Sailboat Wall

Aegina is an island located about 30 miles south of Athens.  To dock in Athens itself is a hassle… an expensive and nerve racking hassle so we decided to go for Aegina at someone’s request and it turned out to be a decent idea. 

The island is described as the “playground for Athenians” during the summer months and the quay where we docked showed every sign of that.  High priced restaurants, at least four banks located right by the water, and a row of ferry ticket stops to get people to and from Athens.

Once the walk was made away from the water, it resembled any other modern city with pharmacies, clothing stores, home good stores, and of course a fresh fish market.  Our best finds were on the other side of the fish market – a grocery store and a great kebab restaurant that we went to twice on account of its lively owner and amazing lamb kebab that was accompanied with pita, tzatziki, and a great red sauce that was both sweet and spicy.  The lamb melted in my mouth and had such a great flavor.  We also ordered a “green lettuce salad” which was just that- romaine lettuce, onions mint, and it had a great balsamic dressing that was awesome.  Like I said we went one night and then it was so good decided to make it our “last meal” in Aegina and ate there for lunch too before we left the island.  It was located next to a place we wanted to try because when we walked past the day before there was a crowd of local fisherman sitting and eating – so we knew it was good.  That place only served fish though so we voted against it and went next door to one of my favorite Greek meals to date.  We did eat at another restaurant on the water that Judy’s Greek Island’s book recommended which was very good too. The seating area was across the street and we watched as the woman who both owned and cooked the food walked it across the street to us.  When Judy asked what was part of the vegetable plate, the woman invited her into the kitchen to taste what she wanted and then make up her own plate.  Dad and I enjoyed what we considered the best tzatziki we have had in Greece.  This of course meant that it had a ton of garlic in it.  I would go on record saying it may have been a little too much in some bites, but Dad loved it.  So props to Judy for finding that place!

While in Aegina Dad and I made another trip to the pharmacy.  The first day we were there I went for a walk in search of a place to do laundry and stopped in the biggest pharmacy I’ve seen so far in Europe and was taken aback by two of the most attractive “chemists” I have ever seen.  I literally wanted to have their babies.  They directed me to where the laundry service was and when we went back to the same pharmacy a couple days later, they were gone.  But what we did get was stronger eye drops and dad got an antibiotic and cough inducer for his lung that has been bothering him.  It’s amazing in Europe how we walked in, said the stuff we had for my eyes wasn’t good enough and they simply say “Stronger?” you say yes and within a minute and €3.18 later you have it in your hand.  No visits to the doctor or having to explain the symptoms a million times to 20 different people.  The antibiotic was even easier.  His medicine total was €34 but he got what is essentially a Z-Pack and a cough inducer by walking  up to the counter, explaining what symptoms he was experiencing, what he needed, and no questions asked he had what he needed.  Apparently visiting a doctor is just as easy here.  It’s free to take a visit to the “medical center” and the doctors are there all day – no siestas.  Even for Americans.  We haven’t had to experience this first hand because thanks so some advice from an eye doctor back home and dad taking the medicine religiously, we are both feeling better and won’t have to make that trip.

So we read that Aegina was the place for people to be ferried in from Athens and had an idea that it was a popular place for boaters, but we really had no idea.  The marina is off limits unless you have a special note from the Port Police (?) and I was sort of happy about that because the marina looked run down anyway.  We backed up to the boardwalk with our anchor ready and got what appeared to be one of the last openings along the line.  What we didn’t know is that there is a rule somewhere that says when there is no more space left along the wall, it’s ok for boaters to just tie up to the bow of your boat and the boat next to you and hang out there…

This is what the boardwalk or quay looks like from land.  As you can see there are a lot of boats tied up along the road and not much space for anyone else to fit.

Captain Wayne was not too thrilled about people tying to the front of our boat.  He tried to deny it, but the boat next to us said that even if we said no to one, more would come and we would be 4 boats deep before the night was over.

This is a view from the bow of our boat.  The boat to the immediate right was tied onto our boat and the boat to the right with their anchor out.  The one to the left was tied between the boat to the left and the one on the other side of him.  The boat directly in front, and over our anchor chain, was tied to those two boats.  This was as deep as it got in front of us, but it did get 4 boats deep further down.  It’s a good thing we didn’t have to leave suddenly… craziness!

If our bow was lower and we didn’t have so much stuff on our deck, it would be customary for the boat in front of us to put a gang plank to our bow and they would just walk across our boat to get to shore.  Well lucky for us our bow is highly inaccessible so this was how they got to shore.

And the final German guy they went back to get, fell in the water.  He was not a happy camper.  From what we gathered he had a brand new iPhone in his pocket… oops.

This just gives another perspective.  It was taken off the bow of our boat and shows the cluster of boats.  

We asked what was going on and apparently these are all charter boats hanging out for the night before making the sail to Athens to turn in the boats.  Too many boats, not enough water?  We have a similar problem with cars on the road I would say.  It was basically double parking at the Orange Park or Millennia Mall.