Happy birthday Sarah! (Will try and ring you later.)
But first: Strange behaviour from the Blue Star ferry yesterday, at least it looked odd from up here.
The boat came in around 09.00 and I thought I’d get a shot of it while also watching it on Marine Traffic, not that I was bored or anything. It’s something I have meant to do for a while; an excuse to show you the shipping site which you might find useful if and when you’re next heading to Symi, or anywhere really. As long as you are going by boat. No point looking at it to see if your plane is on time.
So, I noticed the boat was coming in and slowing down, though the traffic site showed it still out a way – it doesn’t appear to get in any closer than that on this site, not for Symi anyway. I noticed that the coastguard boat (navy boat) was out in Nimos Sound, out of the way, ready for the Blue Star to come in. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But then the Blue Star started coming in sideways which I’ve not seen happen on a calm day before.
Apparently it is, or was, missing its back thrusters which is why it couldn’t dock the other week in high seas and hard weather, maybe that’s why it slid in sideways yesterday. Anyway, it was a bit odd and then it stayed around of half an hour. And then it left really slowly as well. At one point I thought it had forgotten something and couldn’t remember what. It kind of hung there off the clock tower a little way out and paused. Perhaps the captain had nipped off to make a brew and no one wanted to head on out until he got back. It did eventually leave and headed off to Rhodes.
There, not a thrilling story but better than nothing. And, writing ‘Nimos Sound’ made me head to the map to see if the bay actually has a formal name as I just made up Nimos Sound for the stretch of water between Symi and Nimos. Apparently, according to the maps it’s just called Symi Bay, but I did notice something interesting while map-browsing. The bay on the south of Diapori, the headland that nearly touches Nimos (Diapori being the shallow channel between the two) has a name: Kokkinochoma Bay.
This sent me to my dictionary to check up on something and that gave me the unsurprising answer I was expecting. The question was, ‘what does Kokkinochoma’ mean? The answer I expected, and the correct answer as it turned out, is: Red soil (earth, dust or ground). Κόκκινο χώμα as two words. And that becomes obvious when you look over there and see the colour of the rocks. Red.
So, there you go. A Saturday morning piece of non-information and a couple of new words to put in your vocabulary. Have a good weekend! (PS, me rug was intentional.)
