agility @ sea

Jerri:

Recently there was a notice on Facebook about a baby goat open house at a farm outside of Boulder. My initial reaction was disappointment about missing the event prior to realizing that we are cruising the Greek Islands in April – we are living in a constant state of baby goat open house. As I am typing this, two of them are romping around playing and causing enough commotion that half a dozen others are running over to check out the action. Yesterday morning we watched four little goats testing their boundaries on a very craggy hill until they got chewed out and chased away by a couple of the adults from one particular danger zone that they had been slipping and sliding on. They’re nimble, but not infallible. Later in the day, we discovered a very friendly baby behind a gate that we couldn’t quite figure out. She was so excited to see our approach, I pet her, talked to her, but she wanted something more. A few minutes later a woman showed up with a giant baby bottle and proceeded to feed her two bottles of milk through the slit in the gate. That goat was a guzzler.

Tim and I enjoyed Mykonos a lot. We spent a fair amount of time working. Tim tightened all the backstays, trouble shot the auto pilot and chart plotter, I continued to polish the stainless and hoisted Tim up in the boson’s chair to do a few things that fortunately were only about 10 ft up in the air. Our Mykonos experience mainly included exploring on foot. The town is a very tourist party town known for its beaches and nightlife, but, being off season, was nice and quiet (even with two cruise ships around nearly every day – I don’t know where those people disappeared to) so we were able to enjoy the beauty of the island without the traffic and noise. The last night we were there 18 refugees were rescued off the coast. They were to stay in Mykonos for two days housed at the port authorities about 1/4 mile away from our boat and would then be sent to Athens. The community appears to be supportive and compassionate providing food and clothing for the refugees and I would assume some basic medical care, whereas they said some islands immediately ship the refugees to Athens. There did seem to be a little fear about them carrying weapons or drugs, but whether that is well founded or not, I don’t know. They were also very relieved that there were no children this time. I was happy to hear that too. The whole situation is horrible. On a somewhat related note, there were also fighter jets flying over Mykonos for a couple of days. Last time we were here there was evidence of the Greek military as well. Most notably when we sailed between a warship and an island that they were practice bombing.

Our next stop was a small fishing village recommended by our friends at the Mykonos taverna that we frequented for coffee, a few meals, and free wifi. Our anchorage was beautiful and peaceful. We went on a quick walk into and around town, dinner on the boat, to bed early and off the next day to Ormos Levitha, another island that we had been to sixteen years ago with friends. Back then Sydney got in trouble (I believe it was a shoe issue) and I stayed on the boat with her while everyone else went out to dinner. Quite frankly, I was pretty tired and didn’t mind the quiet time, but everyone carried on about how wonderful it was that this time I was hoping to experience it myself. After putting down anchor, we walked up a path of sorts to the proprietors house. They operate the mooring balls and serve dinner on a small deck (seating for about 12) under a grape arbor outside their home. It was great to hear that they would have us for dinner since many operations are still closed for the season. We had stopped by another cruisers sailboat on the way in to see if they wanted to join us, they did not, but invited us over for drinks. After our walk, we went back to Agility, changed, grabbed a bottle of wine and went over to the Swedish boat for some appetizers and chatting. Back to the farm for dinner of a big green salad (we opted out of the Greek for a change of pace) and goat and lamb meatballs with rice and fried potatoes. Their meatballs are what we would call a meat patty. We asked the proprietor if he was the same owner as sixteen years ago and he told us that his family had been here for 300 years. Apparently the father has recently taken ill and is in the hospital in Athens. There are three brothers in their forties and a mother and father. We didn’t notice any sign of other women or children and decided it was too rude to ask so not sure what the future entails for the beautiful island farm.

Today we head to Kos.

I finished My Struggle by Knaussgaard and started Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. I am on an unintentional reflections from childhood theme, but enjoying it.