Monday, 6 September 2010

Ionian Interlude

During my recent hols, my family went to Lefkas, an Island off the West coast of Greece.  I was delighted to find (and go for a day cruise on) this wonderful ship, the "Odysseia", which you can see below drawn up on a beach where we swam and had a barbecue.


It isn't a true galley; although wooden throughout it has a keel and angine, and can only take one bank of oars on the deck.   It also has a bar.  However it did, very much, look the part!  It has been used in several historical dramas.  It has a shallow draft and was very easy to beach and un-beach, in much the same way as the ancient greeks must have.


On the return trip they turned off the engine and raised the sail, which carried the boat along at a good pace!

The captain, Dimitri, was a jolly soul, very much from the school of Zorba, and made it a great trip; I'd heartily recommend the experience.  The boat sails from the resort of Nidri, and the tour is very good value at e40.

5 comments:

  1. Wow, cool! I love that they painted a wave motif at the water line. Awesomely redundant!

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  2. If we don't here from you again Simon, we'll assume that you and the family are now galley slaves

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  3. Nice stuff. Lefkas is such a beautiful island. I was working on an archaeological survey three years ago on the mainland coast opposite of the island and we spend every free minute we had there.

    Some scientists claim that Lefkas is actually the true ancient Ithaca...

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  4. Commercialism aside, Man, that is cool! :)! Dean

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  5. Oh, that sounds like a great day out indeed.

    Paul, I was lucky the Romans didn't use slaves to row their ships or I might not have gotten off after an hour on the Victoria (a reconstructed river patrol ship that was around on several rivers/lakes in Germany last year). ;)

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Thanks for commenting. I will post this as soon as I am able to review it.