Blanket Shipping Ban

We have had 55 millimetres of rain since Saturday afternoon and it is still raining intermittently now. Fortunately, unlike other parts of Greece which have experienced flash floods and mud slides, the rain on Symi has been steady and the island is soaking it up well. There is a blanket shipping ban in effect today so the only maritime movement is the coastguard patrol and the water ship. There is a south westerly Force 8 blowing up into the Aegean and it is rough off shore. Nimos and the rocks are fringed with white. There is a big 3 masted gulet in the harbour at the moment and it has warps out in all directions. Mean little squalls are whipping across the harbour, hurling rain and spray at our windows and rattling the shutters.

The last visitors resident on the island are mooching about, waiting for shipping updates and worrying if they will be able to catch their flights from Rhodes. This is a problem with late season traveling – some years October passes without any serious weather problems and other years ferries are cancelled and flights missed. In the fifteen years I have lived on the island I have never been able to quite make up my mind which conditions could be regarded as ‘normal’ for Symi in October – aside from the obviously unpredictable!

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana