Lenny and I in the cabin planning a route

On our trip from Limnos to Agios Efstratios, we ran into the typical navigation situations around the islands in the northern Aegean. The local rule of thumb is that when the coast drops rapidly into the sea, the depth of the water close to land is deep, but if there is a shallow beach, the depth is shallow, also. So, when we would come close to an island, we would carefully study the drop of land in order to plan our route. One of the interesting additional problems is that the wind blows in a circular direction around the islands, increasing in speed until what looked like a calm day, could turn into a Bft. 5 wind suddenly. So, we always had a conference about routing when we had reached an island. Sometimes we could sail very close to land, near the rocks, and make a direct line to the harbor mouth. At other times, we had to sail outside the shortest route and cut back in when the harbor appeared. Agios Efstratios was easy to see and the harbor mouth was very clear, so this was a pleasure.

whistling for dolphins

The Greeks believe that if you whistle, the dolphins will visit your boat. I've tried that and all I get is a dry mouth. The dolphins appear out of nowhere and play around the bow of the boat, especially zipping back and forth right under the bowsprit. I thought that dolphins only show up during the day, but on a night sail south of Thasos Island, a group of three joined us for about 10 minutes. I discovered that dolphins never sleep and scientists are divided about the reason. Some believe that dolphins have a split brain and that one half sleeps at a time. Others think that dolphins take a deep mini-sleep for a couple of seconds and can rest completely at that time. These Aegean dolphins have a long nose and the largest I've seen has been about 3 meters long. Usually there are families with young adults, I call them teenagers. It is always uplifting when dolphins appear. They are so strong, and "happy." Once, my brother, Len, was taking photos of some under the bowsprit and he shouted, "Watch out, CHARLIE is going too fast for them." I laughed. No matter how fast we went, the dolphins were, of course, faster. I shout out to them, "We're mammals also."

Fonias Waterfall Park on Samothraki Island

One of the most exciting reasons to visit Samothraki Island with CHARLIE is to swim in the freezing waters of Fonias Waterfalls. There are seven falls in all, but I have only been to the lowest, number seven. These are considered "killers" because the Spring floods(when the snow melts) are fierce. The park is lovely and the hike from the parking lot to this fall is about 90 minutes through a forest of ancient trees, along a meandering stream, across broken trees, over tumbled rocks and under overhanging branches. You can't see the fall until you are right up to it, and then you have to take a chance and jump into the pool and swim around a large boulder before you can swim up to and underneath the fall. Fonias means "killer" in Greek, by the way, and Mount Saos where it comes from is where mythology says that Poseidon sat to wach the Trojan War, because you can see Troy from the island on a clear day. We usually rent an open jeep to drive to the park and then buzz around the island to see the rest of the nature scenes. Tourists have not discovered Samothraki yet and there are about 30,000 goats that roam around freely between your legs.