Awoke looking out over what could only be a Greek landscape. Funny how geology and vegetation, sun, rain and culture all conspire to identify an area. The harbour contained QV and a Thompson vessel, so expect about three thousand additional population on the island this morning. Bus to the town of Mykonos round the bay. Walk along the waterfront, the bars and restaurants all have that ‘morning after’ feel – owners washing off the tiled ground with water washing into the sea, a few broken bottles, a dazed look to the few customers enjoying a coffee or an early beer. The town is freshly coloured white and blue, very narrow streets just wide enough for those little motorised carts that chug about, a few pleasant green corners. From the waterfront the island is crowned by the four skeletal windmills shown in all the postcards, and a few charming small white chapels stand open for visitors. We loved the charm, the quaint streets and blue-and-white buildings, but didn’t care for evidence of the boozy night before. Outside the harbour sits a grand four-masted sailing ship, and over there the Queen Vic. How DO they manoeuvre that massive hull into such places?
After taking in the town we go back to the ship. Along the quay from QV, an inter-island ferry is disgorging cars and ruck-sack toting foot passengers by the score. It had been my dream for my retirement to go island-hopping in the Greek Islands, to be one of them. Not too sure now. Sue says she’d refuse to live out of a ruck-sack nowadays, and I’m not convinced life would as idyllic in these quaint places as I imagined. Maybe this taste of the Mediterranean has achieved its first goal. I now know where we probably won’t be going again.
The ship sails away from Mykonos and turns north. Runs past the coast of Turkey through what I’m told are the cleanest seas in the Mediterranean area.
After dinner that night we have entered the Dardanelles, that narrow strait between Turkey to the South and the Gallipoli Peninsula to the north, which links the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara. This is beginning to feel quite exotic. The Greek name for the Dardanelles, Hellespont, echoes of classical history, of Troy located near the western end of the strait, of Hero and Leander, Xerxes, Alexander the Great, the Ottoman Empire, and of the Battle of Gallipoli, where more that 200,000 lost their lives in 1915, including countless New Zealand and Australian troops.
Over night we’ll sail across the Sea of Marmara and in the morning Istanbul, which it is my personal dream to visit.
