Cos and Nisiros

We enjoyed another fine day's sailing from Astipalea to the large island of Cos, which is in the eastern Dodecanese, pinched between two fingers of the Turkish coast. Unable to make a booking in the popular marina near Cos town, we anchored in the Bay of Kamares, a long stretch of white sand and pebble beach on the southern end of Cos protected by a towering volcanic headland. It turned out to be a great anchorage, with excellent holding, crystal clear water for swimming straight off the boat and a pleasant beachfront with, as usual, a choice of excellent tavernas. Santa Barbara was our favourite, with its friendly staff and excellent, cheap family-style food.

 

It was fortunate that we arrived on this stretch of paradise just a little after the peak holiday season, when, apparently, the beach is packed with umbrellas and sun lounges (you guessed it, three euros) and the water is packed with wave skis, jet-skis and fast boats pulling screaming kids on blow-up thingies. As it was, there was an average of five or six yachts at anchor and enough tourists to keep the bars and taverns sociable without being noisy or overcrowded.

 

On our first day, we made an 'accidental' trip to Cos town on the bus, looking to renew our internet. The local bus took a scenic route the length of the island, giving us a chance to see its fertile farmlands and rugged coastline, as well as the mountains to the east. The town itself was a delight, with a real mix of all its heritage apparent in the architecture - modern villas, the familiar winding streets and white houses of the old town, Venetian-era walls and harbour buildings, a mosque from Ottoman times (now a café/ gift store) and, overlooking all, the formidable castle of the Knights of St John who occupied Cos as well as Rhodes before their forced exodus to Malta. This is an impressive old ruin, with battlements, dungeons and a moat – just the sort of real castle you would build if given a huge bucket of Lego. Architecture is constantly recycled in Cos, and it is common to see fragments of classical marbles incorporated into walls, ancient columns gracing new villas and sarcophagi doing duty as fountains. Like the rest of the Mediterranean, everyone takes 2500+ years of history totally for granted.

 

The most famous legacy of Cos is not the green crunchy lettuce, splendid though this is. Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’ lived, worked and taught here.  The remains of his medical complex can still be seen, along with an ancient plane tree, claimed to be the actual tree under which he instructed his students (actually dated a bit younger than this, but why spoil a good local legend?) Hippocrates left us the famous Oath, of course, though the only bit most of us know is “at least do no harm” or words to that effect. Interestingly, it also forbids euthanasia, abortion and taking sexual or financial advantage of patients, and insists upon patient confidentiality. There is a marble statue of Hippocrates in the museum, but like so many archaeological enterprises in Greece, it is closed due to lack of funds.

While life was very pleasant within the bay, outside another strong northerly raged, keeping us imprisoned in paradise for a week. It was warm and free of swell, so there was no problem swimming, snorkeling or taking the dinghy in to enjoy a meal or a walk. We hiked up a substantial hill to the little town of Kefalos, which has awesome 360 degree views of Cos and its neighbouring islands – just don’t believe what the cruising guide says about it being an easy 15 minute walk! After watching the windsurfers zipping by in perfect conditions all week, I resolved to give it a try and took a two hour lesson, which turned out to be a lot of fun. It only took a few dunkings to learn what not to do, and I was soon scooting along at what felt to me like a cracking pace but probably looked fairly sedate from the beach.

 

We had the good fortune to meet our Swiss neighbours at anchor, Doris and Hans, with their children Jessica and Geoffrey aboard Tamango II. When the wind eased, we headed over with them to the nearby island of Nisiros where we once again got to practice the art of Med mooring in the small harbour in Palon.  Cos, Yiali, Nisiros and all the surrounding small islands are part of a volcano complex with its central caldera in the centre of Nisiros. The entire island complex is volcanic, formed of layers of basalt (from the lava) and pumice (from the ash) along with many other mineral deposits such as sulphur, manganese and black obsidian glass. The island of Yiali is pretty much a gigantic lump of white pumice, which has been heavily mined, surrounded by vivid blue water.

 

We hired a couple of scooters for a trip to the caldera, which was pretty spectacular with its four kilometre wide crater, varied mineral layers evident in the steep slopes and the steaming sulphurous fumaroles in its floor. Its last major eruption was 20,000 years ago, giving the island its current shape, but it is still active. You can walk on the crater floor but you are responsible for your own safety – the sand and rock are extremely hot and the steam is scalding.  Lonely Planet says not to walk out too far as the ground can collapse but we read this after we’d been out there, along with another 50 tourists. The volcanic soil is very fertile, and almost every square metre of the mountainous island is cultivated, by means of hundreds of kilometres of stone terraces. It’s obvious that Nisiros used to sustain a much larger population than it does now (there must have been an army of stone terrace builders, for a start). As with most of the islands, waves of migration (mainly to North America, the UK and Australia) have followed natural, political and economic disasters. In the smaller villages outside the tourist areas, only elderly people seem to remain, the bent old women in black, the old men stroking their worry beads as they sit all day in the kafeneon.

 

We rode the scooter up to the small village of Nikia to see the crater from the rim, and, next day hiked over to the remains of a handsome thermal spa, another defunct project from an earlier financial crisis. It looks as though there has been a recent effort to refurbish the spa, but that too seems to have fallen victim. Greece has just as many modern ruins as ancient ones.

 

Today the strong winds have settled, but many of the yachts sheltering here in Palon Harbour are waiting for a rain squall, expected this evening, to pass. It will be the first rain we have experienced since Tunisia back in February – the red dirt of Malta might finally wash off all the instruments at the top of the mast! Only a couple of weeks left before our visa conditions require us to leave Greece, so hopefully we can squeeze in a few days in Symi, Rhodes and Kastellorizo before crossing to Turkey.