Th e
Ionian www. t h e i o n i a n . c o m
FΔΩRΡΕEΑEΝ T A KE ON E
 Our Ads Work  Reach Sailors, Tourists, Expats, and Locals Advertise your business or event in The Ionian magazine.
advertising@theionian.com
The Ionian
Summer is here
Travel, yachting and lifestyle magazine for the Ionian Islands and adjacent mainland Greece. Vol. 5, Issue 3 – July 2014 Publisher and Editor Barbara Molin Advisory Board Yannis Dimopoulos Justin Smith Layout Ryan Smith Advertising advertising@theionian.com
Editorial
The longest day of the year has come and gone and we're in the middle of summer. After spending a season or two in the Ionian, many of us dream of settling down for good in this lovely area of Greece. Maddie Grigg and her husband decided on a one year sabbatical just to see what that would be like and Maddie writes about their experience in A Year in Corfu. In fact they've enjoyed their year so much the've signed up for a repeat! We also have an update with dolphin sighting reports from Joan Gonzalvo of the Ionian Dolphin Project. Our cover photo this month is by Joan Gonzalvo / Tethys Research Institute. Bottlenose dolphin leaping out of the water. Happy reading... ≈≈_/)* Barbara Molin
www.theionian.com
We make every effort to ensure the accuracy of each issue. However, we cannot be held liable for any errors or omissions. The contributors' opinions are their own. Printed in Greece.
Hello there, sailors! The first Amvrakikos Gulf Sailing Race will take place on July 19 ‐ 20. The 50‐mile race starts from the port of VONITSA, runs down to AMFILOCHIA, and then back to VONITSA. This is a great way to see all of the beautiful sites of the Amvrakikos Gulf and our home town of Vonitsa. Sign up before July 15 For more info call us at: 69477 04503 or 69091 58646 Organized by Remezzo Yacht Club and Jetoil Pantazis
!
A Year in Corfu MADDIE GRIGG Well, we’re back from our big fat Greek gap year and it’s been an adventure and a half. So much of an adventure, in fact, we’ve signed up for another year. You may remember reading about me in The Ionian Magazine last year. My husband decided to take early retirement and asked if I, ten years his junior, fancied packing in the day job and flitting off to Corfu for twelve months. Well, I would have been a fool to say no, wouldn’t I? I knew the island and the area well, having been a frequent visitor over the previous decade. And back in 2006, we bought a yacht in a partnership with Odysseus Sailing Holidays, with which we’ve explored the Ionian with great joy. It was on one of these trips that the ‘year away’ idea flitted into our heads and carried on fluttering like a moth just out of reach until we did something about it. So we let our cottage in the UK and headed for Corfu, where we had found a lovely house to rent in a village just inland from Paleokastritsa. The property needed work done to it, inside and out, and we struck a deal with the agent which
meant a reduced rent in exchange for decorating the interior and taming the jungle of the garden. We quickly settled into village life, which was not so different from our own village back in Dorset, with a primary school just down the road, a central plateia with a church, community hall, kafenion, three tavernas, a telephone kiosk and a commemorative water feature. From the outset, the two of us were determined to immerse ourselves in all Greek life had to offer. And, when the tourists went home in the autumn, so our year began. Our garden became a hive of activity after years of neglect. Great, overgrown oleander, as tall as a three-storey house, came tumbling down, sad-looking palm trees sprang back into shape after rotting lower fronds were sawn off and burnt. ‘You are doing a good job there,’ our friend, Kiki, at the kafenion, told us. ‘The house and garden is coming alive again.’ The kafenion became our ‘local’ and, throughout the winter evenings, we would sit in the corner, watching the noisy card games and soaking in the atmosphere of this male domain. At first I felt like Medea the barbarian, confined to the
margins, but was assured by Kiki it was perfectly all right for me to be there. I would sit and make notes about my surroundings, about what was going on. But they might as well have been talking in Martian, my Greek was so limited. On Sundays we would creep into church via the back door, to marvel at the magic of the Greek Orthodox service and the congregation, who were both devout and casual at the same time. There would be children running up and down the aisle and people wandering in and out after lighting a candle, saying a few prayers and then going out for a fag and coffee. The relationship the villagers had with their church, their priest and their religion was, for an agnostic like me, absolutely fascinating. On weekdays, we would work in the house and garden, with several hours set aside for me to write, and then at weekends we would explore the island and wander up into the village for a meal at one of the three tavernas. We had decided early on that we needed to support all three although we quickly established a favourite for leisurely Sunday lunches of delicious pork and potatoes from the oven. By the early spring, we had been accepted. Our Greek was no better but we were part of the village. ‘You are different from many other English people,’ one of the men from the kafenion told us. ‘You like to mix with the
Greeks, not the other English.’ And it was true. We did. It was not that we were stand-offish to other ex-pats, we’d always be polite but one of the reasons for spending a year in Greece was to experience the country like a native. We were extremely fortunate in having a kind and gregarious neighbour, inevitably called Spiros after the island’s patron saint, whose family adopted us and invited us to share family events including Easter and a wedding. Had we not moved in next door to this big bear of a man, it would have been far more difficult for us to fit into our new home. The one thing I was not prepared for was the homesickness I felt for family, friends and the Dorset landscape. At one point, it was in danger of eating me up and spoiling my year away. But with twenty-eight visitors from home during the summer, it was as if the Westcountry was knocking on my door and staying under my roof. And I made a pact with myself to live in the moment and not hanker after things in the past or future. Corfu is a wonderful island, green and lush, with a capital that enchants everyone who visits it. Every time we went into town we would hear pianos tinkling behind shutters, voices in choral harmony bellowing out from a balcony or a march past by a philharmonic band in full uniform and shining helmets. And in the summer, there was a plethora of panegyri – the festivals marking the days of patron saints – where we would dance to joyous Greek music well into the small hours. Holding hands and sidestepping our way around the twin trees in the village plateia, my husband and I would look at each other and think what a marvellous decision it was to take a year out and experience something so completely different. And when the time came to go home, we decided to rent the house for another year. Corfu and the village in which we lived was under our skin. Today, the language barrier is still a problem but we are improving, albeit slowly. And we both feel blessed at having found such a lovely village to call home. Maddie Grigg writes a blog The World from My Window, recounting tales from Corfu and Dorset.
You Can Help the Dolphins of the Ionian Sea JOAN GONZALVO The coastal waters of Greece still harbour a remarkable diversity of whales and dolphins compared to other parts of the Mediterranean. Yet, such richness is decreasing due to degradation of the marine environment. Research and conservation activities conducted by the Ionian Dolphin Project (IDP) of Tethys Research Institute, an Italian NGO conducting internationally qualified scientific research aimed at the conservation of whales and dolphins since 1986, are identifying measures to slow-down, halt or reverse such trends. Since April 2012 the IDP has a brand new web site to increase the interest about the conservation of cetaceans of the Ionian Sea, by encouraging residents, charter/flotillas sailing holiday operators and visitors to the area to report their sightings of cetaceans, through a userfriendly online form. Nowadays the use of digital cameras, cell phones and other devices capable of recording easily several minutes of video, or to capture high quality digital images is widespread among boaters. Using our online sighting form, videos and images can be sent to us to facilitate additional information and to allow us to confirm the identification of the species reported. It also includes essential information about the cetacean species found in the Greek seas and identification tips. A cetacean species guide can be downloaded from our
www.ioniandolphinproject.org web site. Between 2012-13 the IDP received 150+ sighting reports. The success in this pioneer initiative in Greek Ionian waters could not have been possible without the collaboration of Sunsail, Neilson, Sail Ionian, Sailing Holidays, Island Sailing, Seafarer, Kiriakoulis and Odysseus who printed, laminated and distributed the IDP Cetacean Species Guide among their clients to encourage them to collaborate. KG medmarinas management group, owners of Marina Lefkas and Gouvia Marina, two of the largest in Greece, are helping
greatly to spread the word among their clients. Sighting reports received in year 2013 (see map) referred primarily to common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus and shortbeaked common dolphin Delphinus delphis. A few sightings were reported also on striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) and Monk seal (Monachus monachus), and a single sighting was also reported for Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Everyone who reports a sighting to us is diligently contacted via email and acknowledged for their collaboration. The first whale and dolphin sighting reports of 2014 have started to arrive already and we hope to receive many more in the upcoming months. Do not forget that YOU can also do your share to help us protect whales and dolphins of the Ionian Sea. When approaching a group of dolphins with your boat BE DOLPHIN SMART to avoid causing them stress by disrupting their natural behaviours. Joan Gonzalvo is the IDP Project Manager.