Wednesday = Bells & Jells

Today’s Greek Lesson:

Bell = koudoúni = κουδούνι

Jellyfish = médousa = μέδουσα

I woke to the sound of bells. Specifically, belled (pronounced bell-ed) goats scampering down the hillside. If you’ve never tried waking to the sound of scampering belled goats in Greece, I think you should.

This has happened before here in Marmargkas Bay on the North Eastern tip of Ithaki - belled goats have come running down the dirt road in the morning. It’s utterly charming. You can hear for your self in the video clip at the bottom of this post. Sound on.

The sunrise looked like an active volcano this morning.

The wind blew hard out to sea for half of the night, so I was hopeful it had carried the jellyfish with it. We jumped in for our morning swim and cruised smoothly and uneventfully across the bay to a cave studded wall when, alas, we saw them. Pulsating purple delicately tentacled orbs. Beautiful, from a distance. We hemmed and hawed a bit, watching out for one another just below the surface as we did. Should we keep on? Should we bail? We decided mostly to keep on, though Erika decided she wasn’t interested in dodge swimming and headed back to the boat. No judgement here - if it was my vacation I would have made the same call.

The rest of us decided to head straight for Marmagka Island - moving as a pack, looking left, right and forward, warning each other as we saw jellies. I’ve always been in awe of how something so small and seemingly simple can manufacture a toxin that packs such a punch. Worth a bit of amazement and a healthy dose of caution.

After crossing the minefield, we hit the island. We played around carefully and mindfully in the water before climbing up the stone dock on shore. At the top of a short path sits an old chapel, complete with a bell. We’ve decided that if you ring it and make a wish, your wish will come true. It makes a mightly clang when rung, but I can’t speak for the wish part, as the jellyfish didn’t miraculously disappear. Still, a worthwhile trip, and we missed Erika and wanted her to have a crack at the bell, so Andrew sprinted back and asked Skipper to bring her over in the dinghy. This not only got Erika to us, but we had the pleasure of the rare sight of one of our boat crew at one of our swim spots! When our big Richard Rome rings the bell, you know it.

Romesie took a few swimmers back in the dinghy, while a few others circumnavigated the island. Ken and I swam back across the bay buddy system style, looking out for one another as we crossed. 

Caryatids in formation!

Back aboard Alison realized she’d been mildly stung, but nothing our baking soda poultice and a breakfast burrito couldn’t fix. Yes, as we were dodging jellies, Lou Lou was hard at work in the galley making hot second breakfast. Effort rewarded!

We yanked the anchor and headed around to Afales Bay - deep and clear and calm. We lunched and wandered the decks looking for signs of purple blobs in the water…not a single one could be found! Full of fish cakes and courgette fritters, we jumped in and reveled in the relief of a jelly free sea. 

Erika enjoys a jelly-free bay, warm, calm and a million shades of blue.

A cool cave, a beach of impossibly smooth and white rocks, some lounging, some exploring, and on to a fabulous swimmie swim (a heads down, swim and don’t stop much sort of swim) along sheer and stunning cliffs that rise into the sky and plummet to the depths. Drama. With every breath. The water is soooo blue and soooo clear here. We can see to the bottom at least 50 feet. It was hard to get out.

Along with her buoy, Alina tows more trash she picked up on Afales Beach. We try to collect and properly dispose of rubbish when we find it on the sea floor or beaches.

We enjoyed a gentle motor sail to our current port of Fiskardo on the island of Kefalonia. Here we will cocktail and dine ashore - the food and ambiance of Greece’s many tavernas is too good not to experience for at least one night.

I’m getting this blog posted so I can get ashore and enjoy the evening in this beautiful little sea side town. I’ll look for a few more bells - it would be lovely to end the day the way it began - and leave our jellyfish experience in a deeper, distant bay.

Such is life in the sea. We make the most of it. Ding dong.

Love,

Heather

PS. Sound on to watch the video below. I dare you not to be charmed by the belled goats, lower left.