to fill in a form on arrival, detailing among other things where they will be staying and their phone number. Random checks and phone calls will then be made to ensure that they abide by the quarantine regulations.  If they are found to be out and about when they should be at home, the fine is 5000 euros.

Meanwhile more and more islands are requesting that ferry connections be limited to the transport of goods only, in an effort to prevent the import of the virus from the mainland and beyond. Many Athenians are fleeing the big city to head to their country homes in rural areas and in the islands, bringing the virus with them.  This appeal may be too late for the Dodecanese Island of Karpathos which reported its first case last night, a health worker at a clinic on the island.  It is not clear how she became infected as this is one of the most remote islands and the closest diagnosed case so far is in Crete.  Even Mount Athos, which is effectively a state within a state, is closing the gates to pilgrims.

The government is taking the self-isolation, quarantine and business closures very seriously and the police are arresting anyone violating the edicts.

Finally, some good news to come out of all this…  While the requirement for dinky little individual soaps for hotels has dropped, Papoutsanis, Greece’s oldest soap maker, has had to increase production to cope with demand.

Symi Spring in a time of Covid-19

Symi in particular and Greece in general has changed a lot in the last week or so.  On Tuesday afternoon I was at an elegant tea party in Chorio, nibbling crustless smoked salmon sandwiches and eyeing the dishes of whipped cream and strawberries when suddenly various phones around the table went ‘ping’.  All the mothers of school-age children discovered that the schools were closing down for a fortnight with immediate effect. That was the start.

The next day, when the WHO declared the pandemic, the messages on phones and in social media gained momentum.  Schools and universities closed, as well as clubs, indoor play grounds, kindergartens, art galleries, museums, archaeological sites, cafes, bars, restaurants, tavernas, department stores, shopping malls and, eventually also tourist hotels (shut until 30 April) and finally, last night, the borders with Albania and North Macedonia and the sea border with Italy.  Cruise ships, which had been using Rhodes as a kind of bolt hole after being turned away from Limassol in Cyprus and Haifa in Israel are now barred from stopping in Greece. The directive also includes sailing yachts so anyone who over winters their boat in the cheap marinas of nearby Turkey may have a problem if their paperwork expires before the ban is lifted.

We are all supposed to be self-isolating as much as possible, something which the state has been having difficulty in implementing, hence the increasingly draconian shut downs.  For example, Saturday was an unseasonably sunny spring day so all the bored Athenians who could not while away the time in their usual fashion, in cafes, galleries and the like, headed for the beach.  Understandable but when several thousand people head for the beach they are not exactly following the principles of isolation that were intended by the closures.  Hasty legislation followed, shutting down organised beaches as well as ski resorts.

The police are actively going round, ensuring that businesses that should be closed are doing so.  Only supermarkets, pharmacies, bakeries, take aways and banks are allowed to be open at the moment and that is within certain parameters.  The number of people inside at any one time is limited and safe spacing must be maintained.  This morning legislation kicks in, limiting the number of people in supermarkets at any one time to 1 per every 10 square metres and they should maintain a distance of at least 2 meters apart in the check out queue.

Symi is very quiet.  The cafes and bars in Chorio and Yialos that are normally open all year round are sealed up with their chairs stacked on their tables.  Scena in Chorio and the International Taverna in Yialos which had been open through the winter are offering take away food and I have noticed on the Rhodian newsfeeds that many Rhodian restaurants are also announcing that they will be keeping their kitchens open for take aways and deliveries.  With the law coming through at such short notice they have perishable stock that needs using up and there is no knowing how long these closures will last. The fact that late Saturday night it was announced that tourist hotels and holiday accommodation were to remain closed until at least 30 April means that there won’t be much trade apart from locals.

I must get on now with sorting tins and bottles and making a shopping list in case we have to stay at home completely.  More tomorrow!

 

February Postcards from Symi

sdr

 

Symi is still deep in its winter sleep.  Down in Pedi random goats and sheep browse the verges and cats seek out the warm places. The weather is variable and forecasts frequently wrong.  Mild winds turn out to be gales and black clouds roll out from behind the Vigla on days that are supposed to be dry.  Airers laden with damp jeans and wet socks will be cluttering our homes for a while longer.  Temperatures can be anything from 6 to 16 degrees centigrade, depending on which way the wind is blowing.  Today’s Blue Star Chios ran on time but Dodecanese Seaways has cancelled due to strong north winds and a deteriorating forecast.

Behind closed doors some businesses are preparing for the season. The Pedi Beach Hotel is revamping all its rooms.  To Spitiko taverna in the harbour is also in the throes of a massive overhaul.  The new road which will connect the bend in the road above the harbour with the new commercial port is making progress.  This has been on the cards for some time and will facilitate the movement of heavy goods vehicles coming off the Blue Star up to the main road without going through Petalo.

The lease on the Nireus Hotel, which belongs to the Symi town hall, came up for auction at the beginning of the month as the original 25 year lease was up for review.  The Rhodian company that manages the Pedi Beach Hotel won.  So far there is a lot of gossip circulating as apparently this came as a surprise to the original lessees who had, it is said, assumed that this was merely a formality and that they would be rolled over for another 25.  The Rhodian company offered the town council a far higher rental, 200 000 euros per annum according to the local press, and is undertaking to raise the hotel to 4 star standard.  We are all waiting to see what happens this year as in theory the hotel should be opening for the season in April which is only weeks away.

Another piece of news that may have implications for Symi this summer is that the Dodecanese Seaways car ferry, the Panagia Skiadeni, has been sold.  Will the new owners be operating the existing Rhodes Symi route or will the boat be going elsewhere and if so, who will fill the gap?  As the Sebeco does  not take vehicles or goods this leaves a big hole in the island’s summer supply line.

Carnival is in the air.  Yesterday was Tsiknopempti – Smokey Thursday. The scheduled municipal BBQ event has been postponed to Sunday due to the wet and windy weather yesterday (surprise!).  If you are on Symi this weekend, the BBQ in the Chorio square is scheduled to start at 15.00, weather permitting of course!

So, as you can see, although it all seems very quiet on Symi at the moment, there’s really quite a lot going on.

Sleepy September

blog 6 Sep 2018 k
You never know what you are going to spot, walking around Symi.  Anyone who knows where these are, please comment on this blog 🙂

blog 6 Sep 2018 j
Back in the 80s and 90s this was a tourist shop at the bottom of the Pedi road.  Now you have to go to Yialos to buy sunhats, sarongs and beach towels.

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It may still be hot and the first rains are still about 6 weeks away but this local works on his garden every day.  I have noticed a big increase in agricultural activities on Symi in recent years.  The only way to survive on an austerity income is by living off the land as far as possible.

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Tyres perish in the hot Symi sun.  It is not unusual to see various protective improvisations like this one.

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If I had not heard the bleat I would never have noticed this nanny goat.  She looks almost as weather-beaten as her surroundings.

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Beehives.  Symi honey is prized for its delicate herbal flavours from wild mountain thyme, sage and rigani.  You can find it for sale in limited quantities at several of the supermarkets, grocers and tourist shops.

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August is definitely over.  There are very few yachts in Pedi now and they are of more modest proportions.  The rich and famous have gone to play somewhere else or are back in their counting houses, counting out their money.

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The so-called marina in Pedi. As you can see, it is far too narrow to be a marina.  Only very small local boats can squeeze inside.  Apparently the plans did not take into account the widening of the waterfront between the time the original survey was done and construction actually started so the enclosed area is 4 metres narrower than originally intended.  No comments please!  Visiting yachts can tie up on the outside.  Unfortunately there are no actual amenities available so don’t expect shore power, laundry, wifi or hot showers.  It is, however, conveniently solid to tie up to if you are tired of rowing an inflatable full of shopping across the bay in a brisk catabatic.

blog 6 Sep 2018 b
Fishermen’s cottages on the northern Pedi waterfront, as seen from the head of the marina.

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And finally, spotted in the Chorio car park… Cats don’t have the monopoly on cuteness around here.

August is over. The crowds have gone. The children are preparing for another school year. Next week the ferry schedules change as Blue Star reverts to smaller boats on the Symi route.  Good bye, Nissos Chios, Welcome Back, Patmos!

There is also far less traffic on the roads.  British tourists tend to be apprehensive about hiring cars and driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. The holidaymakers from other parts of Greece and further afield who arrive with their cars on the Blue Star have also gone home again.  If you do visit Symi in September it is well worth hiring a car for a day or so to explore the interior of the island and visit Kokkimides monastery, Roukoniotis monastery and Toli Bay.  While there are organised mini-bus excursions if there are enough of you, having your own wheels gives you more freedom to stop and take photographs as well as linger at places that take your fancy.  On a clear day you can see as far as Kos on one side and Rhodes on the other with the islands of Halki, Tilos and Nissyros also visible.

As the continent of Europe starts to cool to the north of us, so has the breeze that blows down the Aegean, bringing welcome relief from the searing temperatures of the Symi summer.  It is still around 30 degrees at midday but after days in the forties, 30 seems quite mild.  Nights are cooling off too.  We plugged our boiler in for hot water yesterday for the first time since May.  Not quite time to dig out the duvet and woolly jumpers just yet though. That doesn’t happen until early November!

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana