In the early part of winter 2019/2020, the Greek island of Evia where A B Sea is hauled out, took a bit of a beating from very high winds and lots of rain. Our friend Nikos had been keeping us informed about the damage the storms caused and we counted our blessings that here at Limini, the boat yard had been well protected from the worst of it.
It was only when we hired the car for a week and did some exploring that we fully appreciated the extent of the damage to some of the roads. One trip we took was along the coast road south out of Limni. We were going to check out the monastery of Saint Nicholas Galataki, which should be called a nunnery because its inhabitants are all nuns. It was built in 1576.
The road follows the coast at sea level for a while and then begins to climb. Where the road intersects the many gullies we could see that the outside edge of the road had been washed away by water and there were many large cracks in the bitumen. I made sure that I stayed well away from the edge. We only had a small car but even the weight of that would be enough to cause the road edge to collapse.
We arrived at the monastery but decided not to ring the bell and go inside for a look around as we didn't want to disturb the nuns. We did however take a while to appreciate the views across the Evia channel to mainland Greece.
Getting back in the car we decided to drive north to the big town of Istiaia to do some clothes shopping. Aannsha needed a new pair of trainers and I needed a pair of jeans. We parked the car and began walking the main street but didn't manage to find any clothes shops that had what we were looking for. So far it was turning out to be a frustrating day. We did manage to buy a pair of bolt cutters from a small hardware store, always handy to have on a sailboat in case the rigging needs to be cut away.
The hot springs
The next destination more than made up for the previous two. We stopped at Loutra Edipsou to check out the thermal hot springs. There is a very grand looking hotel that has been built over the top of one of the springs and you can stay there and enjoy some pampering spa treatments or you can simply walk to the beach where there are several outpourings from the springs and a few rock pools which you can sit in and soak up the medicinal minerals from the bath temperature water.
The formations and colours are eye candy and there's one particular bubbling spring which is so hot that you cannot put a finger tip in there.
Aannsha also took some time to scour the beach for sea glass and happily got quite a big haul.
Nikos our magic helper
We received an email from Nikos saying that he'd been looking through his collection of DIY tools and found a few that might be helpful in completing some of our boat jobs. He was happy to drive up from Porto Rafti to lend them to us. Along with the tools he also brought a jar of homemade cumquat jam and the wonderfully delicious chocolate and orange sweets that his wife Kalliope makes. As a thank you we took him out to lunch and I'll tell you about that in a future blog.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.