Who's teaching who?

Thursday 16^th August, 2018 0810

At sea, MV Blue Star Paros

0450 seemed an ungodly hour to get up this morning but only just early enough for both of us to ablute and check out at six before going for breakfast. Breakfast was ok but the sausages, although edible, were not “proper” bangers. They did however have lovely Greek yoghurt.

A short courtesy bus ride to the ferry terminal, leave your cases on the car deck and then (this shows how things have changed since I was a salt!) escalators to get up to 6 deck.

For her maiden voyage I suggested Alice should go out on deck as sailing time approached. For me and I suspect many others who spent life at sea, sailing was always the best part. Your home (the ship) was free of strangers, it was just you and your shipmates, bound for new horizons.

The VIP/business section up for'ard is very nice and unlike the economy and air seat sections, no desperate search for somewhere to sit. We have a table overlooking the fo'c'sle but You Know Who has decamped and there are currently large Zs floating up from behind a sofa.

We should arrive in Ermopouli at 1115.

1000

Very pleased with the cleanliness of the ferry and nicely surprised to find a half-litre of Greek beer is 5.1 euros. After rip-off Paris, that seems positively cheap!

Madam woke and decided she would go outside and up top for ages. Being Chinese she is of course terrified of going remotely brown so she knows about sunburn but I'm not sure she is aware of windburn which can be equally as painful. And it IS windy out there. The sea state may only be a 2 but we are moving along at a decent 24 knots.

1630 Ermoupolis, Syros Island

As we rounded the headland for the approach to the harbour it was great to hear the churches still ringing their bells to welcome the ferry after all these years. The place didn't look much different either but of course some things have changed.

Instead of one ferry a day there are more and instead of no tourists there are quite a few. The main change I noticed was that whereas in 1979 the numerous cafes had minimal pavement to plonk their tables and chairs outside, now it seems land has been reclaimed from the sea, the road moved further out and very large outside cafe areas have sprung up to accommodate the tourist trade.

Other than that, I am so pleased that it remains largely unspoilt and remains today my favourite place on the planet.

Our hotel is in a building dating from 1834 so no lift and a half spiral staircase to get to our room. Said staircase frightens me due to being steep but there is a brute of a boy (maybe the son of the owners) who carried our suitcases up for us. 40Kg, half each side, and at once! It would have taken me an hour just to get mine up!

I lucked in with regards to the laundry, there's a dry cleaners not far away so everything was put in a bag and we went to find it. I had a shirt for tomorrow, socks but no boxers. We couldn't locate it at first so went into a shop to ask. They knew where it was, the old lady struggled with English so gestured to a young assistant to show us. She also struggled with English but, on seeing Alice, she asked if she was Chinese.

Who the hell would think that I could come to a small island in the cyclades and need a Chinese interpreter???!!! Oh yes, they yabbered away quite happily.

It worked, laundry will be done in the morning. That left me needing to buy boxers. Where better to try than the helpful shop? They only had ones with no pee hole but they did have socks. I bought a dozen pairs. Next shop, again a Chinese girl! Bought half a dozen pairs of proper boxers. All shopping now done and one happy Teddy here.

Taking a breather now before the sun gets lower and we go out for a relaxing dinner with drinks at sensible prices. She's having a nap, I won't but I just hope I don't cave in too early – although breakfast is included here so maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.