A Breezy Spring Day

It is a breezy spring day on Symi. Birds are chirruping in the lane outside the Symi Visitor Accommodation office and municipal workers are busy hosing down the waterfront with a big seawater pump. A fisherman is whacking an octopus against the quay to tenderize it. With longer days, bright mornings and sunny weather everyone seems to be getting up and about earlier and for once we aren’t anticipating the leap to European Summer Time on Sunday with reluctance. Some years the clocks change but the weather remains wet, grey and gloomy whereas this year apart from the possibility of a passing mud shower on Sunday spring is running well ahead of schedule. It is now a month since the last proper rain on Symi and March has been unusually dry.

The cable-laying crew got as far as the Aliki Hotel, filled their trench with sand, loaded their gear onto the Ierapetra car ferry on Saturday and disappeared. Looks like Symi will have to wait a while longer for its fibre optic cables and high speed internet access. The Nimborio road is being concreted, not tarred as originally stated. As the concrete is being poured in sections, during which, of course, the road is closed, and each section has to harden for two days before it can take traffic, vehicle access to Nimborio is effectively closed for the next week or so. The contractors say they don’t know how long it will take as it depends on all sorts of variables. In the hour I was out there on Wednesday afternoon their bulldozer broke down and closed the road so this could take a while… Walkers can get across via the mountain path across Drakounta and many Nimborio residents are putting their boats in the water rather earlier than usual.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana