Ormos Thorikon - Lavrion

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 8 May 2009 18:34
37:44.1N 24:03.6E

Tuesday 5th May
Forecast was for rain over Athens, but we decided to do our tour anyway
which worked out well as the rain never materialised and we had a lovely
day!

Caught a bus from outside the marina to the Metro station on the main quay
in Piraeus. Then took the metro into the centre of Athens, but not without
some excitement as Sarah became the target for a fairly inept pick-pocketing
team, but fortunately we rumbled them before too late, but only just!

The aim today was to follow a planned walk that Sarah found in the Lonely
Planet guide, and this started with watching the changing of the
Presidential Guard at the Parliament buildings which was frankly hilarious
and the photos at www.rhbell.com barely do the event justice! Enjoyed the
stroll around the city, with the imposing Acropolis always high above us,
but there were certainly moments when we lost the trail, but always seemed
to pick it up again eventually....

Made our way back by metro and bus to the marina and discovered that the
gremlins had returned to the generator, so penned an email off to Mastervolt
in Holland asking for some more support.

Wednesday 6th May
This was Sarah's 'art' day in Athens and she took herself off on the trip
back to the city centre with rather a lack of success.
Sarah writes: The Frissiras Museum (purely figerative art - just perfect for
me) had an inventive sign "temporarily suspended operation while it
considered relocation" since last July! So back towards the Parliament
Buildings to go to the National Art Gallery where I discovered that the
National Park had been shut (we'd walked through it yesterday) with hordes
of police and riot police with sheilds and batons in evidence. In front of
the buildings was a coralled protest of hundreds of Cretans dressed in black
with shepherd's sticks, situated between me and the museum; so I crossed two
police lines hoping this would not annoy either party as I seemed to be the
only one stupid enough to do so. Eventually reached the gallery which was a
great disappointment: 3 floors given over to a Greek artist of the
photo-realist persuasion (specialist picture of which there were 4: Peacock
with painted tail to the edge of the frame, and real feathers stuck on to
complete the sweep of the tail overhang) which presumably replaced those
known artists (Picasso, Utrillo etc) they professed to have. And 2 floors
of "attributed to, by the school of, in the style of...." and some lovely
Ionian School pictures. So admitted defeat and returned to serafina in the
rain!

Mastervolt's Greek agent was in touch with us and promised an engineer would
be with us tomorrow around midday which seemed pretty impressive and it has
to be said that they were unfailingly polite and helpful in making the
arrangements.
Had a stroll around the marina viewing all the Gin Palaces, some of which
were quite impressive, as well as a few beautiful but huge yachts. Anyone
looking to visit Athens by boat could do a lot worse than try to come here
(Zea Marina) as it is very well run, clean and comparatively cheap. It is
run by the same group that own Gouvia and Lefkas Marinas in the Ionian, but
actually cheaper!

Thursday 7th May
Mastervolt's engineer (Adonis) duly arrived around an hour late, but was
hugely apologetic blaming the Athens traffic and swiftly fitted a new oil
pressure switch, which hopefully will have done the trick, although none of
us are too sure that this is really where the fault lies! He and his
assistant were very entertaining, polite and knowledgable and it turns out
that he is also a Yanmar and Volvo authorised engineer, so we would heartily
recommend him to anyone looking for a reliable engineer in Athens/Pireaus
area. (His phone number will be posted on our yachting resources page at
www.rhbell.com )
At 6.00pm we entertained Arthur and Barbara (yacht Badger, a Vancouver 27)
from Worcester USA, for drinks so we could pick their brains about some good
places to visit in Turkey. They were brilliant and we now have a pretty
thorough itinery to follow up on! They also very much put us to shame by
asking if we had been to see the various museums dotted around the immediate
area about the marina. Whilst we knew that this was the former home of the
Athenian war fleet, we had no idea that there was plenty of evidence of this
history and the launching ramps for some 300 plus triremes. In our defence
it has to be said that the Greeks certainly know how to hide their museums
etc. behind (and above) some very unlikely buildings! Impressive couple -
took up sailing aged 55 and 65, and after 5 x 1 hour sailing lessons in San
Francisco bay, went off and bought their boat and have been sailing now for
10 years!

Friday 8th May
Got off around 8.30am heading for Lavrion Town, but planned to photograph
the Acropolis from the bay first as it is such an impressive sight towering
above the huge urban sprawl of the city, however we had not reckoned with
the Athens smog which enveloped the entire city in a dense impentetrable
cloud, making the photograph impossible.
Mirror flat sea the whole way to Lavrion, where we first popped into Olympic
Marina to take on fuel before continuing round to the town itself. Sadly
(perhaps) there were no available spaces on the quay and whilst there were
some spaces on other wharves, these were all zealously guarded by charter
fleet companies all fitting out their boats for the start of the season. So
we motored round the corner to a large bay with an empty anchorage and
dropped the hook and had a wonderful afternoon in the first really hot sun
of the year. Plan to stay here tonight, even though the idyll is spoilt ever
so slightly by the fact that the bay is overshadowed by a large power
station!