It seems like it’s getting to that stage when a day in Rhodes takes a day to get over. But still, I had a good time and managed to get a couple of the things I went to get. There was a distinct lack of hire cars though, not one single place had one to rent for the day except one place that wanted €100.00 and as we were only there for seven hours, it seemed a bit steep.
I noticed, when I got home and looked at my photos that I only took photos on the boat, and a couple when I first arrived. None of the hugely entertaining trip to Jumbo for birthday presents, or the Chinese for lunch; I did take one of a couple of people really enjoying their stay at the Plaza Hotel though:
And I assume you saw the one yesterday of the woman doing strange things with her legs. I think she was exercising, but why she had to do it in full view of people having their lunch is anyone’s guess. She must have needed the attention.
Now then, on the boat coming back I noticed these signs, one on either side of the ship and wondered what they meant – apart from the obvious connection to a darkly lit bar in the backstreets of Berlin. I wondered that, if you were to find this room, would you be able to hear Isaac Hayes playing? You know, the song that’s about a private dick and a cat that won’t cop out. (No, honestly.)
Actually, I looked into what a ‘shaft room’ is on a ship and found some alarming information on various websites. The most startling was one called ‘Shafting a ship’ and I quote:
“… a single shaft ship is uncontrollable and needs to have a tug …” there was then some detail about twin screws and “Another serious problem with centerline shafts is vibration.” Well, yes of course. The serious problem we had on the boat that night was backfiring. Every now and then a huge plume of black smoke would belch from the port side funnel along with an accompaniment of pops and chugs and passengers would start to double check where the lifeboats were. We did arrive on Symi though, and I saw the boat come back in again the next day so it’s still running. Maybe it just needed a clean out on its thrusters or was suffering “main shaft water lubrication issues” or something.
Seriously though, Rhodes was busy. There were several large cruise ships in that day (Wednesday), hence the lack of hire cars and also lack of taxis. We finally got one by walking around to Mandraki and waiting at the unusually empty taxi rank there. The Blue Star Diagoras was also fully booked on its return trip – we were coming back later on the Panagia Skiadeni – but Irina at Plaza travel told us that there were no hire cars to be had and that the only island you could get a boat to, from Rhodes, was Symi; everything beyond was fully booked. A lot of that will be the refugees heading up to Athens; there were over 400 processed through Symi alone at the start of the week. And, I found out later, the police officers who have to do this task worked through the night, until 6.30 in the morning, so that the people could move on, on the Wednesday boat to Athens. Bear in mind that these police officers are working through their own time, and not being paid extra for the additional hours and without them doing the job Symi would be filling up with hundreds of refugees each week.
You can do your part by volunteering to help, if on Symi, or by donating if you want to contribute towards helping the refugees with clothing, food, water, shelter and facilities. The target is £7,000 and already over £3,000 has been raised. You can find more details here http://www.everyclick.com/solidaritysymi/info and you don’t have to register or login in, just put in your card details.
