The Corinth Canal is Cool

Greece is by far the land of cool bridges, sorry Jacksonville… you’ve got nothing.

It started with the canal bridge that unhooked and physically moved over for boats. The mack Daddy of suspension bridges that glowed neon blue in the night.  Now the bridge system for the Corinth Canal promoted Greece to the land of awesome bridges.

The Corinth Canal connects the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea by cutting through mainland Greece.  According to the Greek Waters Pilot, the Greeks used to drag ships across the isthmus on a paved road.  Octavian was in pursuit of Anthony after the Battle of Actium, which Greek and Roman rulers discussed building a canal but it wasn’t until Nero’s rule that someone actually started to dig.  He had 6000 Jews at his disposal so it probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but they didn’t even make it to the rock before man power was needed in Gaul.  The present canal was outsourced to a French company and finished by the Greeks in 1893.  Damage was done during WWII and it was expanded at that point to what it is today.

The canal is 3.2 miles long, 25 meters wide, and 6.5 meters deep.  It’s carved out of limestone that rises to the highest point at 79 meters above sea level.   The canal is closed most of the day Tuesday, but we learned that it opened at 4:00pm so we managed to time it out and arrived at around 4:30 Tuesday afternoon.  The book warns that there may be up to a 3 hour wait for bigger ships to go through first and then private yachts follow.  We were the only boat in the entire canal.  It was pretty cool.

When approaching we saw the yellow and black bridge that looked like a road barrier and called to ask permission to enter the canal.  The guy gave us permission and the barrier began to lower.  What happens is the bridge part lowers under the water the 6.5 meters and we just sailed right over it.  It was pretty cool. 

Once in the canal Dad was able to put the engine on almost idle and we road current down the canal at about 5.5 knots.  It reminded me of the EAC in “Finding Nemo”.  We were booking and it was a lot of fun.  I can’t imagine following any other ships or boats, Dad didn’t have the best control over the rudder because of the strong current, but alone it was a blast.  The scenery was awe I inspiring and I was really glad we chose to do the canal.

If you look closely you can see the yellow and black bridge that resembles a barrier.  Generally it’s not a good idea to sail towards land or barriers, but we were trusting the guy in the tower when he said it was ok to approach.

Sure enough the bridge started to go under the water.  We had a red light for awhile, but the guy said it would be ok to continue anyway… then he turned the light green. 

We made it through the bridge and that was cause for celebration 1.  Dad did a great job getting through the canal.

You can see right down the canal through the limestone.  It was pretty cool.  There are three bridges and a railroad bridge to go under.

This is what a bridge looks like as our mast clears it.  There was plenty of space, but like I’ve said it’s always a test as to whether or not the bridge is as high as it advertises.

This is Dad’s view of the canal.  All he needed to see was each side and the bow of the boat to make sure he steers right down the middle.  It was pretty wide, for us, but I can’t imagine being a bigger ship trying to get through.

This is looking back at the canal we had already covered.  It’s pretty impressive.

It technically only saved us a day… maybe a day and a half and it wasn’t cheap.  There are dues that have gotten more expensive as the economy has gotten worse based on the LOA – length overall – of the boat.  It ended up charging us €235 to get from one end to the other.  I personally think it was worth every penny to experience it.  

How to: Climb a 50ft Mast

Sometimes things need a little work done, if you haven’t figured that out, on a sail boat.  Sometimes these things are on the top of the mast and when the boat is in the water the only way to reach them, is to climb.

While in Galaxidi Dad decided to make that climb to fix two things:

1.       The wind gauge

2.       The spreader lights

Dad put on a harness with a seat like piece of fabric called a Bosten’s chair. This harness is hooked up to one of the halyards and someone, in this case Chuck, is at the base of the mast with the line to help hoist and as a safety device.

The mast is 50ft from the boat.  This photo just gives some sort of perspective of how high Dad was up.

A greeting from the top.  He took the wind gauge off the mast and had to climb down with it to fiddle a little and grease it up, and then back up to reinstall it.  Sadly he wasn't able to fix the spreader lights.

The mast steps were originally put on the mast for easy access to the top.  Not many masts have them and generally it’s a hoisting situation to get people up to the top.  These give the person more to hold on and a ladder like pole to climb straight up. 

Hi Dad!  He took my point and shoot up to the top and took a shot looking down the mast.  I love this photo.

Galaxidi... just what the doctor ordered.

The town of Galaxidi was another superb recommendation by Andrew, the random friend of a friend that has been our amazing compass.

This was the stopping point for two main objectives. 

1.       1. To see Delphi

2.       2. To get over an illness we were experiencing

We almost completely succeeded.  We made the trip to Delphi which was awesome.  It took a bus trip to Itea, where we were going to originally stop for Delphi, and were very happy we were steered elsewhere.  The marina wasn’t impressive at all, there was a street racing tournament going on right at the entrance that would’ve been a whole lot of fun to try and sleep and navigate through.  We watched the cars start the race and on the way back through on the way home, we saw them coming through the finish line.  A bus from there took us to Delphi and it was a fun walk through modern Delphi to the ruins.

The entire city had homes with fronts like these.  The flowers were beautiful and in bloom, the shutters painted that Greek blue, and everything was absolutely picturesque.  Most of these places has signs that there were rooms for rent either as short term places to stay or as a furnished apartment situation.

Ah the joyful siesta at around 3:30 in the afternoon.  One thing I love about the cafes and tavernas here is that you can sit and order a water or cup of coffee and once you have done that your seat is yours until you decide to move on to the next place.  No rush to get you out or to buy anything else.

The town apparently got a facelift with hopes of attracting tourists.  There were tour buses that stopped and encouraged visitors to eat along the water or to explore the alleyways.  I really enjoyed the non-tourist spots like the park this photo was taken from.

I got into port sick as a dog and was able to sleep off the cold part of it on the first night.  I took a Nyquil and passed out on the first night.  Apparently there was a party going on across the water that kept everyone else on the boat up, but I didn’t hear a damn thing.  My eye infection wasn’t improving, with what turned out to be a saline solution, so Dad got out a goop that he put in my eyes for two nights, but that may be expired because they got worse as each night went on.

By the second day I woke up in tears, unable to open my eyes.  It had turned into confirmed conjunctivitis.  We were planning a walk into town to see the Galaxidi Nautical Museum, but put that on hold for the morning to search for a pharmacy.  It was Monday, so of course there was a line, but with basic sign language and saying antibiotic I got another set of drops that have tobramycin in them.  We dropped a few in my eyes and the redness and pain cleared up almost immediately.  (It’s 10-7-10 and my eyes still itch, but don’t hurt as bad).  Then we ventured to the Nautical Historical Museum of Galaxidi.

On a side note, my morning started off terrible with painful eyes, dropping my soap in the shower, and realizing that our shampoo was full of water. Not a good way to start out the day.  When we got off the boat there was a dog that we had seen walking up and down the boardwalk.  She was a stray that had either been left there by a boater or just adopted the area as her home.  Well she met us at the end of the gang plank and I said good morning and she began to follow us.  The wonderful friendly dog followed us to the pharmacy and waited outside, then followed us to the museum and waited while we walked through that, we stopped at markets on the way home and she waited outside of each one until we got back to the pier and she went off on her own.  She just stood by us and I felt like I had cheated on my pug a little and felt bad when I didn’t have any meat to give to her.  All we had were crackers, and she didn’t care for them much.  It was sweet though and made me smile.

This is who I cheated on Frankie with.  She was a stray that kept me company and lifted my spirits while I explored the town.  The morning we left she was curled up along the edge of the street about two boats down from us and I went to pet her and say goodbye.  It was time to leave, I was getting attached.

So for those of you who have never been to a nautical museum, you are missing out!  For someone like my Dad and Chuck it was really cool because it’s a history of anchors, weapons, pictures of sailboats throughout development, and ships’ logs.  I enjoyed that part of the museum because it related pretty directly with what we are doing now and I have a new respect for sailors and everything they went through.  Apparently Galaxidi was a major shipping port and when Greece gained its independence it was one of the first places the Greek flag flew.

Photography wasn’t permitted in the nautical museum so this was the best I could get for a photo.  I bought a souvenir in the form of a stamped envelope that was custom made for the museum.  One of the few things I have actually purchased to take home with me.

There was a spiral stairway that led downstairs into a basement type place that we thought would contain more anchors and things of that sort.  Well there was an anchor, but to my surprise there was also the most extensive stamp collection I have ever seen.  I am a stamp collector.  Amateur of course, but I have a fairly substantial collection of American stamps and am starting to bridge the gap and am also acquiring international ones.  This was amazing.  There were four walls of waist high display cases that had the prominent stamps displayed on the top and then five pull out drawers underneath full of specialized collections.  It was technically a nautical collection that had stamps pertaining to pirates, ships, various coasts, and things put together from all over the world.  It was one of the highlights of my trip.  I had a total geek out moment and it was great.

One thing I loved about Galaxidi was the Café Liberty located literally across the road from our gangplank.  A family owned café that is owned by Mom and Dad who are probably in their early 70s and who do the cooking and everything.  Then their daughter and her English husband moved in with their two small children and you have a family run place.  They had free internet if you got food or a drink so I was there pretty much every night having my evening cappuccino.  By the last night, I felt like family. 

Something that was quite amusing is our boat was tied up to a boardwalk that had these shops all along.  Tour buses would drop people off to get a taste of the local cuisine and some of these buses would contain a whole slew of American tourists.  The first day we were sitting on deck unwinding, and a whole group of Americans came up to talk to us.  By the time they learned that the boat made a trans-Atlantic trip and that the captain was standing right behind them, they all whipped out their cameras and asked to take our photo.  We smiled and that was that.