Sleepy Symi

Monday morning Yialos. There are far fewer gulets than usual. These boats come over to Symi from Turkey as part of a cruising itinerary and the passengers are usually foreign tourists so if fewer tourists are visiting Turkey this year, the knock on effect is that there are fewer gulets visiting Symi and the other border islands.

8 a.m. and not a lot happening.  I think the bright orange looks better on the fishing boat than it does on the building behind.

Early morning coffee at Pachos, waiting for the day to start.  Symi Visitor Accommodation is in the diminutive buildiing set back between Pachos and the shop with the sky blue sign.  Our entrance is in the lane around the corner, between Pachos and Enigma boutique.

Looking up at Lemonitissa church on the Kastro from opposite Symi Visitor Accommodation.  For some reason my little Nikon really battles to make sense of this view and I don't think I have ever really managed to capture just how perpendicular that hillside view is without winding up with leaning lamp posts like the one you see to the right!

It is not just the gulets that are conspicuous by their absence. We are seeing very few really big motor yachts and sailing yachts these days and in comparison to years gone by, Symi harbour is quite restrained this season. The rich must have another playground this summer.

Mind you, some of the local boats haven't seen the water in years.

This is the quietest July on Symi that anyone can remember.  It is as though Symi has slipped back to the 1980s and the early days of tourism to the island. Rhodes is fairly busy as the big resort hotels have benefited from the package holiday companies placing people there who would otherwise have been in Turkish resorts so we are getting a lot of Russian day trippers but in the evenings, when they have departed, there are very few people around apart from Symi's regular visitors that come year after year and the foreign property owners.

This morning as I was walking down to work a slightly battered white van pulled up along side me and one of the Yialos supermarket proprietors offered me a lift down to Yialos.  It was a very fragrant ride as he had just come down from gathering herbs on the mountain to sell in the shop and the back of the van was full of bundles of rigani, the Greek mountain oregano.  The smell reminded me of the very first time I came to Symi back in 1993. We were anchored in Panormitis bay at the south-western end of the island and decided to walk across to send a fax to South Africa to let our families know where we were.  It was July, just as it is now, hot and dusty and the hillsides were aromatic the wonderful smell of hot sage, oregano and thyme bushes. The plants themselves had dried to dust and appeared dead but the smell was fantastic.  Come the first rains in October and overnight these tough scrubby little bushes start shooting tiny green leaves again, a botanical symbol of Greek resilience.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Food for Many a Romantic Dream

Just add water.  A week after the rain and the wild grasses are germinating among the stones.



Desiccated oregano bushes are reviving on the hillside, sprouting tiny furls of new green leaves.  The flower buds which are dried to make the Greek herb rigani that we know and love only appear in the late spring, around April.



The Symi Gallery on the Kali Strata, easily identifiable by the Kate MacKay colour boxes about the entrance, is currently hosting an exhibition of drawings by Ian Bishop.



A grand but neglected mansion on the Kali Strata, food for many a romantic dream.



Early morning calm.
The number of yachts is steadily dwindling as the cruising season draws to a close and they return to their winter berths, often in Turkey and Cyprus.



The heavenly blue of the plumbago, referred to locally as blue jasmine.  It is a popular choice here as it flowers for many weeks in the summer and requires very little water.



An old commercial building in the back lanes of Yialos.  Downstairs is the modern lotto shop.  Upstairs is boarded up and abandoned.   Although a lot of people who work in the harbour live in apartments above shops for reasons of convenience, many of these buildings remain unoccupied and in poor repair.  The stencilled numbers above the doors are relics of early attempts during the Italian occupation of the island between the wars to set up a property registry.



The Blue Star Diagoras arrived this morning, delivering amongst other things the lighting van for the filming of 'The Judas Curse' which starts in Chorio this Sunday.

We are enjoying a few days of settled autumn weather before the next rainy front reaches us around Wednesday or Thursday next week.  There is heavy dewfall at night.  The Dodecanese Seaways ferry schedule has also dwindled considerably with limited options for getting to and from Symi. There is a partial timetable up now for November.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana





 

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Symi Harbour Views

Every morning as I walk down to work I stop at the corner of the Kali Strata, my first glimpse of Yialos where I work.  There is always something new to look at.  Perhaps the big ferry demonstrating the complicated helmsmanship required to dock in Symi's narrow harbour, or maybe the exotic and glamorous yachts and gulets that arrive overnight.  The pattern changes daily and with every hour of the day. 

There are random glimpses of Yialos visible through narrow gaps between the mansions that line the Kali Strata.  Here we can see a fairly comprehensive assortment of motor yacht designs moored outside the Alpha Bank - and a traditional fishing caique bustling briskly back into the port with the catch of the day.

Looking out of the balcony window a few hours later, the brash motor yachts have departed, to be replaced by this rather elegant gentleman's yacht built in the style of an Edwardian steam yacht and flying a large Turkish ensign.

At midday most of the water taxis are out at the various beaches and the big excursion boats from roads are coming in. That little rubber dinghy with a handful of people in it is making its way back to a yacht at anchor, probably in Harani or Nimborio. 

For those of you who have been following the ups and downs of Symi's water supply, at the moment we are having an up in that the mains water is currently on continuously in all areas and cisterns have been filled wherever possible.  We are all hoping that that is it for water dramas for this year, although past experience has shown that August can be a problematic month, particularly in the harbour when the island is full to capacity and beyond.  Visitors and locals alike have to be conscious that as Symi has no natural water reserves of its own, we have a collective responsibility to avoid waste and make the most of this extremely precious resource.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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