Thursday 21^st June, 2018.

We visited the town and the new church which is nearly

finished and Jim went for a hair cut before we left the

broken harbour.  The pavements are broken and you

have to be very careful not to break your ankle and the

roads are in need of repair and lots of shops are left

empty but millions have been spent on a beautiful

church. This could be a smashing little town but it

seems to have lost its way.

We sailed nearly all the 35.42 miles into the 6 ½ mile

big bay of Thessaloniki. Mount Olympos refers to the

whole range of mountains 12 miles across and we could

see them while we sailed along for the whole day.  The

highest peak in the range is Myikas at 9,571 feet. The

whole range is known as the Olympos National Park.

Over 1700 plant species are reported as being found in

the park along with boar and roe deer. The park is a

great place for walkers.  Most people use the village of

Litochoro as their base where hotels and tavernas are

situated.  Mytikas can be climbed to the top in 6 hours. 

It is recommended that people camp overnight on the

mountain as it is difficult to get up and down in one

day. We roared across this big bay with the wind

blowing and got the sails down just before the entrance

to Thessaloniki Marina which is found by looking for

the church on the hill and a radio mast just behind the

marina.  There are 242 berths in the marina and we

wanted to pick up Frank and Sue when they arrive the

next day but also to investigate it as we are leaving

Ariel here for 6 weeks during the summer holidays. It is

advertised as having 24 hour security so we were a little

concerned as we approached and made our way to the

central jetty there was no one to welcome us as the

wind was blowing us off.  Luckily a gentleman on a

huge powerboat took pity on us and came and took a

line as the same time as a rib came charging up telling

us to follow him. Cast off and follow as instructed to

quite an empty pontoon.  The chap picks up the lazy

line and as we reversed in he handed me a very filthy

heavy line before zooming off to jump up on the

pontoon to take the lines and hand me a second lazy

line which was covered in barnacles. Thessaloniki we

have landed!

We were greeted by a Greek gentleman and his

Welsh/Australian wife who were visiting the boat next

to us which had just gone in the water that day. We

were then invited to their very large house on the shore

to have fish with them as Costas had bought too much.

We had a super evening and met their two grown up

children and they marked the areas on our Rod Heikell

pilot book we should visit while we are north.