Some Symi updates

There has been a fair amount going on out there in my big wide world that is Symi. Last week there were several name days and festivals, Agia Marina, Profitas Ilias and others. There have been some large ships in, including a massive, masted one called Flying Fox that looks like it will topple over at any moment. I was going to take a photo, but the Symi groups and pages on Facebook have that covered. Besides, I was watching it at night (early morning) and it was half-hidden by the house in front, so I thought I’d get it later. I turned around about ten minutes after that, and it was gone, slipping silently from the harbour at around five in the morning. And we had a brief encounter with a kitten. Well, two actually…

The water saga continues, only his time it was the landlord who wasn’t getting any coming in while we were, and both properties run on the same clock/pipes. I couldn’t work out why he wasn’t, all the pipes seemed logically arranged, all the taps were open (there are several on our side of the street to deal with), and there was no reason his water tank shouldn’t be filling up. He looked and told me it wasn’t. I asked Symi Property Services to pop up and advise/sort, which they kindly did on Friday. An inspection proved that what I’d suspected was correct; there was no reason the water shouldn’t be flowing to the house over the road. With a quick call across the street to the landlord on his terrace, SPS asked if he had water coming in, so he went and opened his tap and reported that yes, he did. (When I’d asked before, he’d not thought to open the tap, doh!) After SPS left, the landlord seemed to think I’d done something miraculous, told me to wait there on the doorstep, disappeared, and came back holding a kitten. He had three, he said. More, he was offering me the thing as some kind of payment. I politely declined and scurried back inside.

Elsewhere, we saw an eagle flying low over the harbour and over the house, but unfortunately, I only had my phone to hand, so in the photo it comes out as a tiny dot when in fact it was massive. Possibly a snake eagle, if I remember correctly; very impressive. We had a little owl close to the house the other morning being quite loud, and, as you can see, we have also been having some peaceful sunrises over the sea.

Anything else? Ah yes. Apparently the Symi Festival 2019 schedule of events has been published, but I’ve not found it yet. On Saturday, the Nikolaos X, one of the regular day boats from Rhodes, was on its way over when it came across a refugee boat with about 11 people on board, in trouble in open water. It was obliged by maritime law to stand by until help arrived, which it did eventually in the form of the Turkish coastguard, and only once they were on the scene could the ferry continue. There have been more refugees arriving at Symi but not in the numbers we had in 2015, although the number of those fleeing to Europe has increased this year and latterly this month. The Rhodes newspapers reported that the Symi authorities had recently arrested one Turkish boat owner for human trafficking. I think that’s about all my news for this Monday morning.

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Symi Saturday Photos

Hello. Here’s your collection of random photos taken recently on Symi. The first couple of shots show an incident that happened after the storm the other day. One of the Rainbow neighbours must have had a leak because he was emptying buckets of water out of his upstairs window. Luckily no-one was passing by beneath and got caught in it, unfortunately, though, a chap heading down the steps slipped on it and fell on the steps, just after Neil had warned him to tread carefully. A reminded that the steps are very slippery when wet, and one shouldn’t throw water onto the street. There were no permanent injuries, I hope.

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Water, water everywhere and…

Yesterday I was wondering about the weather and whether it would rain. It did, at around midday while we were having a farewell drink with the bother-in-law before going to Meraklis for lunch (dry by then). Pacho’s and other bars filled up very quickly, but the taxi boats kept going, and it was all over in a short while. That left Thursday morning clearer and cooler, but it’s still a bit humid. Wednesday afternoon was also clear, and all the clouds have gone. Very unusual to have a thunderstorm in July, but hopefully that’s the last we’ll hear from it for a while.

The rain was good for the plants, and I hope there was enough of it to give our landlord some in his sterna. He was over in the morning, seeing if the mains supply was coming in. It was, and it filled our limited tank, but the new plumbing arrangements he’s had put in are not working. The mains comes in, sometimes only as a trickle, and there’s enough pressure for it to reach our bathroom roof and our tank. When that’s filled, it’s supposed to then carry on up to the roof of the tower, fill a tank there, and then that feeds the flat downstairs and the landlord’s house. But there’s just not enough pressure, or it’s been wrongly plumbed as once we are full, the water doesn’t go anywhere else. The best thing would be to have our sterna repaired and go back to how it used to be. I did suggest that yesterday but am not sure he understood. So, the water issues persist, but we are ok. I gave our landlord one of our large 10-litre water bottles and filled it from the hose – which works only when the mains is running – and took it over to his house for him. It’s the best we can do right now, but I’m hoping a decent plumber will come and sort it out for him. The last lot have left the tower tank open with a piece of wood and wire holding the ballcock closed, so if it does ever fill up, it should then progress down and across the road to his house. Meanwhile, all kinds of things can get into it and live there. All fun and games.

Actually, I just thought. If the ballcock is closed, it won’t fill up, will it? But it’s obviously not working, and if I take off the wood and wire, it might fill but then overflow onto the roof, wasting water… Maybe I’ll try that on Friday and see if directs the flow to his house via the other pipe. (You can’t imagine the pipes we now have, it’s like an early map of the London Underground.)

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Blue Star thoughts

I woke up to a cloudy day yesterday, and the forecast showed it staying all day. (It’s only 8.30 yesterday as I write this, so I can’t say yet how the rest of the day will pan out.) I was up in time to see the Blue Star coming in on the early run. The images might not be wonderful as I use my phone camera, but you might get an idea of how it looks from up here in the village.

Later this morning (yesterday, remember) we’re off to have lunch with the bother-in-law before he heads back on the Panagia Skiadeni, spending a night in Rhodes before heading back to Vienna tomorrow. Our next house guests will hopefully be the son, fiancé and grandson in August if they can find suitable flights from Scotland at an affordable price. After that, the next visitor will be Mother who is staying at the Village Hotel this time. I’ll be going to meet her in Athens, and after a couple of days there, we will come back on the same Blue Star that arrived today, getting back to Symi at 4.55 in the morning.

I know, that’s early, but what this way of arriving on the island does is knock out the need for the flight to Rhodes and a boat from there. It depends on budget and timing, but instead of flying from Newquay to Gatwick for a night, then to Rhodes for a night and then a boat to Symi, this way should only entail flying to Gatwick, then to Athens arriving in the evening and allowing for a couple of days to recover there before a ‘cruise’ down to Symi. It saves the night in Rhodes which is often necessary, and the taxi from airport to hotel and the taxi from hotel to ferry and the boat from Rhodes to Symi. Instead, we’ll board the Blue Star around 2pm on the Tuesday, take a cabin each (already booked), and have plenty of time to watch the first islands go past until dinner in the a la carte restaurant, and a night’s sleep with an early wake-up call provided by reception. I find it hard to sleep on these boats, there’s too much to see, although you don’t reach the Dodecanese islands until during the night, and it also gets a bit noisy as the boat pulls into port. But so much better than all those planes, pains and automobiles, and it’s more or less door to door. We shall see how it goes.

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Quick post

Having spent all day on Monday at home, there’s not a lot to tell you. If anyone was following ‘The Clearwater Mysteries’ and reached book three, you might like to know that book four is now out on Kindle and Kindle unlimited, and the print version is about to go live too. Here’s the UK link, but it’s also on other Amazons, including .com. Fallen Splendour.

And here are some photos.

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