Gale Force – Greg and Mandy's Travels

It’s like somebody stepped on an ant’s nest. The forecast of a force 10 gale tomorrow is still current, and is likely to last for a few days, so every boat of every size is madly trying to get where they want to be so they don’t get trapped where they don’t. It’s likely to be very widespread, so pretty much all of Italy and Greece is locked down.

G Adventures has 6 boats in the area. Two have been grounded in Athens, two in Mykonos, and two in Ios. (Ok, I know that technically ships are not grounded, well until after the storm anyway, but I can’t think of the correct nautical term). Anyway, that causes us a problem. Our tour finishes in Santorini, but we’ve been forced to stop in Ios. It’s not far, but our flight leaves Santorini at the projected height of the storm. Hmm. Santorini harbour is full, and not accepting any more boats, but we managed to secure the last two berths in the Ios harbour, so that’s where they are going to stay.

The official tour is going to finish Wednesday here in Ios (pronounced Ee-os), and G Adventures is going to ferry everybody to Santorini to finish on time. The only issue is that our flight leaves well before the first ferry of the day arrives, so we have to take a ferry tomorrow and find accommodation in Santorini tomorrow night. Brendan and Rachel are coming with us. Even though their flight doesn’t leave till later that night, if the ferries get cancelled on Wednesday due to the high winds and they get stranded, they will miss their flights. On the other hand, if we are at the airport and the flight is cancelled or delayed the airline will have to sort it out for us.

All of that means that today was our last sail on the trusty S.S. Minnow. If we get stranded as castaways on our three hour cruise tomorrow, it will be with a cast of hundreds from a very large ferry. I’d prefer Mary-Ann.

Left before 8am to get to our berth in Ios before anybody else pinched it, and arrived at morning tea time. Ios is one of the mid sized islands, with the main town a few kilometres up the hill from the port. Spent the day wandering around the port and the beaches, sampling the bakeries, and watching the endless stream of ferries taking people to wherever they need to be for the next few days. Cruises are cancelled, people are checking out of accommodation early. Even the ferries are using their P.A. systems to broadcast warnings to boats in the port as they come and go. Great in theory. Not so great at 1am.

Late afternoon we all climbed the never ending set of stairs to the main town, then yet another long set of stairs to the church at the top of the hill to watch the sunset over the harbour.

Final farewell dinner at a local restaurant, before we start to disperse tomorrow.