Stormy Weather!

Tuesday morning and the water taxis have been replaced by fishing boats and the beach-goers by cats, collecting random fish from the day's catch.

Wednesday morning and the long awaited storm reached us at the same time as the Blue Star.

Heading off into the storm.  My camera isn't good enough to catch the lightning but if you go to Symi Dream, Neil and James took some amazing video footage of lightning strikes at this stage of the storm.

The stream that comes down the Kataraktis came down in full spate, pouring through the back of the harbour and into the sea, hence the murky water.  This is why we have a bridge!

The chap in the yellow raincoat was actually barefoot, carrying his shoes in his hand as the water was ankle deep.

The day trippers that came over on the Symi Sea Dream on the right may have thought more in terms of the Sea Nightmare as they had a very rough crossing with lightning all around. There were a few green faces in the cafes.

The first carpet seller arrived on Wednesday evening's Diagoras.  Here he is, displaying his wares to a Chorio housewife on Thursday evening.

Friday morning and the harbour is underwater again, this time due to a barometric low which has caused the sea level to rise and lap up through the gratings.  This is a common phenomenon in the winter months and is the reason for the high pavements.

The Dodecanese Seaways catamaran pulling out at 9.30 this morning.  

The end of the tourist season was memorable this year in that it was marked by violently stormy weather and heavy rain across the whole of Greece and two days later it is still raining.  The electrical storm that passed over Symi on Wednesday morning took out many electrical appliances on the island as well as telephone lines and routers and we had power outages and brown outs at various points in the course of Wednesday.  As there aren't large stocks of these things on Symi many Symiots are off the air until new routers arrive by special delivery.  As the weather is not expected to improve until Sunday and thunderstorms are still possible, we are unplugging everything, including the webcam, when we are out of the office.

The weather is expected to improve from Sunday afternoon and it should be clear and sunny all week. Good news for Sunday weddings and the Ochi Day parade on Wednesday.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Talking About the Weather

The big oak tree in Lieni, at the top of Chorio, is starting to lose its leaves.  

Monday morning 8 a.m. and the lanes at the top of the Kali Strata are quiet.

You know the season on Symi is drawing to a close when all you see on the Kali Strata are sheep droppings!

Not much happening down in the harbour either.  Indeed by the time I got down to the bottom, that big gulet had gone.

Another section of the roof is getting a make over on this old mansion at the top of the Kali Strata.

Empty.

A Virginia creeper, intent on raising a few tiles.

There might not be many customers about but the herb man has just taken delivery of several branches of bay which will have to be dried and bagged for next year.  When you buy herbs on Symi the chances are high that they are gathered locally rather than imported.

The fish market by the bridge in Yialos - and a big piece of gauze to keep the flies off the fish.

The Symi day excursion boat coming in from Rhodes - while there are very few tourists still staying on Symi, Rhodes is still fairly busy if the number of day trippers is anything to go by.  They are mainly older people and families with young children, speaking a wide range of languages.

A colourful display outside the chandlery in the lane outside the Symi Visitor Accommodation office. Dino also sells agricultural implements - hoes, rakes, spades and the like.

Just before 12.30 and the Panagia Skiadeni has come into view.  It is not usually possible to see her when she is that far out but there are no yachts to obscure the view today!

It is a quiet October Monday on Symi and the main topic of conversation is the weather which is expected to take a turn for the worse midweek. Will the storms reach us as early as Tuesday night? Will they arrive on Wednesday? Will the rain be as heavy as expected?  Will it all be over by Sunday or will it linger on into the beginning of next week?  It all depends on which weather forecast you are following but whatever it is and whenever it is, it is coming our way and everyone is preparing for it. Those cafes and tavernas that are still open have been rigging their plastic drop cloths which can be deployed very quickly to turn pavement tables into sheltered ones.  It makes a change to be talking about the weather instead of Greek politics and the state of the Greek economy.

Many of the boutiques and more niche market shops have already closed, their owners heading off to other places for the winter. Those more practical shops that cater to the needs of the locals through the winter are concentrating more on the things that they know will sell than the exotic goodies demanded by megayachts and foreign visitors. There will probably be a flurry of treats in the run up to Christmas but for the next few weeks the philosophy is 'buy local, buy in season' - think pomegranates rather than pineapples!

Twenty-nine Syrian and Iraqi refugees, including quite a few children aged between 5 and 7, arrived on the island last night and their paperwork is being processed at the moment.  We hope that they will be ready in time to leave on the Panagia Skiadeni at 4 p.m. this afternoon as they will otherwise have to spend the night here as the next boat out is the Panagia Skiadeni on Tuesday at 3 p.m.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Sunny and Mild

Low clouds swirling around the top of the Vigla on Tuesday morning.

Dramatic early morning skies over Turkey.  Pedi bay is a lot quieter now with few yachts lying in the anchorage.

Bright hibiscus in Lieni, with the 17th century windmills on the ridge above the harbour in the background. At this time of the year it makes a huge difference to the hours of daylight, depending on whether one is in a south or north-facing area. The neighbourhood in the photograph is sunny and bustling whereas the other side of the same hill, overlooking the harbour, is chilly and dark with few people around.

Composition in grey and terracotta.

Elaborate detail on a balcony in Chorio.

Spotted near the high school.  It seems teenagers really are the same the world over!

Pebblework is not just the preserve of churches.   When this mansion was restored on the Kali Strata, the owner took care to have the original pebblework restored too.

Often the only indicator we have that there is a cruise ship visiting is an armada of small orange lighters, shuttling guests from ship to shore. The big cruise ships themselves lie in deep water in Nimborio bay as they are too large to come into Yialos.

There were still enough visitors on the island earlier this week for a water taxi run to the beach.

Waiting for the Blue Star Diagoras on Wednesday morning.

It is not too late to see some interesting - or slightly weird, depending on your perspective - yachts in the harbour.

The stern view.

Personally I prefer the decorous gentleman's yacht with the yellow funnel.

A slightly different view from the balcony of Symi Visitor Accommodation.

We are halfway through October and the weather continues sunny and mild with temperatures in the mid to high twenties.  The long range forecast once again promises rainy days but it is too soon to tell if the weather late next week will pass to the south or to the north of us or if we will receive the full brunt.  It is not unusual on Symi to see rain falling all around us and not have a drop reach the island.

The ferry schedules are available on line up to the end of December now so we can all make plans for trips to Rhodes and further afield.  Basically, once the Panormitis festival is over on 9 November, it boils down to one Dodecanese Seaways catamaran stopping of to and from Kos at weekends and on Mondays and then the Blue Star on Wednesdays and Fridays, weather permitting. There are no boats at all on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the winter.

More people are leaving than arriving these days and houses are being closed up for the winter, gutters checked and cracked tiles replaced before the deluge.  Those who live on the island all year round are looking at what needs doing to their houses before the weather takes a turn for the worse.  Sheets of builders' plastic can be very useful, particularly when combined with a few well-placed stones, a commodity of which Symi has an inexhaustible supply.

There have been some refugee arrivals on Symi in recent days, including a number of children, but once again the authorities have been able to process their paperwork promptly and help them on their way. When the ferry service diminishes further, however, as mentioned above, it will be inevitable that in some cases refugees will have to stay one or two nights on the island.  We have received many sleeping bags through one of the larger relief organisations but cash donations to provide food and other essentials are still welcome, particularly if we need to provide shelter for vulnerable people in bad weather.  The link for donating on line is http://www.everyclick.com/solidaritysymi/info and remember to tick the Gift Aid box if you are a British tax payer. Thank you.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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A Stroll Around Chorio

A strikingly unusual mansion on the Kastro, above the Kali Strata and very close to Lemonitissa Church. This is the only one I know of on the island with this rather exotic roof detail.

Whatever you do, don't step out onto the balcony of this one to admire the view!  It is unusual to see such a long wooden balcony, particularly up in Chorio.

This old mansion off the Syllogos square in Chorio, next to the cafeneion has been undergoing painstaking restoration for a couple of years now.

An intriguing staircase to nowhere opposite Zoe's taverna in Chorio.

Let me in!  I want to play too!  A Chorio cat waits patiently outside the school gates.

And another wonders where the humans have gone. As houses close up for the winter and their owners head off to places where there is heating and the comforts of life are not dependent on the precarious winter ferry service, the island's cat population who have enjoyed a pleasant summer of companionship and food on demand are left to fend for themselves.  No matter what arrangements are made to feed cats during the winter, the ones that have been accustomed to human interaction do mope around when their people are gone and do latch onto other families eventually.

A pretty lane in Chorio, behind the old pharmacy and looking towards the Pedi valley.

Symi harbour may be famous for its steep steps but Chorio is famous for its narrow winding lanes that form a labyrinth round the Kastro and up towards Periotissa and Agia Trianda churches.  Some say that the intention was to confuse marauding pirates but the reality is probably more a case of squeezing in as much accommodation as possible into a small area and constantly building on extra rooms for married daughters.  It is not uncommon for new homeowners to find unknown layers of rooms going down into the hillside, filled with rubble and forgotten about over the centuries.

The autumn crocuses are out.  A very pale mauve, they are very difficult to photograph with my rather basic camera as they don't show up well against the dry thistles of summer.

Looking down on Mavrovouni from the top of the Kastro on the opposite side of the harbour.  The scrap of road you can see is a turn off from the road to the helipad and is the closest vehicle access to Villa Iris and Spiti Grand Helene.

The first cyclamens are putting in an appearance in the shady places.  As you can see, the other wild plants are also starting to germinate again.

Acorns ripening on the Valonia oak in Lieni.  If we have heavy rain they can swell to the size of small eggs but usually they are of more modest proportions.

The Blue Star Diagoras making a modest contribution to global warming.  The big car ferries that ply Greek seas work hard, providing an essential link between the small islands and the mainland.  This ship left Piraeus yesterday afternoon and called into Symi en route to Rhodes this morning. She then continued on to Kastellorizon, the most remote of the Greek islands and will be back in Rhodes this evening to retrace her steps back to Piraeus overnight.  

It is another humid and intermittently overcast day on Symi.  The morning mist never really quite clears and occasionally we think, surely it must rain now!  Temperatures remain mild and in the mid twenties. There is heavy dew at night.

Symi featured in a 60 minute program on Alpha TV this week.  This is one of Greece's commercial channels and the documentary was filmed during the last weeks of September.  We had drones buzzing round the harbour at the time.  The dialogue is in Greek and the editing is bad but you may enjoy watching it if you have an hour to spare.  For those of you who have never been here before, no, the harbour is not normally as chaotic as they have depicted it and we actually have beautiful peaceful places up in Chorio and down in Pedi that are not frequented by a noddy train full of enthusiastically singing Russian day-trippers.  It is amazing how a journalist's agenda combined with an editor who has never been to a place can create a distorted impression of a place, barely recognisable to those who live here!

Dodecanese Seaways have now put up their November ferry timetable, including for the Panormitis Festival.  Once again it looks as though we will be heavily dependent on the Blue Star to get to Rhodes during the week for business as it won't be possible to do a day return from Symi to Rhodes on the Dodecanese Seaways boats and they will only be serving us on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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